The Term Privilege: A Textual Study of its Meaning and Use in the 1983 Code of Canon Law

The term privilege has been used for a multiplicity of previsions including particular laws, indulgences, indults or dispensations to do what the general law forbids or to omit what is requires.The goal of the dissertation is to ascertain how changes to the 1983 code have served to clarify a notion which has been the object of debate for centuries. This provides the opportunity for comment upon individual canons which do not harmonize with the new definition or with other developments occasioned by the law's reform.