Just as in the days of Christ, it was the scribes and Pharisees (obsessed with the law instead of the Gospel) who crucified Christ. So also today, canon lawyers now crucify the Catholic Church by legalism. It’s not that Canon Law is the problem. Canon Law was originally set up to be at the service of the Gospel, not a replacement of it. But it is being manipulated by corrupt bishops to promote an anti-Gospel in many American dioceses. We will look at three of the worst abuses of the new Code of Canon Law after it was promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1983. There are better translations from the Latin, but we’ll just quote the ones found on the Vatican website for ease of reference. Also, we’ll consider the following three canons in order of placement in the code, not of importance.
First Ambiguous Canon: 1095: “The following are incapable of contracting marriage: 1/ those who lack the sufficient use of reason; 2/ those who suffer from a grave defect of discretion of judgment concerning the essential matrimonial rights and duties mutually to be handed over and accepted.”
Notice this canon is supposed to indicate who is to avoid marriage in the first place, not help a married person retroactively cherrypick how to leave one’s spouse. But this canon has been manipulated to destroy hundreds of thousands of Catholic marriages under pretext that God Himself never saw the bond as binding made at the altar. Why do they say the bond wasn’t binding? American Tribunals (who are paid by any American Catholic who wants a divorce) declare the bond “null” based on “lack of due discretion” or “grave defect of discretion of judgment” as seen in the above translation.
How common is this? Canon 1095 is used in over 90% of American annulments. And how common are annulments? A 2023 book titled Betrayed Without a Kiss by John Clark reads as follows: “The Catholic Church in America has gone from 338 annulments in 1968 to over 72,000 annulments initiated in 1989 to over 24,000 initiated in 2014—the last number being perhaps the most chilling since it reflects a massive drop in Catholic marriages. Years ago, Robert Vasoli noted—as have many others—that with ‘just 6% of the world’s Catholics,’ American tribunals dole out nearly 75% of the worldwide annulments.”—p. 174.
Do you see why I use the modifier “American” when referring to the abuse of marriages in Tribunals? Keep in mind that nearly any Catholic couple who married in any American diocese (even in a situation where both man and woman were sane, non-drugged, non-cousins, etc.) can still claim they had a “grave defect of discretion of judgment” as soon as they want a new spouse. As if any of us had “due discretion” when approaching any vocation with suffering… which is every vocation.
Thus, Canon 1095 on “grave defect of discretion of judgment” is a total cop-out used to grant hundreds of thousands of Catholic divorces under pretext of fancy words like “declaration of nullity secondary to lack of due discretion.” These diocesan tribunals are truly guilty of re-crucifying Christ by “putting asunder what God has put together.”—Mt 19:6. Look at the numbers from two paragraphs up or these stats on American annulments that show that of all American petitions for annulments, 98% are granted. That means most annulments are fake. If you don’t think we’re back to the legalistic Pharisees of the first century keeping people from God, then I don’t know what will convince you.
Second Ambiguous Canon: 1373: “A person who publicly incites hatred or animosity against the Apostolic See or the Ordinary because of some act of ecclesiastical office or duty, or who provokes disobedience against them, is to be punished by interdict or other just penalties.”
Recently, Tucker Carlson did a show with a lifelong Democrat named Tara Reade who worked for Joe Biden as a Congressional aide from 1992 to 1993. She claims he sexually assaulted her in that time. At minute ten she also discusses a group of Americans who stood against the US involvement in Ukraine now being charged by the DOJ with “sowing discord.” They may face ten years in prison. That vague accusation could cover nearly anything in the current Stalinist environment, and it is now being weaponized against Americans with different ideals than the current corrupt administration.
What does this have to do with Canon 1373? Canon 1373 is the vague accusation used by liberal bishops against conservative priests to suspend them in a subjective manner for anything they find distasteful. For example, my good friend Fr. Clay Hunt (a holy conservative priest, but not a traditionalist) was suspended by Archbishop Gustavo of San Antonio Texas. The crime? Fr. Hunt said during the lockdowns of 2020 that the faithful still needed to go to confession and receive Holy Communion on an Instagram video.
Because his Archbishop had just closed all the parishes in 2020, Fr. Hunt leading people to the sacraments was deemed disobedient under Can. 1373. This is because Can. 1373 is the relativistic “sowing discord” canon, prescribing punishment not for heresy, but for anyone who “incites… animosity against… the Ordinary [bishop]… or provokes disobedience against them,” even if this is by promoting the Faith. (Fr. Hunt didn’t even mention his bishop or the closed parishes in his Instagram video, so it was hardly disobedient.)
Still, Fr. Hunt was punished as “disobedient” for telling Catholics to go to the sacraments during the scamdemic. If you think this is an exaggeration, here is the Archdiocese of San Antonio’s Decree Initiating Penal Process Hunt. Notice the first paragraph in italics is Fr. Hunt’s simple and pious words spoken on the Instagram video encouraging the sacraments. Notice then in that exact same decree his diocese quotes Can. 1373. That canon repeatedly becomes the weight of subjective guilt upon the head of any conservative priest who is subjectively (not objectively) unpleasing to a liberal bishop.
All of this happened during the scamdemic lockdowns of 2020. Then in 2021, his Archbishop published his accusations against Fr. Clay Hunt of financial misappropriation stemming way back to 2019! (Look at the dates in the last two links if you doubt this.) Why did the Archdiocese wait so long to publish such accusations? Could it be that few of the faithful in Texas bought the notion that it’s “disobedience” to provide the sacraments in lockdown? So, while Fr. Hunt is put on the shelf for standing against liberal totalitarianism (in both State and Church) we see that priests who abuse children go free, as we easily perceive in the frequent American manipulation of the next canon…
Third Ambiguous Canon: 1395— §2. A cleric who has offended in other ways against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, if the offence was committed in public, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.
Dr. Taylor Marshall tackles the ambiguity of this canon being manipulated by bishops to save themselves and destroy innocent souls: “The revised version [of the code of canon law] by John Paul II states that clergy in ‘external sin’ against the sixth commandment are to be suspended. If they persist after warning, “penalties can gradually be added, including dismissal from the clerical state,” but these penalties are not prescribed. This means that a bishop could have a harsh talk with them or send them to a sex rehab center. He can transfer them to a different assignment. Contrast this with 1917, which states explicitly and clearly that they are to be ‘suspended, publicly declared as having committed sexual misconduct, and deprived of any office, pension, dignity.’ The canon of 1983 also does not identify specific sexual sins — only one against a minor below the age of sixteen. The 1917 Code is far superior in that it explicitly lists the sins worthy of punishment committed by clergy.”—Infiltration, p. 163.
The cases where child-molesting priests have been put back into active ministry after “a good talking to” by a bishop or cycling through psyche-units are too many to number in this article. This canon was one of the legalistic pretexts upon which Catholic children were spiritually hung and molesting priests were set free over the past 50 years.
Thus, in all three broken canons above, we see that it is not the traditionalists who are the modern Pharisees using legalism for their advance, but rather the leftists in the Catholic Church. Such loophole-based bishops manipulate these canons to the destruction of many souls, not least of all their own.