Degrees in Canon Law
This week I am back on the thread of how to become a Canon Lawyer.
I noted before that some schools have “diploma” programs of Canon Law that might emphasize one aspect of the law. That kind of Canon Law Lite does not work in either system of law. It would be like studying family law issues and calling yourself a lawyer without studying process and the Constitution that gave birth to the law. The diplomas are useful and good for people who are working in Canon Law as support staff to get a clearer picture of their employment and the service they perform for the Church.
To be a Canon Lawyer there are two degrees. The first one is called a License in Canon Law and gives you the accreditation of JCL after your name. This involves three years of study at a Pontifical University and the passing of a license exam. My License exam at the Angelicum in Rome was in Italian. It wasn’t supposed to be. The one choice I had for my License exam was to select the language in which I wanted to take the exam. I chose English, big surprise. The University set up my panel of Judges with five English speaking professors. The night before my exam, one of those was rushed to the hospital and another flew home when he was told the news of the sudden death of his father in Mexico. There weren’t any other English speaking Canon Law professors on the Faculty so my choice of language for the exam was gone, and off I went relying on my Italian. The whole experience is still a little blurred but I did pass, and summa cum laude at that.
The major requirement I had to fulfill for my license is still a requirement in some schools. I had to write a Tessina. That is a mini doctorate dissertation. Mine was about eighty pages long on the Church and secret societies, especially Irish Fenian Societies. It gave me a chance to research the Irish Independence leaders and their followers from the Famine to the Civil War there. The Church was not kind to the Irish Rebellion and I was inspired to outline the many mistakes it made towards the Irish faithful. I really loved working on that and got high marks. But, it was a lot of work.
The second degree is a Doctorate in Canon Law. With that one you get to put a JCD after your name. As a civil lawyer I have the distinction of putting JD after my name to represent the Doctorate in Law I earned in civil law. Instead I have used the historical term of Esquire but since the criticism of Dr. Jill Biden over her doctorate in education, I am now using my doctorate designation in solidarity with that empowered woman. The Doctorate in Canon Law requires a License first, then another three years of classes. You must write a doctoral dissertation that involves deep research and original writing. There are some advantages in the Code to having the Doctorate, but right now, not so many for lay people. There are ecclesiastical positions that cannot be held by lay people via the Code, and at this point in time, the differences between License and Doctorate in Canon Law are relatively ineffectual. In other words, unless you aspire to teach Canon Law at a University, the Doctorate could be a waste of time and money.
Dr. Jill Biden
Next on my list is how much does a Canon Law Degree cost and how can you pay for it. I will probably throw in some information on what a Canon Lawyer gets paid in a year.