If law and ritual do not lead people
to a deeper union
with God they fail in their purpose.

The salvation of souls
in general pastoral practice

By Clarence J. Hettinger

These reflections are drawn principally from the documents of Vatican II,1 the Catechism of the Catholic Church,2 and the Code of Canon Law and a few papal statements. A few non-magisterial sources were also used. Catechism texts will be quoted according to the Latin edition. Readers may notice some differences from the official English version. Occasionally the English version is theologically unnuanced, e.g., nn. 1615 and 1642, where praebet is presented as “gives.” God offers actual graces to the married couple; the couple may or may not accept the offer. For scholars who are not well versed in Latin there is a need for a radically revised translation of the Catechism; the corrections mandated by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith on September 8, 1997, do not address the problem.

The phrase salvation of souls evokes some related concepts—the good of souls3 and harm to souls4 which will result from the proper or improper care of souls. The phrase care of souls appears ten times in the Code. Three deserve special mention here. Canon 150 speaks of the full care of souls, implying that there is a less than full care of souls; the full care of souls is limited to offices that require priestly ordination. Canon 1003 §2 speaks of those who exercise the care of souls in favor of the faithful committed to them by reason of their pastoral office. Canon 771 §2, however, extends the pastoral office to include the care of the souls of non-believers in reference to getting the Gospel message to them.

Throughout the text there are some personal reflections for practical meditation. Readers from their own pastoral background will undoubtedly make other connections from their experiences in pastoral ministry. The essay concludes with a summary of reflections drawn from the papal allocutions to the Roman Rota,5 which may encourage the proper fulfillment of the general pastoral commitment to the salvation of souls.

Salvation and souls

A sentence from Pope John Paul II’s introduction to the apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus of June 25, 1988 is an excellent starting point. He wrote:

All of this means that the ministry of salvation offers more effectively to this one and same people of God a ministry, we repeat, which before anything else demands the mutual help of the pastors of particular Churches and the pastor of the whole Church so that all may bring their efforts together and strive to fulfill that supreme law which is the salvation of souls.6

Something similar might be said down the hierarchical ladder about mutual help among bishops in their episcopal conferences, between clergy and their bishop and between the laity and their clergy.

A few preliminary remarks about the concept of salvation and soul might be helpful. “In its properly Christian acceptation, salvation designates the effect, individual or collective, of redemption, . . . and more particularly its ultimate effect in the Resurrection” (Louis Boyer, Dictionary of Theology, 401). The fact that the effect of salvation is twofold, individual or collective means that sometimes the common good takes precedence over the individual good of souls, e.g., what the pope has called “the scandal of seeing the value of Christian marriage practically destroyed by the exaggerated and almost automatic multiplication of declarations of nullity in the case of the failure of marriage on the pretext of some immaturity or psychic weakness on the part of the contracting parties” (John Paul II, in Woestman, 195).

A dictionary definition of salvation—“the agent or means or the course of spiritual experiences determining the soul’s redemption”—summarizes the concept broadly enough to include some fuzzy ideas about the nature of salvation. Hence, one may fear that some Catholics may have absorbed false doctrine about salvation from conversations with people of other religious persuasions and from various media, including the Internet. E.g., “Some Evangelical Protestant and Pentecostal Christians believe that an individual Christian can have a certain unmistakable knowledge, an assurance from God, that one is saved.”7 Even worse, “Many Catholics do not know what it means to be Catholic any more.”8 We need to be sure that they understand well that “Roman Catholic Christians believe that a Christian can have a firm hope and confidence of salvation, but that no one can know of one’s final salvation with absolute certainly”9 until the particular judgment. The Church teaches that “Human virtues, acquired by education, by deliberate acts and by perseverance ever-renewed in repeated efforts are purified and elevated by divine grace” (Catechism, 2016 [emphasis supplied]; cf. 2849, 2863).

The Catechism gives a quasi-definition of the history of salvation as being “identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin” (234). Salvation, the “plan of his loving kindness, . . . conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world” (257), begins to unfold with creation, the beginning of the history of salvation (cf. 280), which includes the promise of a redeemer after the Fall in Gen. 3:15. It was inaugurated in history at Abraham’s election (cf. 1080) and culminates in the glory of the new creation in Christ (cf. 280). Christ is the recapitulation of the whole history of salvation (cf. 430, 431) and “his bodily death foreshadows the destruction of the Temple, which will manifest the entrance into new age in the history of salvation” (586; cf. 593). After the fall, the work of creation “evolves throughout the Church year in the missions of the Son and the Spirit, which the Church continues (cf. 257).

