Definition of canon law in US English:

noun

• Ecclesiastical law, especially (in the Roman Catholic Church) that laid down by papal pronouncements.

  Example sentences

  • ‘According to canon law, the powers of the bishops' conference, except in matters liturgical, are almost entirely advisory.’
  • ‘This was when the notion of a consensual, holy, and indissoluble bond was most refined and carried into the greater world by canon law and church courts.’
  • ‘They looked at canon law and Church bureaucracy and argued that it bred inefficiency, graft, injustice, worldliness and immorality.’
  • ‘The tensions between civil law and canon law are mentioned in Dignan, pp.46-52.’
  • ‘The bishop submitted his resignation, as required by canon law, when he became 75 years old on November 3, 1999.’
  • ‘Among Anglicans, responsibility for the good order of the Church is placed in the hands of bishops by custom, rites of ordination, and canon law.’
  • ‘The university had freely chosen to be governed by canon law and to obey the Vatican's declarations, and if they were inconsistent with academic freedom, so be it.’
  • ‘Legal historians frequently define themselves by the variety of law they study: canon law, common law, or custom.’
  • ‘The Church has centuries of canon law - canon law which the American bishops did not use - specifically designed to deal with such offenses.’
  • ‘Eventually the church regulated marriage through canon law.’
  • ‘Within the Church of England canon law had, until 1969, allowed for the use of exorcism, provided that permission was obtained from the diocesan bishop.’
  • ‘It acquires the status of canon law in a series of three church councils in the sixth and seventh centuries.’
  • ‘During this period the Maronite Church came into full communion with the Western Church; it preserved its own hierarchy, liturgy and canon law and its patriarch was made directly subject to the pope.’
  • ‘In carrying out this responsibility, Lutherans adapted received Catholic canon law and the procedures of ecclesiastical courts to the civil realm.’
  • ‘On the one hand, the bishops seemed simply to ignore many of the requirements of the natural law expressed in canon law.’
  • ‘Since a civil court could not determine what is or is not required by canon law, it must accept the university's own determination of its obligations.’
  • ‘Secondly, the study of Roman and the church's canon law from the late eleventh century provided much of the language and many of the ideas for thinking about the state.’
  • ‘He also repairs the historical amnesia of the document through a detailed review of theology, canon law, and papal pronouncements on slavery over the centuries.’
  • ‘Bishop Murphy said, in his opinion, the current debate about the status of canon law and civil law is an academic one.’
  • ‘Surprisingly, there is no rigorous distinction between the two terms in canon law or in theological dictionaries - or for that matter in legal dictionaries.’