Montserrat Gas Aixendri, a senior lecturer of Canon Law in the Faculty of Law and director of the Institute for Advanced Family Studies, has published a new volume entitled “Nuevos desafíos del Derecho canónico a cien años de la primera codificación” [New Challenges of Canon Law One Hundred Years After the First Codification].

The book includes contributions from a number of jurists, who, by examining the various aspects of Canon Law, address some of the new challenges posed by the legal statutes of today’s Church, a hundred years after the first codification in 1917.

While the authors of the book reflect on the history of the code and its legacy, first and foremost, they discuss the role Canon Law plays in relation to the challenges currently facing the Church. A large portion of the book focuses on pressing current and future issues in Canon Law, such as the decentralisation of the Church’s organisation and the management of its assets; topics the authors of this book address brilliantly.

According to Dr Gas, “It’s only natural that, on the one-hundredth anniversary of its issuance, there appear books like this, which seek to commemorate a deeply significant event in the world of Law. Recent experience has shown how real the risk of injustice is, and the field of Law, despite its limitations, can be a useful and necessary tool wherever people need protection”.

The book’s prologue was written by Rafael Navarro-Valls, emeritus professor of Canon Law and president of the Legal Academies of Iberoamerica. Other contributors to the book include internationally renowned Canon Law jurists, most of who are university lecturers.