Angels “have been present since creation and throughout the history of salvation, announcing this salvation from afar or near and serving the accomplishment of the divine plan” (cf. 332). We communally relive the history of salvation throughout the year in liturgical celebrations in union with the whole Church (cf. 1189) and participate individually in the history of salvation through our prayer-life as “God tirelessly calls each person to this mysterious encounter with Himself. Prayer accompanies the whole history of salvation as a mutual call between God and man” (cf. ibid., nn. 2591, 2567).

In his Ad limina address to a group of United States bishops on March 31, 1998, John Paul II emphasized

again the importance in priestly life of faithfully praying the Liturgy of the Hours, the public prayer of the Church, every day. . . .

Indeed, prayer for the needs of the Church and the individual faithful is so important that serious thought should be given to reorganizing priestly and parish life to ensure that priests have time to devote to this essential task, individually and in common. Liturgical and personal prayer, not the tasks of management, must define the rhythms of a priest’s life, even in the busiest of parishes.

The annual priests’ retreat is a very special moment in their prayer-life. Pope Pius XI wrote in the encyclical on the Catholic Priesthood, “Each and all of you, then, from the recollection and prayer of a retreat will come out fortified against the snares of the world, quickened by lively zeal for the salvation of souls and enkindled with the love of God, as befits priests in times like the present” (88).

Married couples can meditate on the fact that

The Christian family is the first place of education in prayer. Based on the sacrament of marriage, the family is the “domestic church” where God’s children learn to pray “as the Church” and to persevere in prayer. For young children in particular, daily family prayer is the first witness of the Church’s living memory, which the Holy Spirit patiently stirs up. . . . Daily prayer and the reading of the Word of God strengthen [the Christian family] in charity. The Christian family has an evangelizing and missionary task [Catechism, 2685, 2205].

The basic Catechism text on salvation states that “Christ himself is the mystery of salvation” and that “The salvific work of his holy and sanctifying humanity is the sacrament of salvation, which is revealed and is active in the Church’s sacraments” (774). Thus also, “The Church, . . . both the means and the goal of God’s plan, . . . has been manifested as the mystery of salvation by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit” (778). It is, however, “Principally in the Eucharist and analogically in the other sacraments” that, thanks to the cooperation of the Holy Spirit and the Church, “the liturgy is the Memorial of the mystery of salvation. The Holy Spirit is the living memory of the Church” (1099; cf. 1107, 1111, 2655, 2771 and 2855). After describing at length the heavenly liturgy, the Catechism presents the eschatological dimension of the liturgy: “It is in this eternal liturgy that the Spirit and the Church enable us to participate whenever we celebrate the mystery of salvation in the sacraments” (1138, 1139).

With respect to soul the Catechism teaches, “In Sacred Scripture the term soul often denotes human life or the whole human person. But it also denotes that which is innermost in man and of greatest value in him, by which he is most especially in God’s image: soul signifies the spiritual principle in man” (363). Because the soul is “spiritual and immortal, . . . the human person is destined for eternal happiness” (1703). Salvation, however, requires on man’s part the proper exercise of “mastery over his acts and the ability to govern himself according to the true and the good” and to put into practice “the original moral sense which permits man to discern by reason what is good and evil” (1954).

Unfortunately, the Man and the Woman injured humanity’s moral sense by accepting the serpent’s assurance of freedom under a new morality (cf. Gen. 3:1-5). And so, created for each other as perfect equals and designed by the Creator so that they might form a communion of persons (371-372), they destroyed the harmony in which they were established and broke their souls’ spiritual control over the body. Consequently, “the union of man and woman is subject to tensions, their relations are marked by lust and domination . . . [and] death enters into human history” (400). Fortunately, however, “the disorder we perceive in a sad manner does not stem from the nature of man and woman nor from the nature of their relations, but from sin”; and “the first consequence” of their “breaking off from God was marital discord” (1607). Nevertheless, married people have the capacity for happy marriage. It was designed into human nature at the moment of its creation and it remains in force so that, with the help of God, spouses can “achieve the union of their lives for which God created them ‘in the beginning’” (1608).

