How to Use canon law in a Sentence

canon law

noun
  • The church’s canon law often worked to protect the guilty priests and frustrate the rights of victims.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Aug. 2019
  • Defrocking a priest is among the most severe punishments in canon law.
    — New York Times, 1 June 2021
  • Laicization, or being reduced to the lay state, is one of the harshest sanctions in the church’s canon law.
    — Steve Mollman, Fortune, 18 Dec. 2022
  • Laicization, or being reduced to the lay state, is one of the harshest sanctions in the church's canon law.
    — Arkansas Online, 19 Dec. 2022
  • Laicization, or being reduced to the lay state, is one of the harshest sanctions in the church's canon law.
    — Nicole Winfield, Chron, 18 Dec. 2022
  • Laicization, or being reduced to the lay state, is one of the harshest sanctions in the church's canon law for priests.
    — CBS News, 19 Dec. 2022
  • Laicization, or being reduced to the lay state, is one of the harshest sanctions in the church’s canon law for priests.
    — Nicole Winfield, Anchorage Daily News, 19 Dec. 2022
  • The penal code is based on the Italian criminal code with elements of canon law.
    — Nicole Winfield, San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 Oct. 2019
  • To people who don’t worship at the altar of canon law, that might seem like an academic distinction.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 9 Oct. 2019
  • This entire season is starting to feel like a typo in the tomes of SEC canon law.
    — Joseph Goodman | [email protected], al, 11 Oct. 2020
  • There is no provision in canon law for what to do if a pope becomes incapacitated.
    — Nicole Winfield and Silvia Stellacci, Los Angeles Times, 22 Feb. 2025
  • Prevost would be an effective administrator as head of the church and was an expert in church canon law.
    — Joanne M. Pierce, The Conversation, 9 May 2025
  • But Wolfgang Rothe — a priest and scholar of canon law — says this charge is often pitted at critics within the church.
    — Esme Nicholson, NPR, 4 Nov. 2025
  • Except that Catholic canon law requires an ordained deacon or priest to say the homily at Mass, and women can be neither.
    — Kate Brady, Washington Post, 2 Oct. 2023
  • This period, governed by strict canon law, triggers a sequence of events designed to both honor the deceased pope and prepare for the election of a new pontiff.
    — Josh Hammer, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 Apr. 2025
  • In church, or canon law, parishes are separate entities with rights to their properties, but for decades titles to the properties were held by the diocese.
    — Greg Moran, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Apr. 2023
  • By the 13th century, the procedures of the court trial were defined and adopted, both in canon law – that is, the church law – and in secular law.
    — Joanne M. Pierce, The Conversation, 19 Oct. 2020
  • Talk grew over whether the time had come to enshrine restrictions on the conduct of papal retirees into canon law, and the Vatican scrambled to insist that there was nothing to see here.
    — Jason Horowitz, New York Times, 13 Jan. 2020
  • The case would then be referred to the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith for canon law processes to be undertaken.
    — Steven Martinez, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10 June 2020
  • According to William Daniel, a professor of canon law at Catholic University, a priest asked by his bishop to resign has the option of submitting a defense.
    — Todd Richmond and David Crary, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8 June 2021
  • Luigi Casalini, of the blog Messa in Latino, meaning Latin Mass, said the excommunication of the bishops was correct because canon law provides for it.
    — Nicole Winfield, Los Angeles Times, 2 July 2026
  • The Vatican said in its daily bulletin Tuesday that Leo had accepted Sheleta’s resignation under the code of canon law for eastern rite churches that allows for the pope to agree if a bishop asks to step down.
    — ABC News, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Leo, who studied canon law, has spent much of his first eleven months in office assessing the Vatican internally, like a new chief executive getting to know a firm’s culture before initiating strategies for optimal performance.
    — Paul Elie, New Yorker, 4 Apr. 2026
  • Over the years, popes have made piecemeal modifications to the Vatican's city state's legal code, which dates from an 1889 Italian code no longer in use and also draws from the Catholic Church's in-house canon law.
    — Nicole Winfield, Star Tribune, 16 Feb. 2021
  • Under the church’s in-house canon law, consecrating a bishop without papal consent incurs an automatic excommunication for both the people administering the consecration and the bishops receiving it.
    — ABC News, 1 July 2026
  • The Vatican said in its daily bulletin Tuesday that Leo had accepted Shaleta’s resignation under the code of canon law for Eastern Rite churches that allows for the pope to agree if a bishop asks to step down.
    — Gregory Bull, Los Angeles Times, 10 Mar. 2026
  • The Vatican said in its daily bulletin Tuesday that Leo had accepted Shaleta’s resignation under the code of canon law for Eastern Rite churches, which allows for the pope to agree if a bishop asks to step down.
    — Gregory Bull, Chicago Tribune, 10 Mar. 2026
  • The Vatican’s doctrine office went above and beyond the minimum sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law to respond to the consecrations Wednesday of four new bishops at the society’s Econe, Switzerland, seminary.
    — ABC News, 2 July 2026
  • Leo, a canon lawyer, met Saturday with the judges and prosecutors who oversee the judicial apparatus of the Vatican City State, which follows its own peculiar legal code that is inspired by a century-old Italian code and the church’s in-house canon law.
    — Nicole Winfield, Chicago Tribune, 17 Mar. 2026
  • Morrison and her team, which includes a liaison who shares information from the Vatican and a Rotal advocate who’s licensed to appear before the Rota — the highest appellate court in the Catholic Church — are experts trained in canon law, the legal system of the Catholic Church.
    — Hope Moses, Chicago Tribune, 23 Mar. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'canon law.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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