Folia Theologica et Canonica 6. 28/20 (2017)

IUS CANONICUM - Kurt Martens, Hierarchical recourse as a dialogue between particular church and universal Church? Difficulties, challenges and opportunities

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KURT MARTENS

In both societies - the Church and the State - authority comes from God. Therefore, people exercising civil authority must do so in accordance with God’s law and its demands, too. Indeed, those in charge of civil society - the civil rulers - have a personal moral obligation to be good and just rulers and to fulfill diligently their mission given by God. Consequently, the ruler has a personal liability and the State, represented by this ruler, has the moral obligation to proclaim the truth and thus to protect the true religion. The State must honor God and listen to the magisterium of the Church. From this perspective, the catholic State is the ideal.26

The development of the lus Publicum Ecclesiasticum and the societas perfecta, and the comparison with the nation state led to the distinction of three powers within this ecclesiastical power of governance or jurisdiction. But what are these three powers? In an excellent study of this topic, Huysmans has demonstrated that the doctrine was divided about the three powers, or at least about one of the three powers.27 While there was agreement about a distinction between three powers, most authors agreed on the societas peifecta with legislative and judicial power, but the third power was not called administrative or executive. Rather, canonists like Camillo Tarquini (1810-1874), Simon Aichner (1816-191 I), Settimio Maria Vecchiotti, Sebastiano Sanguinetti S.J. ( 1829— 1893), Franz Xavier Wernz S.J. (1842-1914). Josephus Laurentius (1861-1927), Johannes Baptist Sägmüller (1860-1942) and others distinguished between legislative power (potestas legislativa), judicial power (potestas iudicialis), and coercive power (potestas coercitiva or coactiva). Wernz made in his lus decre- talium an interesting remark about executive power: such power is not a power on its own and is therefore not part of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but is needed for the execution of laws, sentences and penalties.28 In other words, legislative power, judicial power and coercive power were executed by the use of executive power. After the promulgation of the 1917 code, canonists like Klaus Mörsdorf

26 Hendriks, J. W. M., Vaticanum II en verder. De leer van het Concilie en de ontwikkeling daar- van in de tijd erna, Oegstgeest-Brugge 1993. 127.

27 Huysmans, R. G. W., De administralieve macht in de r.k. Kerk (see nt. 11) 8-12.

28 Wernz, F. X., lus decretalium ad usum praelectionum in scholis textus canonici sivi iuris dec- retalium, II: lus constitutions Ecclesiae Catholicae, Romae 1906. 16: “Ceteroquin si forma attendant, qua iurisdictio ecclesiastica exercetur, certe adaequata divisio est illa, quae distinguit potestatem legiferam, iudicialem, coercitivam. Cfr. Tarquini 1 .c.p.sq. Quodsi auctores quoque catholici loco potestatis coercitivae commémorant potestatem executivam, aut alio nomine ean- dem rem désignant aut parum accurate loquuntur. Nam potestas executiva sensu stricto non est propria quaedem species iurisdictonis ecclesiasticae, sed potius ad unamquamque ex tribus spe- ciebus supra commemoratis accediv, etenim leges et sententiae iudiciales et poenae sunt execu- tioni mandandae.”