Observing the sacramental life of Catholics, we might wonder how well they appreciate the potential residing in their souls and of the need to care for their own salvation. E.g., those Catholics who are responsible for long lines of penitents not being formed outside of confessionals on Saturdays. Or what is the urgent business justifying many of them to miss Sunday Mass or to leave before receiving the blessing and being dismissed? After all, the purpose of the rite of dismissal is to give a fitting conclusion to the Mass, “in which the mystery of salvation is accomplished,” and to empower them, as they work out their salvation, to “fulfill God’s will in their daily lives” (1332) between Sundays. People may have been confused by the modern emphasis on the two tables of the liturgy, Word and Sacrament, but the Offertory, Consecration and Communion remain the principal parts of the Mass.

The decline in Eucharistic devotion started around the time of Paul VI’s 1965 encyclical on the Mystery of Faith. There (11) he condemned the proposal that transfinalization and transignification rather than transubstantiation is the opus operatum by the words of consecration. Early evidence of decline had been the elimination of silence in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Its final result is that, “as virtually every recent poll shows, many Catholics today have lost the sense of the Mass as a sacrifice and a sense of reverence, awe and adoration during the Eucharistic celebration” (Adoremus Bulletin July/August 1999, p. 2).

The decline in the use of the sacrament of Penance evokes several thoughts, e.g., the widespread transgression of the Pauline injunction against the sacrilegious reception of Holy Communion (cf. 1 Cor. 11:26-28), the failure also of priests to teach the relevant canonical principles and to correct the “new theology” about what constitutes a mortal sin, objectively and subjectively (cf. CIC, c. 915).

The salvation of souls has always been a very difficult task but the loss of the sense of sin has added to the difficulty. It is a relatively new problem, having been well established already before the middle of the present century. As John Paul II wrote in Reconciliation and Penance, “When the conscience is weakened the sense of God is also obscured, and, as a result, with the loss of this decisive inner point of reference, the sense of sin is lost. This explains why my predecessor Pius XII one day declared, in words that have almost become proverbial: ‘The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin’” (John Paul II, Reconciliation and Penance, 18).

With reference to the loss of the sense of sin in the U.S., Pius XII’s statement about it was pronounced to a gathering of American catechetical experts in 1946, long before the “new morality” had begun with situation ethics, which Pius XII had condemned in 1952 (cf. Von Hildebrand, “Situation Ethics,” New Catholic Encyclopedia 13: 268). It is the heresy that

moral decisions should no longer be based on universal law (such as the Ten Commandments) but rather on the concrete, individual situation in which a person finds himself. Such a situation being unique and unrepeatable, the individual’s conscience alone must determine his right moral decision, apart from any universal principle or law. The person making a decision is said to encounter God immediately in his own conscience and to actualize his filial relationship with God, his Father. Sincerity and conscientiousness are held to be all that God requires [Von Hildebrand, loc. cit.].

After situation ethics came the heresy about the fundamental option. Now the fundamental option necessary for salvation is to enter into and remain in a friendly relationship with God by avoiding mortal sin. The heresy holds that “an explicit and formal contempt for God or neighbor” is required for committing a mortal sin (cf. Reconciliation and Penance, 17) and that “it would be possible to give in to temptation to commit some mortal sin yet not really do so because one’s ‘fundamental option’ remains sound” (Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus 2:220). It was condemned by Rome in 1956 (cf. Holy Office, “Situation Ethics,” February 2,1956); Veritatis Splendor, note 105) and helps explain the decline, e.g., in Sunday and Holyday Mass attendance and in sexual morality. Much of the Church’s difficulty with saving souls would disappear if people would heed the warning of the Catechism: “We must also take a stand against ‘this world’s’ ways of thinking; they can penetrate our lives if we are not vigilant” (2727).

