Boni added that “in the process of issuing the legal act, confirmation is therefore the last step: but it still assumes the revision and, in some way, the approval of the text as a final seal of legitimacy.”
In practice, she said, everything will be decided “by the application practice of the Congregations.”
Boni was critical of those who have spoken of “substantial change,” asking them “to explain the sources from which they draw such a decisive conclusion.”
According to Boni, it would have been “completely different if all control intervention by the Apostolic See had been eliminated: and with this I certainly do not want to argue that this would have been desirable, quite the opposite.”
She said: “Beyond the specific case, in order to avoid trivialization or misunderstanding of important concepts in the Church, the indispensable role of the Holy See in guaranteeing unity of faith and discipline must not be misrepresented: from that point of view, ecclesiological certainly does not imply the imposition of a centralizing and autocratic uniformity.”
Boni also noted “the anomaly in which the Italian version of the motu proprio Assegnare alcune competenze was published before the Latin one. Nevertheless, according to these modalities, the Italian version is authentic, and the Latin one is translated. This demonstrates total legal unawareness.”
The original version of the Code of Canon Law, both for the Latin Church and the Eastern Churches, is in Latin (the so-called editio typica), and therefore all amendments must be in Latin. “It’s a question of legal certainty,” Boni said.
According to the professor, there is also a further problem: the changes risk redefining “the competencies of the relevant departments of the Roman Curia.”
If these changes were not already contemplated or implemented in the current draft of the new Vatican constitution, provisionally titled Praedicate evangelium, then further changes will be made.
“The road to the launch and entry into force of the new constitution is thus getting longer,” concluded Boni.
Andrea Gagliarducci is an Italian journalist for Catholic News Agency and Vatican analyst for ACI Stampa. He is a contributor to the National Catholic Register.