The Vatican today announced the motu proprio Omnium in mentem, which makes changes to a few of the Canon laws by which the Church is governed. Unfortunately to my knowledge a full translation into English has not yet been made available, but that hasn’t stopped the commentary from flying. In short, the motu proprio does two things:
- Changes the requirements for Catholics who formally defected from the Church such that they are no longer bound to observe canonical form in marriages. What it, in the end, means is that a great number of marriages that heretofore have been considered valid are now considered null. Many marriage tribunals are now going to have their hands full figuring out exactly how to apply these newly worded canons.
- Alters the definition of the ministerial function of Deacons, specifically by removing any reference to a capacity to act in the person of Christ the Head, moving that terminology to the canon defining the presbyterate.
Fr. Z shares the VIS story announcing the new motu proprio here (the combox is, per usual, lively and informative), and Dr. Ed Peters gives his commentary on the first bullet here. I suspect Dr. Peters will help explicate the effect of the second bullet when it is more well understood. Life, I must say, in the Catholic world is never dull!