The salvation of souls

The Council in its dogmatic constitution on divine revelation furnishes the theological foundational text, which comes close to putting the magisterium on the same level as the Word of God: “It is evident, then, that sacred Tradition, sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated in the supremely wise plan of God that one of them cannot stand without the others and that all of them together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, contribute efficaciously to the salvation of souls” (Dei verbum 10). God has indeed “given such authority to men” (Matt. 9:8), even to the extent that dissent from or deafness to the magisterium is the same as apostasy from Christ: “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me” (Luke 10:16). The Catechism simply quoted the Council’s text in its first mention of the salvation of souls (95) under the headline, “Increase in the understanding of the faith.”

The pastoral constitution on the Church in the world outlines the Church’s contribution to the salvation of souls:

Always and everywhere it is the Church’s right to preach the faith with true freedom, to teach her social doctrine, to exercise her office among men without impediment and also to pass moral judgments even in matters regarding the political order whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it, employing all and only means which are congruent with the Gospel and the welfare of all men according to the diversity of times and circumstances [Gaudium et spes, 76].

The Code of Canon Law, in its first mention of the salvation of souls, furnishes the canonical foundational text in canon 747 §2: “To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the social order, and to pass judgment on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls.” The Catechism quotes the Code’s text after the following introductory sentence: “The Church, the ‘pillar and mainstay of the truth’ (1 Tim. 3:15) ‘has received from the apostles this solemn command of Christ to announce the saving truth’” (2032).

The close association of the defense of fundamental human rights with the salvation of souls, noticed in the documents, suggests its importance. Some rights of special interest to tribunal ministers are stated in canons 221 and 1058; other pastoral ministers will want to consult especially canons 223, 227, 229, and 231 §2 and also 1058.10 Clergy, their liturgical assistants and planning committees might reflect here most especially on the right of all the faithful to rubrically correct liturgical celebrations established in canon 214 and of the damage inflicted, according to canon 837 §1, on “the Church itself, which is the ‘sacrament of unity,’” by celebrants who ignore canons 841 and 846 §1 about the obligation to observe liturgical law inviolately. According to John Paul II in his Ad limina address on October 9, 1998 to a group of U.S. bishops,

[The liturgy] is subjective in that it depends radically upon what the worshipers bring to it; but it is objective in that it transcends them as the priestly act of Christ himself, to which he associates us but which ultimately does not depend upon us (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7). This is why it is so important that liturgical law be respected. The priest, who is the servant of the liturgy, not its inventor or producer, has a particular responsibility in this regard, lest he empty liturgy of its true meaning or obscure its sacred character [October 14, 1998, 3]. . . .

[Conscious participation] does not mean a constant attempt within the liturgy itself to make the implicit explicit, since this often leads to a verbosity and informality, which are alien to the Roman Rite and end by trivializing the act of worship [ibid., 4].

The pastoral office in the Church puts responsibility for the salvation of souls principally on bishops. “In fulfilling the apostolic office, which strives for the salvation of souls, bishop enjoy per se full and perfect freedom and independence from any civil power” (Christus Dominus, 19). “Per se” often indicates the ability to share responsibility. Here it might also mean that the Church is aware that the exercise of her rights will be impeded in various ways. The Council was concerned about freedom in the exercise of the ecclesiastical office, about freedom of communication between ecclesiastical authorities and with the faithful and about cooperation between Church and State for social and civil improvement and prosperity, adding a note about promoting obedience to just civil laws and respect for lawfully constituted civil authorities (cf. loc. cit.).        

Priests’ responsibility for the salvation of souls is not delegated to them; they have it as a commitment undertaken at ordination. In the decree on the training of priests, the Council Fathers in solemn words “vehemently exhort those who are preparing themselves for priestly ministry to feel deeply that the hope of the Church and the salvation of souls is committed to them” (Optatam totius, 22). Pius XI’s guidelines for discerning priestly vocations in his encyclical on The Catholic Priesthood tells future priests that they “must look to the priesthood solely from the noble motive of consecrating themselves to the service of God and the salvation of souls” (70). He said also that the proper attitude toward celibacy will strengthen the seminarian’s commitment to the salvation of souls for he will be charged as a priest “to be solicitous for the eternal salvation of souls, continuing in their regard the work of the Redeemer. Is it not fitting, then, that he keep himself free from the cares of a family, which would absorb a great part of his energies?” (ibid., 45). Indeed, “the zeal of the priest for the glory of God and the salvation of souls ought to consume him. It should make him forget himself and all earthly things. It should powerfully urge him to dedicate himself utterly to his sublime work and to search out means ever more effective for an apostolate ever wider and ever better” (ibid., 51).

The Code’s text corresponding to the quotation above from the decree on the pastoral office in the Church is canon 747 §1:

The Church, to whom Christ the Lord entrusted the deposit of the faith in order that she, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, might guard inviolately, more deeply examine, faithfully announce and explain revealed truth, has the office and native right, also utilizing the means of communication proper to her, to preach the gospel to all nations, independent of any human power.

The Council’s concern about cooperation between Church and State for social improvement is outstandingly exemplified by civil law on divorce. To be effective, teaching the doctrine of indissolubility requires direct action by way of official oversight of Catholics who institute a separation and of those who confirm it by divorce. Repeatedly we should instruct our people that a separated or divorced person who enters a dating relationship with a member of the opposite sex puts both in the proximate occasion of grave sin against marital fidelity that can easily, almost naturally, lead to an irregular remarriage. Several points may be offered in support of the fact that no spouse may on private authority make the decision to divorce because the Church is charged with duty to explain and enforce the natural law (cf. Dignitatis humanae, 14).

•    Spouses have the duty to preserve conjugal life, which urges as long as there is no lawfully recognized reason for interrupting or ending it (cf. c. 1151).

•    The Church reserves to herself the judgment about the lawfulness of the reason for permanent separation (cf. 1151; 1152 §3; 1153 §§1-2).

•    Reconciliation is preferable to permanent separation in a great majority even of very difficult marriages (cf. Catechism, 1649) for the practical reason that at that time, i.e., prior to a declaration of nullity, sharing the vocation to marriage with a new partner is impossible (cf. cc. 1060 and 1085 §2).

•    Support for these “hard sayings,” with respect even to very difficult marriages, may be found in the prospectus of Marriage SaversTM. Based on their record, they can confidently offer to “save 80%-90% of the most troubled marriages.”11

•    Divorce may be tolerated only “If civil divorce remains the only way to ensure certain rights, custody of the children or the protection of an inheritance” (Catechism, 2383).

Turning to the decree on the priestly ministry and life, we learn that priests’ contribution to clerical retirement plans will fortify them in the fulfillment of their responsibility for the salvation of souls and enhance the fulfillment of their commitment to it. This will happen because of their sense of priestly fraternity and the fostering of evangelical poverty. “Priests are to contribute to the erected institutes, moved by a spirit of solidarity with their brothers, sharing their tribulations, at the same time considering that in this way, without anxiety for their future lot, they cultivate poverty with a more lively evangelical sense and are able to commit themselves thoroughly to the salvation of souls” (Presbyterorum ordinis, 21). The Code reflects this passage in canon 281 §2: “Likewise provision is to be made so that they enjoy that social assistance whereby suitable provision is made for their necessities if they should suffer from sickness, incapacity or old age.” Canon 282 §1 states significantly, “Clerics are called to cultivate simplicity of life and abstain from everything that smacks of vanity” (cf. Catechism, 2470).

We have already seen, immediately above the quotation from the pastoral constitution on the Church in the world, the first Catechism reference to the salvation of souls. The remaining Catechism references to the phrase show the Church’s concern for “the temporal common good of men” in “economic and social matters” because “they are ordered to the sovereign Good, their ultimate end” (2458). A large part of the magisterium’s contribution to the salvation of souls is seen in its proclamation of the fundamental rights of the human person by announcing “moral principles” and by passing “judgment on any human affairs” (2032), on “economic and social matters” (2420) and “even on matters pertaining to the political order” (2246). The Catechism made special mention only of “every man’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death” (2273).

Likewise we have already seen, immediately after the quotation from the pastoral constitution on the Church in the world, the first Code reference to the salvation of souls. The remaining Code references take us into the practical area of what might be called pastoral administration. The Church reminds priests that in hearing confessions they have the dual equal role of judge and physician and that they are instruments of God’s mercy “for the honor of God and the salvation of souls” (c. 978 §1) Ecclesiastical authorities engaged in the process of transferring pastors are reminded, in the Code’s final words, of the obligation to apply “the observance of canonical equity and regard for the salvation of souls, which must be the ever supreme law [suprema semper lex] in the Church” (c. 1752).

