Due process in Church administration

canonical norms and standards

Achacoso, Jonas

Administrative decisions are human and, therefore, fallible. Also papal decisions, taken outside the solemnities of his infallibility, are. Without the proper norms and standards applicable to administrative decision-making, misjudgments may easily happen leading to wrong, inopportune or even harmful decisions. Thus, the need for due process or, in other words, the general procedure for issuance of administrative acts.
There are innumerable concerns which have to be attended to in church administration as permits, dispensations, appointments, division of parishes, canonical erection or suppression of associations, imposition of penal sanctions, etc. Some of these concerns are provided with welldefined procedures but, unfortunately, many do not have specific rules to be followed. In such a situation, for efficiency in governance and proper protection of subjective rights, the due process in Church administration is simply a necessary minimum requirement of justice. This is what the book is all about.