Another Weekend at the Castle

The canon law department took off again for the hills of southern Belgium for a concentrated weekend. Believe me it was intense. Accoring to the original schedule one session was supposed to go from 9:30pm to 11:00pm. Yes, that's pm. Thankfully one speaker didn't make it, so they moved that session into the open time slot. The subject was penalties - so it was a little intense from that point of view as well. We also had a guy from the Dutch Reform Church in South Africa who talked about how they handled the issue in their church. They have about 20 pages of 'Church Order' that describes the whole organization.
Another benefit of the program is it kept me off my knee for several days (and off my bike) which seems to have had good effect. I think it is well on the way to healing - I went for PT again yesterday.

My thesis topic has been approved - rights of members of religious institutes, Canons 662-672. Do you think that will make me popular with the new leadership team? Actually I'm looking at what is in the code, but also at sources - i.e. what Vatican II said, and what was left out from the former code. It should be interesting. And from my preliminary reading, the best thing about the current code of canon law is all that they left out from the last code.

I made initial contact with a Sister of St. Joseph in Brussels - hopefully we'll connect in the next few weeks. There are other CSJs there, but I haven't heard back from them yet. I got the contact information from the sisters at Le Puy. Maybe I'll give it another try this weekend.

Today is my big class day (6 hours), so I take it a little easy in the morning. I think folks have heard that Henry is home - he and Julie are adjusting to life. Also, my nephew Graham continues to have health problems - he just had surgery to relieve pressure on the brain. So please keep him in your prayers.

Peace,
Amy