This final reference to the salvation of souls, accompanied as it is by equity and qualified as the supreme law of the Church, shows that its application is not limited as canonical equity is to filling lacunas in the law. It is the supreme general principle of law, applicable not only to the interpretation of the law (cf. c. 19) but indeed to the entire pastoral, liturgical and juridical life of the Church.

As an interesting sidelight, the Oriental Code does not give as much space to the salvation of souls as the Western Code does. Three canons paralleling Western canons mention it, never, however, as the supreme law of the Church. Canon 747 §2 is paralleled by Oriental canon 595 §2, canon 1452 §2 by Oriental canon 1110 §1 and canon 1736 §2 by Oriental canon 1000 §2. Canons 978 §1 and 1737 §3, however, were not included in the Oriental Code and canon 1752 is parallel to Oriental canon 1400, which, however, does not refer to the salvation of souls but adds acquired rights to equity.

This is, of course, not to imply that the salvation of souls might not be the supreme law also of the Oriental Churches. For the apostolic constitution promulgating the Oriental Code speaks in its expository part of a “special consideration for those things which really respond better to the demands of the economy of the salvation of souls in the rich life of the Oriental Churches.” The reason for this statement was to give a criterion for including any new laws in their Code (cf. Sacri canones, xiv). The salvation of souls appears in the apostolic constitution promulgating the Western Code for a different reason, after the paragraph formally promulgating the Code and in the last paragraph of the constitution.

The precise reason for this Western statement about the salvation of souls is not clear but we may surmise it from the context. The beginning of the conclusion of the apostolic constitution is marked by the Latin adverb demum. A Latin lexicographer advises that this word is “used to give prominence to an idea or in opposition to or restrictive of another” (Lewis-Short, A Latin Dictionary, s.v. demum); it is usually translated as “finally.” The first sentence of the conclusion is: “Finally, canonical laws demand obedience by their own very nature” (Sacrae disciplinae leges, xviii). A few lines later, just before the paragraph formally promulgating the Code, the pope, bringing out the primatial authority of the Code, prayed, “May God bring it about that . . . what is commanded by the head be observed in the body.” Lastly, after formalizing the promulgation, he expressed his hope that “the Church’s zealous discipline may flourish again and that therefore the salvation of souls also may more and more be promoted” (ibid., xix). The pope’s sense must have been that a significant bloc of the faithful, to the detriment of the salvation of souls, pays insufficient attention to the laws of the Church.

Given the pope’s reference to the head and the body, it seems clear that a reverential obligation is implied in the “‘primatial’ nature” of the Code (ibid., xv, xvi); willful disobedience to the Vicar of Christ would have to be one of the haughtier forms of pride. Neglect of canon law, then, would indicate a delusion of superiority not only to the pope but also to the collegial solicitude and cooperation (cf. ibid., xvi) and the interdisciplinary theological, historical and canonical collaboration of experts utilized in the process of the revision of the Code. But individual Catholics — laypersons who have been made aware of the obligation as well as the presumably better formed clergy—have two other reasons for obeying canon law as an obligation in conscience: the promotion of the global as well as personal salvation of souls, according to John Paul II in his Ad limina address to a group of U.S. bishops in October, 1998, 3:

The common good which the law protects and promotes is not a mere external order, but the sum of those conditions which make possible the spiritual and internal reality of communion with God and communion between the members of the Church. Consequently, as a basic rule, ecclesiastical laws bind in conscience. In other words, obedience to the law is not a mere external submission to authority but a means of growing in faith, charity and holiness, under the guidance and by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Concluding reflections

It is on this note of obedience that we conclude our study of the general pastoral ministry and bring together some data that may serve to enhance the fulfillment of our commitment to the salvation of souls in our pastoral activities, be they curial, judicial or more strictly pastoral. As already noted, all of them were drawn from our research of the papal magisterium addressed to the Rota but, we think, they capture the spirit that should inform our ministry to the salvation of souls. This guidance is authoritative, coming to us from the Church exercising her right “to make judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls” (c. 747 §2). We offer seven points the observance of which might increase the benefits that come from our cooperation with the seventh gift of the Holy Spirit:

