Folia Canonica 4. (2001)
BOOK REVIEWS
BOOK REVIEWS D. Salachas: Teológia e Disciplina dei Sacramenti nei Codici Latino e Orientale, Edizioni Dehoniane, Bologna, 1999. 526. pp. The Codex Juris Canonici 1983, the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium 1990, and the apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus 1988 constitute the body of canon law which governs and regulates the life of the Catholic Churches. This corpus of laws has been promulgated by the same legislator, after due consultation, and expresses the same faith albeit with different ecclesiastical discipline. Therefore, the comparative study of these canonical documents is not only useful but also necessary. The law maker recommends this, even if, from a legal viewpoint, the two new codes are autonomous one from the other. The present work by Dimitri Salachas, a consultor of the supreme tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and a professor at the Urbanian and Gregorian universities of Rome, Italy, deals with a new method in the systematic study of the codical body of legislation, that is, a systematic-comparative approach to the Latin and Eastern Codes. This is exactly the method desired by the same supreme legislator when he promulgated the two codes: "... it appears obvious to urge that a proper and comparative study of both codes be promoted in the faculties of canon law even if, by their constitutions, they have the study of one or the other of the codes as their principal subject matter” (AAS 83, 1991,490). And .this clearly shows the observance of that which results in the church by God’s providence - that the church itself, gathered in the one Spirit breathes as though with two lungs - of the east and of the west - and that it burns with the love of Christ in one heart having two ventricles” (AAS 82, 1990, 1037). This comparative method is particularly suitable for studying the discipline of the sacramental mysteries, the vital actions of the church in its liturgy which are efficacious for salvation. In the unity of the faith the churches of the east and of the west have followed their own customs in celebrating and administering the sacraments. In fact, we notice in many canons a certain identity or at least a certain similarity; in others comparison reveals a more or a less marked diversity. Various canons have no equivalent in the one or the other code. Lastly, there are contrary or completely different regulations. The study presented by Salachas is not an apologetic comparison of both codes but a critical analysis, in the strict sense of the term, drawing attention to a deeper understanding of the theological and disciplinary patrimony of the church universal. This patrimony is a composition distinct from the culture and the manner in which the faith is celebrated and practiced. The church receives this patrimony like a treasure and accept it as its own. There is no opposition or contradiction between the two traditions, western and eastern, as regards the nature, essence, and the effects of the sacraments,
