. hello. on behalf of the archdiocese of san francisco, welcome to mosaic. the catholic church has a history and many century of human experience. and it's a universal institution with members from every culture and language group. and it's a particular loion.rchs heart of the local and unique community.

in the parish, church is where you worship, where your registration life is lived and the records of baptism, marriage, and others. and how does the institution express the long experience of human life and how does the membership address understanding and unity in the expression of of the faith. the code is called canon law. you may be surprised to learn it's a deep, rich, important compilation of centuries of norms and standards contained in a single volume. an instruction to the volume says the purpose is to, quote, contribute to good order and enhanced freedom among god as people so that our common task on earth might be carried out more effectively. stay with us as we meet rob, the vice chancellor of the

archdiocese and learn about the church law and the contribution to the faithful and order. [ cell phone rings ] >> yeah, i'm watching it too. i see them every day. >> the curtains, they're always drawn in this place. >> i know. >> that guy, it seems like he's in charge of them. i don't know, i don't feel very good about this.

>> we have to report this. >> yes, absolutely. (basketball game and crowd sounds) ♪ if you talkin' they will hear ♪ every single time... why are we getting killed like this? kyle's not here. got caught drinking beer in the park a couple of nights ago. really? yeah. zero tolerance-he's out for the season. harsh. hey, he knew not to drink. we've made that clear to all our kids, right? uh, no... not really. bill, if we don't tell them what we expect and why they shouldn't drink, how're they gonna know? (announcer) talk. they hear you. for more information, visit underagedrinking.samhsa.gov. . hello and welcome to mosaic. today, my guest is robert, i'll call you rob.

and rob works for the archdiocese of san francisco. you're a canon lawyer and the vice chancellor of the arch. diocese and manager of the tribunal. let's talk about being a canon lawyer. what does that mean and what canon law is. >> canon law is the catholic churches body of internal law. it's different than the american lawyer. people have no familiarity with the church and they think that's a branch of law in american law. it's like a foreign body of law. >> interesting. >> alike law from another country. >> i thought people associated it with the church, church law. you say no. . >> people may have the connection and may make the connection. other people never heard of it. so there are people out there who don't have the foundational

understanding or have heard the term. it's the church's internal body of law, you know, and to be a canon lawyer is to have studied that in a canon law school. there's one place in washington d.c. >> and who certifies is knowledge? >> the professors do on the comprehensive oral examination and successful completion of all the classes and the writing of a major thesis. >> yeah. >> so there is no postgraduate test like a bar exam, like an american lawyer would do. it's the faculty of the school of canon law that certifies the competence to practice. >> and the overall arching authority for such a school is the vatican in some ways? . >> it is the vatican. it's the holy sea, we call it. they set the criteria for the curriculum.

and the curriculum was revised not long ago, maybe a little more than ten years ago, to make it i more rigorous. and there was a shorter period of time to get the first degree and then a doctorate in canon law. they overhauled the curriculum and made ispf lear. you don't hao doall in >> the lectures are in english. but you do take latin classes. the text of the law is in latin. and all translations really are supposed to be a secondary way of reading the law. it's the expectation to read it in the latin. don't quiz me on the latin. and secondarily in the vernacular. yes, we studied the latin a little bit. >> and i said that the intro

the body of knowledge can be contained in a single volume. i have the volume here. in here is the latin text and an english text. the latin text of the book is not that copious. there's not that much to it. >> i have to correct you on one thing. most of the church's law is contained in that volume. there are other sources of law, including a new law after the 1983 code of canon law. in the last six years, pope francis made a lot of new law and they haven't done the revisions of the code. through the constitutions, just to give you an example of one, pope john paul, ii, set forth election and what happens when is gerned inhe tempo hur

period until a ne is elec that is in the code of canon law. that's part of the broader, what we might call the church law. but it's not in the code. the code is supposed to be the most essential law in a single volume that you can find. >> and i want to say this, having browsed through the volume, it's an english translation, i don't find it obscure tor difficult, particularly. it's a thing to brauz browse through and learn something. . >> that's true. and they put a useful table of contents and index in it. not just the average layman, but a canon lawyer finds great use in it. >> and what is the typical career path, how do you use the skill? >> most end up working for the

