The Ball is in Cleveland Bishop’s Court

We are asking the Cleveland Bishop to Choose between Cardinal Coccopalmerio and long-standing Church law.

I’m asking my bishop, The Most Rev. Edward Malesic, to judge the text contained in a short leaflet and either give his imprimatur or inform me of his reason for refusal. See Petition. Our leaflet says the following:

We need to bring this statement to my bishop because Cardinal Coccopalmerio turned canon law about marriage and divorce upside down in 2015, and I’m working to correct the difficulty he caused.  When Coccopalmerio was the president of the Pontifical Council of Legislative texts, he published a two-page document saying the opposite of my research findings:

In the petition asking my Bishop to judge our leaflet, I don’t mention that Coccopalmerio disagrees with my statement, but I suspect our diocese has a file about the discord between Mary’s Advocates and Coccopalmerio.  Bishop Malesic is not ignorant of canon law; he earned his licentiate in canon law in 1998 from Catholic University of America and is on the USCCB Committee on Canonical Affairs.  I provided him with thirteen pages of citations supporting my leaflet with this introduction:

This Dicastery for Legislative Texts can give authentic interpretation of the Church’s law, however, Coccopalmerio’s statement was not one of those authentic interpretations because it was missing the approval by the Pope, nor was there consultation with other curial institutions and offices of the Roman Curia as required by law (art. 155 of 1988 law,  art. 176 of 2022 law).  The Coccopalmerio’s problematic statement is on the website of the Dicastery as a Risposte particolari, which are said to be particular answers providing clarifications about the meaning of the norms by means of an interpretation formulated according to the criteria laid down in the canonical legislation (specifically citing c. 19).  Notably, canon 19 has limits:

This means that Coccopalmerio has no authority to turn canon law upside down. Readers may remember that Coccopalmerio is reported to have attended a drug-fueled homosexual orgy in 2017.  Canon 19 does not apply to situations where there is already an express provision in universal law, and I respectfully argue that there IS a universal law on the matter which has been in effect since the council of Trent in 1563. Plus, Coccopalmerio must consider “the jurisprudence and practice of the Roman Curia, and the common and constant opinion of learned authors.”

My long-time readers know I’ve found that the Church does not relegate to the no-fault divorce courts cases of civil separation or civil divorce. The mechanism by which the Church maintains her competence over marriage is through the canon law provision that requires a party to have his bishop’s permission prior to filing in civil forum.  Furthermore, when a canonical proceeding evaluates a case of separation of spouse, the Church judge(s) are to “determine the obligations of the parties arising from the trial and the manner in which these are to be fulfilled (c. 1611)” or  issue a decree by which an “obligation is directly and lawfully imposed on a specific person or persons to do or to omit something, especially in order to urge the observance of a law” (c. 49).

In 2015, I was given the honor of presenting a paper that was distributed to all the bishops in the October 2015 bishops’ synod on the family.  My paper, along with others, was published with a welcome letter by Cardinal Raymond Burke (who has been both the Defender of the Bond and the Prefect of the Signatura, the highest canon law tribunal in the world).  In my paper, I reported my finding that one needs one’s bishop permission prior to filing for civil separation or divorce. Shortly after I presented my paper, Cardinal Coccopalmerio issued his statement on 4 November 2015.   Too often, those who are somewhat familiar with canon law tell me that I’m incorrect about needing the bishop’s permission and they use Coccopalmario to shut us down.

If my bishop doesn’t give his imprimatur to our pamphlet’s statement, I can bring an administrative appeal to higher authorities in the Church.