Canon Law Professor meets with Pope Francis

This April, Professor of Canon Law, Norman Doe travelled to Rome to meet with Pope Francis.

The meeting on 10 April was arranged for Professor Doe and Mark Hill QC, Honorary Professor, at the School of Law and Politics by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity at the Vatican.

Professor Doe presented the Pope with a copy of the Statement of Principles of Christian Law (Rome 2016), suggested and initially drafted by Professor Doe on the basis of his book Christian Law: Contemporary Principles (Cambridge University Press, 2013). The statement was issued by an ecumenical panel drawn from ten Christian traditions worldwide and is being fed into the work of the World Council of Churches and its Faith and Order Commission.

Professor Doe and the Pope discussed how the Statement fosters collaboration between divided Christians globally.  Mark Hill QC presented the Pope with a copy of his Ecclesiastical Law (2018), now in its fourth edition with Oxford University Press.

Following the meeting on 11-12 April, the Nineteenth Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers took place.  The Anglicans included six former Cardiff students of the LLM in Canon Law: Revd Stephen Farrell (Dublin); Sion Hughes Carew (Westcott House, Cambridge); Ven. Jane Steen (Archdeacon of Southwark); Revd Stephen Coleman (Diocese of London); Revd Russell Dewhurst (Diocese of Guildford); and Charlotte Miles (a solicitor and Cardiff PhD student). The Colloquium also met at the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments with Archbishop Arthur Roche and Mgr Brian Ferme, prelate secretary of the Council for the Economy.  The Colloquium was presented to Pope John Paul II in 1999 and Benedict XVI in 2007.