institutional church for a diocese. >> yeah. >> traditionally, the lawyers practice. after the vatican when thinks changed a little bit, there were more religious sisters who studied and became canon lawyers. and lay people als increasingly were more involved in the various aspects of the church's ministry and would study the canon law and find jobs with the local diocese and the tribunal. >> and you're called manager of the tribunal. the archdiocese has a tribunal. it's a little bit of a scary word, men in black, judges, sentences, what does a tribunal do? >> it's essentially a court. the word tribunal is a little

more formal and traditional than just saying court. as fancy as it sounds, it's a typical office setting and we carry out the judicial process. that's what a tribunal is for. and there are the paperwork processes we do as well. but the core of a tribunal's work is usually the most common thing we do is marriage annulty trials. people looking for a declaration of annulty of the marriage would bring the case. that person is the petitioner and the other person is the respond nt and we might conduct a trial with evidence and testimony. >> and we'll talk about that in detail in another segment. we'll take a brief break and come back and talk more about the church law and church covenant.

. welcome back to mosaic and our discussion with canon lawyer rob. and we understand a little bit about the law that governs the church and you're a lawyer in that field. there's a important piece of church discipline, church procedure, that i hinted at in the instruction, which is the keeping of records. and it's interesting. there's a contrast between the church and millions of adherents and the local church on the corner where your life is encased. if you've done the gene logical research, they went to europe and when to the village and found the priest and got the records. you told me that recordkeeping is an important part of the church's function and of the

canon lawyers' specialty. >> yeah. well, the church keeps very detailed and lengthy records on sack ramentes especially. and we're concerned about the records for if purpose of the living. they still are valued and beyond a person's life, but especially while they're living, we want to know the status in the church. records of baptism, confirmation, marriage, holy orders. when a man is ordained a deacon or a priest or beyond that, a bishop, those are recorded why the registers. when someone dies that is recorded as well. whether they were attended to by a priest before the death, that's recorded. these are all important things to understand a person's status in the church. and the most important ones are

baptism and confirmation and holy orders. those are the three sacraements that leave a permanent life on the soul. there's no reracing it we need to know about people being niche at a timed as a catholic and ordained. >> and i have a slide about a news story. there's a happy looking dominican pastor in san francisco, take a close look at the tattered looking volumes on the desk before him. the story here in the chronicle from march is a large safe the size of a refrigerator was stolen from the church late one night and broken open. the thieves apparently were after gift cards that the

churmg combi ts -- church gives to the homeless and poor. and tell us what we're looking at, what's the pile of books? . >> these are the registers. these are particularly old ones. i understand these volumes, some of them, go back to the foundation of the parish in the 19th century. this is effectively what the registers look like. some are newer than others. when something happens like a baptism or a confirmation or a marriage, a handwritten record of that is put in the registers with the pen on the paper and the ink on the page and sticking around for hundreds of years. storage yothink about the gitat? what's the answer to that? >> well, the short answer is

we're told no. that's what i tell the parishes that ask the question. i just got done doing a round of presentations in the three counties on the registers and e and i said, well, the holy sea won't allow it. there are reasons for that. and one of those and i've heard this even from the people who are not, you know, from the vatican telling me this, people with a technology background and an understanding that versions of things change. softwares and hardwares change. we've gone from keeping computer information on magnetic tape to then a large floppy disk, a small one, a cd, a thumb drive. operating systems in pc's change. change. you wonder how the information recorded at one time will be

accessible 50 years down the road with the changes in technology. t it. the utions pluse , ped out. >> yeah. >> where with the hard books, you have to burn those things, they're kept, which would be in a safe, which would delay the consumption by fire. give the fire department more time. >> it's interesting to consider. you go by a parish church and they're having a mass and something and inside the parish, there's a charge, fireproof, major safe that is keeping the spiritual records of people for hundreds of years. >> right. >> that's amazing. that's the beauty of the pastor to take care of that. >> that's right. we expect the state and the county to safeguard the birth record and the civil marriage

records and not treat them casually. we want for us catholics, we want the parish and the pastor of the parishes to take the same kind of care with the records. they're so important in our status. brk and come back and talk further about the tribunal and the sacrament of marriage.

