Pope urges students of canon law to seek the supernatural good of persons
Pope Leo XIV told the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Faculty of Canon Law that canon law serves ecclesial communion and must be studied in light of the Church’s mystery. Marking the Faculty’s 150th anniversary, he emphasized forming students to understand what is just through study, tradition, and theological principles—not merely to know legal rules. He said Church law should pursue true justice, joined with truth and mercy, and promote the supernatural good of the faithful and the unity of the Church. The Pope urged the Faculty to serve the Petrine ministry and help students experience the Church as a universal communion.
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Pope Leo XIV urged canon-law scholars and students to study Church law in light of the Church’s spiritual nature, and to pursue justice that serves both individual believers and the wider ecclesial community. Speaking at a congress marking 150 years of the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Faculty of Canon Law, he emphasized that legal study should form people with an ecclesial sense of what is just—not merely teach them the rules. 1
Leo said canon law is necessary to safeguard ecclesial communion and to help create order in the Church. Although the Church’s reality cannot be perfectly expressed in legal language, he said, canon law should reflect it. 1
He stressed that law must give primacy to love, grace, and charisms while enabling their development. The well-being of individuals and that of the Church community, he said, cannot be treated as independent of one another. 1
The Pope said canon-law education should go beyond transmitting norms. Students should develop an understanding of what is just through rigorous study of legal sources, canonical tradition, and the theological principles that illuminate the law. 1
He urged faculty and students to seek the “supernatural good” of each member of the faithful and the building up of ecclesial communion. That requires pursuing true justice, which, he said, is never separated from truth and mercy; he also invoked St. Augustine’s phrase, “Ordered love is justice.” 1
The congress marked the Faculty of Canon Law’s 150th anniversary. Leo recalled its founding in 1876 by decision of Blessed Pius IX and praised generations of scholars for sustaining a body of academic and ecclesial knowledge. 1
He also highlighted the Faculty’s Jesuit roots and its connection to Ignatian spirituality, expressed in the principle Non multa, sed multum—“Not many things, but much depth.” The aim, he said, is to understand and interiorize what is studied rather than simply accumulate knowledge. 1
Leo called the Faculty to serve the Petrine ministry through fidelity to Church teaching and service to the Apostolic See. He encouraged it to give students a lived experience of the universal Church, whose visible principle of unity is the Bishop of Rome, and urged students to carry that experience back to the dioceses and communities they will serve. 1
Canon law balances justice, mercy, and ecclesial communion
Canon law balances justice, mercy, and ecclesial communion by giving the Church’s life a reliable order that protects people and serves their salvation. Justice requires truth, rights, and fair treatment; mercy seeks conversion and healing; communion is the common good those aims serve. In Catholic teaching, these are not competing goals: mercy does not cancel justice, and law is not meant to be applied without pastoral care.
Canon law is not simply a set of administrative rules or a tool for enforcing authority. John Paul II explained that ecclesiastical law protects and promotes the conditions for communion with God and among the members of the Church. For that reason, the law ordinarily binds in conscience: obeying it can be part of growing in faith, charity, and holiness. Yet the Church is not merely a civil society, so its legal structures must be understood in light of its spiritual and pastoral purpose.
That purpose does not make legal order optional. John Paul II emphasized that the Church’s juridical and pastoral dimensions belong together: pastoral care must respect justice and people’s rights, while law itself has a pastoral character because it serves the Church’s mission. Describing law as “unpastoral” simply because it is law therefore misses the point. The question is whether it is applied truthfully, justly, and with appropriate pastoral judgment.
Justice is more than reaching an outcome that feels compassionate or that satisfies the strongest party. Benedict XVI describes it as the firm will to give God and neighbor what is due. In canonical proceedings, the process and judgment must serve justice, not merely accommodate the parties’ wishes or social expectations. A just result matters both to the individuals involved and to the wider Church.
This also means that mercy cannot be used to disregard the rights of someone who has been harmed. John Paul II presents canonical equity as an expression of charity that recognizes the rights of those who have been injured, calumniated, or unjustly humiliated. Mercy that ignores truth or leaves injury unaddressed would not be a fuller form of justice; it would risk failing the people whom the law is meant to protect.
The point is not to make every matter a lawsuit or to impose a penalty whenever a rule has been violated. Paul VI taught that canonical legislation should not impose duties where instruction, encouragement, or other pastoral means would adequately serve the Church’s purpose. He also stressed the importance of recognizing and protecting the rights of the faithful and guarding against arbitrary administration.
John Paul II drew on St. Thomas Aquinas to express the relationship memorably:
“Mercy does not weaken justice, but is the perfection of justice.”
The point is not that a merciful decision can simply set justice aside. Rather, genuine mercy seeks a good that justice alone, narrowly understood, might not achieve: repentance, reconciliation where possible, and the restoration of a person or community. In 1998, John Paul II described canonical equity as a way of tempering the rigor of a general rule in a particular case so as to foster a higher good. He added that tools such as dispensations, excusing causes, and ecclesiastical censures complement the law’s purpose rather than diminish it.
That flexibility is not permission for arbitrary exceptions. It must remain tied to truth, the good of the people affected, and the purpose of the law. Likewise, ecclesiastical penalties are described as medicinal rather than vindictive: they aim at conversion, not revenge.
Ecclesial communion is not merely the absence of conflict or a feeling of belonging. It involves a shared life ordered toward God and the good of the Church’s members. Canon law can support that life by establishing obligations, protecting rights, and providing ways to address disputes and wrongdoing. In criminal proceedings, the Holy See has described justice as requiring attention to competing positions and the repair of harm, while mercy calls toward conversion and forgiveness. It also warns, in effect, against separating the two: mercy without justice can dissolve social order, while equity helps apply a general norm with due attention to the concrete case.
This balance rules out two opposite mistakes. One is rigor without pastoral concern: treating a person as merely an offender or applying a rule without considering relevant circumstances. The other is mercy without justice: overlooking harm, evading truth, or abandoning the rights of others in the name of compassion. John Paul II’s account of equity is meant to avoid both: it tempers the law’s application where appropriate while preserving the demands of justice.
The balance is especially important for those who govern, judge, or administer canonical discipline. Their authority is a service, not a license to act on personal preference. A just process requires careful attention to the evidence and arguments, and its outcome should repair justice and help restore social harmony where possible.
So the principle is not “mercy instead of law,” nor “law instead of mercy.” It is that law should be applied in a way that is just, equitable, and ordered to communion. Justice protects what is due; mercy seeks healing and conversion; communion is strengthened when both are pursued truthfully rather than sacrificed to expediency or arbitrariness.