•    a respect for the pastoral, sacramental (cf. Paul VI, in Woestman, 117) and obligatory nature of canon law,12 because the juridical Church is of divine origin (cf. Pius XII, in Woestman, 30), because juridical activity is a special participation in the mission of Christ, the shepherd (cf. John Paul II, in Woestman, 210) and because ecclesial life cannot exist without its juridical structure (cf. ibid., 210-211);

•    the conviction that canon law is a part of the economy of salvation (cf. Paul VI, in Woestman, 145), is a constitutive element of the Church (cf. Paul VI, in Woestman, 116) and is pastoral with respect to every aspect of Catholic life by the will of the Christ (cf. Paul VI, loc. cit.), who, for example, gained a follower by telling her the objective truth about her current marriage in John 4:17;

•    readiness to follow the directives of the magisterium (cf. Paul VI, in Woestman, 144) and the insights of Christian anthropology;13

•    adherence to the via media between excessive pastoralism on one side and legalism or rigorism on the other side (cf. Pius XII, in Woestman, 15);

•    generosity in ministering to the salvation of individual souls wherever it does not prejudice the common good of souls (cf. Pius XII, in Woestman, 11);

•    the judicious implementation of the rights of the faithful, especially the right to liturgical celebrations planned and performed strictly according to liturgical norms, using the provided options when appropriate to the celebration (cf. John Paul II, October 9, 1998 Ad limina Address to a group of U.S. Bishops, 3);

•    benevolent “tough love” wherever objective truth, the only truth that interests the divine Judge (cf. Paul VI, in Woestman, 80), requires it, thus avoiding even a well-intended but false compassion, which degenerates into sentimentality and is pastoral only in appearance because it defeats the purpose of our work for the salvation of souls (cf. John Paul II, in Woestman, 211-212).

Yet, with respect to all of the above, it must be constantly remembered that the law does not save souls, Jesus does. The law is meant to bring people close to him who has made possible atonement and the salvation of souls. Rituals performed by the priest have the same purpose. If law and ritual do not lead people to a deeper union with God they fail in their purpose. 

1 Sacrosanctum Oecumenicum Concilium Vaticanum II, Constitutiones Decreta Declarationes (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1966), cited with the name of the document.

2 Catechismus Catholicae Ecclesiae (Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), cited as Catechism.

3 Cf. Codex Iuris Canonici, fontium annotatione et indice analytico-alphabetico auctus (Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1989), cc. 364 10; 1215 §2; 1222; 1748. Canons will be cited thus, the constitution of promulgation with Roman page number.

4 Cf. cc. 1323 40; 1324 §1 50.

5 William H. Woestman, ed., Papal Allocutions to the Roman Rota 1939-1994 (Ottawa: Faculty of Canon Law, St. Paul University, 1994), cited as Woestman.

6 Pastor bonus, translated into English by C.C.F. Kelly, James Provost and Michel Thériault (Ottawa: Faculty of Canon Law, 1999), 22.

7 http://www.cbn.org/apology/catholic/ap 0207 00.htm.

8 Peter Redpath, Cartesian Nightmare (Amsterdam: Rodolphi, 1997), 2, as quoted by James V. Schall, “A ‘Catholic’ university: A contradiction or a competition,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review, August-September, 1999, 20.

9 http://www.cbn.org/apology/catholic/ap 020700. htm.

10 In the Latin text of canon 228, that “Sacred Pastors” and “Pastors of the Church” are the bishops is indicated by the upper case S and P’s.

11 http://www.marriagesavers.org/marriage_ savers_prospectus.htm.

12 Cf. Paul VI, in Woestman, 117.

13 The general principles of Christian anthropology, which corresponds to the second definition of anthropology in Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, may be found in John Paul II, “Unacceptable anthropology,” a study of Christian anthropology in connection with psychological and psychiatric experts in marriage cases (cf. Woestman, 191-196. Also his “The Defender of the Bond”: ibid., 198-200).

Msgr. Clarence J. Hettinger was ordained as a priest of the Peoria Diocese in 1942. After nine years as assistant pastor and two years of graduate canon law studies, he was full-time CEO of the Tribunal for ten years. After eleven years as pastor-officialis and eight years as pastor-associate judge, he works in the Tribunal office as associate judge and utility player. His last article in HPR appeared in February 1999.

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