Prof. Dr. Judith Hahn
Investigator
Faculty of Catholic Theology
Seminar of Canon Law
Rabinstraße 8
D-53111 Bonn
Phone: + 49 228 73 7501
judith.hahn@uni-bonn.de
Academic Profile
Catholic canon law claims “universal” validity for all Catholic churches. A continental European system with roots in ancient Roman law, it is imposed on local churches on all continents, regardless of their cultural specificities: on churches in urban and rural areas, in high-income and developing countries, in civil law and common law traditions. Canon law thus creates SADs between the Roman center of Catholicism and the local churches. It subordinates the local churches to the authority of the pope and his curia, where necessary through coercion, thus risking deep conflicts within the receiving legal cultures. These colonial practices, however, meet with resistance. In many local churches, the imposition of foreign legal concepts has led to the formation of opposition, using subversive mechanisms to challenge the law.
The project extends the PI’s theoretical studies of conflicts between legal cultures prompted by colonizing legal practices, by empirically examining the SADs between global and local legal agents. In expert interviews, legal practitioners from Asia, Australasia, the Americas and Europe reveal how they assess the Vatican’s influence on local practices, how they respond to experiences of SAD and what strategies they use to deal with the coercive mechanisms of the law. The project thus examines the relationship between legal coercion and the loss of cultural belonging in local churches, the effects of coercion and strategies for dealing with it. By collecting narratives of coercion and counter-coercion, the colonialist mechanisms of canon law become visible for the first time through the voices of those who mediate between Roman commands and local demands. The project thus draws particular attention to law as an archive that tends to silence the voices of certain groups, such as the dependent local agents.
2008
PhD in Canon Law, University of Münster, Germany
2002–2004
JCL (Juris Canonici Licentiatus), University of Münster, Germany
1999–2000
Year abroad, Heythrop College, London, UK
1999
Bac phil, PTH Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
1997–2002
Diploma in Catholic Theology, PTH Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
since 2022
Professor of Canon Law, University of Bonn, Germany
2016
Habilitation/Venia legendi in Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Legal History, Faculty of Catholic
Theology, University of Münster, Germany
2015–2022
Professor of Canon Law, Faculty of Catholic Theology, University of Bochum, Germany
2010–2015
Junior Professor of Canon Law, Faculty of Catholic Theology, University of Bochum, Germany
2006–2010
Research Associate, Institute of Canon Law (IKR), Universities of Münster and Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany
- Theory of Canon Law
- Sociology of Canon Law
- Law, State, and Society
since 2022
International Center for Comparative Theology and Social Issues (CTSI), Bonn
since 2022
Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand (CLSANZ)
since 2020
Ecclesiastical Law Society (ELS)
since 2020
Canon Law Society of America (CLSA)
2020–2023
Editorial Board Studies in Global Catholicism (BSCT), Brill, eds Massimo Faggioli and Bryan T. Froehle
2019–2023
Beraterstab | Board of Consultants, Canon Law Centre, Thomas More Law School, Australian Catholic University
2014–2017
Beraterstab des Bischofs von Essen zur Prüfung von Vorwürfen sexualisierter Gewalt | The Bishop of Essen's Board of Consultants for the Examination of Sexual Abuse Charges
since 2013
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kirchenrecht (DGfKR)
since 2010
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Kirchenrecht
2010–2016
Forum Kirchenrecht
since 2005
AGENDA Forum katholischer Theologinnen e. V.
- 2024. "The Language Games of Canon Law: Strategic Ambiguity between Law and Religion." In Oxford Journal of Law and Religion rwae004: 1–16.
- 2024. "The Sacraments of the Law: Finding Common Ground of Law and Religion." In Oxford Journal of Law and Religion rwae006: 1–18.
- 2023. The Sacraments of the Law and the Law of the Sacraments. Cambridge University Press.
- 2023. The Language of Canon Law, Oxford Studies in Language and Law. Oxford University Press.
- 2022. Foundations of a Sociology of Canon Law. Springer Nature.
- 2021. "Guilt, Innocence, and Remaining Doubts: Some Considerations on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Three-Verdict System of Deciding Cases of Sexual Abuse." In Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 10(1): 91–115.
- 2021. "Invalid Baptismal Formulas: A Critical View on a Current Catholic Concern." In Ecclesiastical Law Journal 23: 19–33.
- 2019. Church Law in Modernity, Cambridge Law and Christianity. Cambridge University Press.
- 2019. "Moral Certitude." In Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 8: 300–325.
- 2018. "Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde's Approach to Natural Law as Normative Legal Ethics." In Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 7: 28–50.