Il processo di codificazione del diritto canonico tra istanze conservative e spinte progressiste

Those bishops who at the Vatican Council in 1870 asked the Pope, Pius IX, for the codification of the canon law gave expression to a widely felt need. The last official attempts at the codification of the canon law had been made in the Middle Age. At the end of XIX century, it was extremely difficult in many cases for anyone to get at the law texts themselves. In practice much use was made of works of canon lawyers in which an orderly and full statement of the law in force, duly supported by texts and references, could generally be found. This being the state of things, it is not to be wondered at that the bishops present at the Vatican Council, besides asking for various modifications of the canon law, also expressed a desire for its codification, so that the difficulty arising from the existence of "innumerable laws," among which were contained many that were unknown or repealed, others obsolete, or impossible or very difficult to observe, might be done away with, and the new laws needed to meet changed circumstances be made. The work was set on foot by Pius X when he issued the Motu Proprio " Arduum sane " of March 17, 1904. The object of the proposed Code of canon law was said to be to draw up a clear statement of the general laws of the Church, to set aside what was obsolete or abrogated and to find a place for new laws adapted to the times. The result, in 1917, is the codification of the canon law in the simple and clear form that is found in the Codex Juris Canonici, promulgated by Benedict XV.