Folia Canonica 2. (1999)
BOOK REVIEWS
378 BOOK REVIEWS mediazione delle culture si sono diversificate verso una completezza e ministe- rialità proprie, più ampia. I risultati del A. pervengono cosî ad alcune proposte, dopo lo studio ed interscambio comunicante delle normative canoniche, ehe divengono non solo interesanti ma pure innovative nella visione completa del ministero presbiterale della crismazione nella Chiesa latina. Natale Lód a V. J. POSPISHIL,.Easier« Catholic Church Law, Saint Maron Publications, New York 1996, Liv 938 pp. This is the second revised and augmented edition by Victor John Pospishil on the discipline of the Eastern Catholic Churches. The author in sixty-four chapters and seven appendices intends to present “the contents of this first codification in the modern history of Eastern Christianity in a form suitable to the needs of the pastoral clergy and for the perusal of the laity.” He treats fully parts that are needed by pastors in the daily care of souls, and summarizes those parts that are of interest to chancery and tribunal personnel. This explains the importance given to the sacramental mystery of marriage which covers twelve chapters (pp. 436-622). The firts chapter (ch. 40 of the book) bears the title “Marriage in Judaism and Christianity”. The other eleven chapters — 41 to 51 — follow the development of the canons (cc. 776-866) and aim at substantially presenting the analysis given by the author in his other work, Eastern Catholic Marriage Law (New York: Saint Maron Publications, 1991, pp. 532). Pospishil dwells upon details in considering Eastern Christianity in the whole because very few sources on the subject are available in English. Eastern Catholic Church law affects faithful in all parts of the globe. For obvious reasons special attention is paid to the pastoral practice in the circumstances occurring in Churches in English-speaking countries. After all, today more than half of the Eastern Catholic Churches are Anglophone, that is, living in North America, Australia, and India. The selection of the material has been guided by the author’s vast experience as parish priest, school teacher, tribunal president, and hierarchs consultant. Since this is one of the first handbook in English that deals with the law of the Eastern Churches, it seemed necessary to preface the entire work with a short history on the origins of the Eastern Christianity and a brief description of its twenty-one Eastern Catholic Churches (chapters 2 & 3). Here we are not going to sistematically analize the comments of Pospishil, but we would like to offer some remarks. One of the questions that was raised