. hello and welcome wac back. we're talking about the canon law and its many uses. there's an important part of the law, which is the law governing the sacrament of marriage. . >> yes. >> and you are the manager of the tribunal. and it's with the ajuice indications of the marriage in certain ways. what's that about? . >> so as i think i made mention of before, people will sometimes bring the marriage cases, these are people who are divorced, and they want to clarify the status in the church and whether they had a valid marriage or not. especially want to know if not, they want to know whether they have the possibility of having a future marriage in the church with someone else. we don't do disillusions of sacrament l marriages or

divorces. we do trials that require evidence and testimony to really make a determination of whether a marriage was null from the moment of the wedding when the we hear it a lot. there are several annulments as well. a marriage is declared null and void. in church law, it's something special. so you said you have a trial. what exactly is on trial in the trial? an adversary proceeding in some way? >> believe it or not, the code does have, they call it the contentious process. it presumes the respondent could be opposed to what the petitioner is seeking, which is a declaration of annulment. that's not the case every time. sometimes the respondent agrees with the petitioner or could not participate in the process.

judgment of nullity is to be able to marry again or simply to declare that the marriage was t a valid catholic marriage? . ople want to know that for e their own peace of mind to confirm what they feel like they knew or became clear to them. but it's the former as well. people have the practical thing in mind of wanting to marry in the church in the future. that does not follow on the church approving of a divorce. but declaring that the marriage never existed from the beginning. that's a difficult thing to wrap your mind around. if you lived together and children were born of the marriage to say that the marriage didn't exist in canon law according to the criteria of what the church expects to make a marriage valid from the

beginning. >> it existed as a civil marriage but not a sacrament l catholic marriage. >> that's a good distinction. it's separate from that. it's according to the canon law and whether the marriage was valid in that law. >> and you must deal with people in a difficult time of life. a marriage was broken and you are dealing with determining and investigating and deciden on the sacrament. that's difficult work. >> yeah. >> and i would say this, canon law governs the tribunal work and governs the preparation for marriage? . >> it does. canon law mandates before anyone is married in the church, they have to go through a process of marriage preparation. they have a marriage and federal life office in the

archdiocese of san francisco which assists is pastors an le wthe preparation for couples and helps to support them. so yes, we -- i coordinate wthc i'm not involved directly in the preparation but i'm aware of it. >> and it seems this body of law preparation and judgments of nullity, it's a kind of delicate investigation into people's 's most inner lives. is it difficult work? >> it is. my whole beyond the tribunal manager to oversees the day-to- day operations, i'm the defender of the bond and the process. that's the official i am in the trial. the role is to look for arguments that might point to the validity of the marriage bond and the judges are the

ones who are supposed to be the most subjective and come to a decision at the end. the petitioner might have an advocate making arguments for him or her about why the marriage is invalid. no matter the angle, it's difficult. you are dealing with those very sensitive areas of people's lives. >> what i like is the couple aren't left alone without resources. the church is saying we have a forum and you can explore the marriage and the sacrament. we have a couple of minutes left. i want you to tell us whether a catholic should be studying up on canon law in a certain way. let me run a slide you recommended. this is a website. rob was telling me that he of course the vatican has the complete canon law on the website and it's consulted there.

this particular website, he said it's very interesting and searchable. you can search for a question that is puzzles you. a resource for professional and armchair canonists. rob, with a minute left, can you tell us what you think catholics should take away from this and what the attitude toward canon law should be? >> it's not something to be seen only as -- through a negative lens telling you no, you shall not. it's something that giving order to the church and its ministries and the various -- i pulled out from john paul, ii's introduction. 's not meant to be a substitute for grace and charity in the life of the church, but to create an order

for those things and their growth in the society and in the individual. so people should not be afraid of it. they can search it on the website and get their own volume and look up the things that interest you in the index and do a word search. >> thank you for being here and joins us on this episode of mosaic.

. live from the cbs bay area studios, this is kpix5 news. san francisco's police chief is under fire. the sharp criticism over the raid of a journalist. ist. the last 17 days of my life have been the toughest. >> a story of survival. a missing hiker all alone managed to stay alive for two weeks. and another round of rain moving into the bay area. how it will effect the long holiday weekend. 6:00 a.m. on sunday, may 26th. good morning. let's get started this morning with a look at the forecast. >> first thing people will notice when th step e, i know i did and you guys did

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