Canon Law (Handbooks of Catholic Theology)

Rating:
Summary: A potentially interesting book ruined by a poor translation.
Review: This book is a theologically oriented study of some issues in current Roman Canon Law. It is an English translation of Gerosa's German edition. Unfortunately, both the translation and the copy editing leave a great deal to be desired. German grammar and word order are frequently apparent, over- complicating sentences that are already long and involved. Split infinitives abound, and there is frequent confusion between different parts of speech. Some non-existent words are used, and there are one or two consistent spelling mistakes. The following two sentences provide eloquent illustrations of these problems:

From page 77: "And thus it is possible only within a juridical system in which the criterion that renders a norm binding that it is not so much the will of the legislator or an exclusively formal value, so much as that of the certainty of law in the state juridical systems, but rather it is the unity or communion which is the essential content of the ecclesial experience itself."

From page 158: "These being the essential elements of the normative of the Code relative to the remission of a canonical sanction it is not difficult to intuit the wholly particular nature of the same and above all of excommunication, for ever the sanction-type of the Church."

The text of this book reads like a first draft rather than a final translation, and in my opinion it is nowhere near ready for publication. I think it needs a complete redraft. This is unfortunate, because Gerosa has several interesting things to say. It's just a shame that so much of his argument is obscured by the translation.