I was only 58 years late

19th March 2012   ·   0 Comments

By Fr. Jerome LeDoux
Contributing Columnist

Teach a Canon Law class after almost two score years of doing other things? That is what Father Carmen Mele, Director of the Pope John Paul II School of Lay Ministry, asked me to do. A 2004 class in African-American Reli­gion at Southern University in New Orleans aside, I had done no formal teaching since a Canon Law class at Notre Dame Major Seminary in the Archdiocese of New Orleans in the mid-seventies.

No, I did not feel that it was going to be a daunting thing. That would not be a problem. In fact, there was nothing problematic about it, except the challenge to compress into two hours and fifteen minutes a full quaff from the pool of Canon Law.

Unexpectedly, what kicked in was the biggest surprise of all. Flashbacks from the Canon Law classes of our own Father John Kemper, S.V.D., at St. Augustine Major Seminary in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and of a number of the professors from the Pontifical Gregorian Institute in Rome kept recurring. All had the same pastoral message.

More than anything else, Canon Law has to be pastoral, oriented toward the service of people and the salvation of souls. Canon Law must not work against the common good of the faithful, but rather for the pastoral good of everyone. It must not silence, but rather enable and empower the voices and actions of the laity, for they are the liturgy.

In brief, one could say that Canon Law is no good unless it has soul. Hearing this is one thing, but imbibing it and having it become a part of one’s religious core beliefs and outlook is a totally different thing. Well, this did happen over time, but it has taken some 58 years for it to take root completely in me and become an inseparable part of me.

So, facing one lady and a clutch of a baker’s dozen gentlemen in the School of Lay Ministry class on February 29 took on a pastoral atmosphere. With that in mind, I had scripted a pastorally-oriented outline for the leap-year/leap-day class.

There was even an added motivation for such pastoral orientation, for the wake of Dr. Rowena “Missy” Maclin’s stepfather, Clemen John “Mr. California” Pyles, Sr., was scheduled for the identical 7:00 p.m., time as the opening prayer of the Canon Law class.

This scheduling conflict prompted a pre-wake/pre-class invitation to the home of Missy’s mother to bless everyone and her home. Mother Virgetta had lost her son Rudy in February, 2009 when a call from Missy and her brother Rodney requested my presence when the plug would be pulled from her brother Rudy who was at the point of death.

Several weeks earlier, Rudy had contracted pneumonia that triggered cardiac arrest and a shutdown of his kidneys and lungs. He was all but brain-dead from then on. After the plug was pulled, Rudy fought against a death rattle until he went to God at 1:50 p.m. Virgetta had lost her husband years before that, and Missy had lost her husband as well.

Motivated by that atmosphere of prayer and grief, I drove to the Catholic Life Center to begin the Canon Law class. It was a natural segue to speak about the necessity of law, and yet the overriding need of a pastoral bent in all aspects of legislation.

Addressing jurisdiction in times of necessity, I observed, in the words of Pope Gregory IX, “Necessity makes licit what is illicit.” And Pope Boniface XIII, “It is true that one sins against the rule who adheres to the letter and leaves aside the spirit.” Finally, Pope Pius X, “The highest law is the salvation of Souls.”

All this goes under the heading of epikeia/epiky, from “epiekes,” the Greek word for reasonable. Epikeia — or common sense —is an indulgent and benign interpretation of law, which regards a law as not applying in a particular case because of circumstances unforeseen by the lawmaker who cannot possibly foresee all possible eventualities.

I was 58 years late, but it was a pleasure sharing Church laws that state obligations and protect the rights of individuals and the community, as well as safeguard the sacredness of sacraments like baptism, the Eucharist and the holy union of matrimony. As to be expected, the lion’s share of laws relate to marriage, the linchpin of family.

If only I could have tackled learning and teaching Canon Law with the wisdom, knowledge and perspective that I now possess! But we all know that youth is wasted on the young. Still, it is far better to be 58 years late than not to have arrived at all.

This article was originally published in the March 19, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper