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Teleros's avatar

"In Anglo-Saxon thinking, if you now have a rule you need 72 Cardinals under age 80 to vote in a Pope, and you only have 71 left, or, as is the case now, none, then “AW MAH GAWD!” it means a Pope can never be elected again and the Church has defected because the office of the Papacy has no hope of ever being filled again."

I'm not sure that's "Anglo-Saxon" thinking so much as just what passes for thinking amongst the retarded. Or possibly public pronouncements by, ah, insular people trained for many generations in a certain form of sophistry. Mind you, I'm commenting on all this from a British perspective; I cannot speak for those labouring under the US system.

Under the common law, case law arises only when there's no existing law to cover this situation, but is expected to be in harmony with existing laws & cases. It may not be, but that criticism can be applied to the Roman system too, and like Roman law, bad precedents can be overturned. Case law is also subordinate to any statutes.

Somewhat related, the importance attached to precedent means a *sensible* Englishman (I'm assured they do still exist) will, upon being confronted with the lack of 72 Cardinals (or w/e) look to past decisions. If Popes were elected without 72 Cardinals under 80 blah blah blah... well guess what he'll be basing his decision on. Granted, because of the rather different emphasis in the common law over Roman law (below), he might try to rule as close to the current system as he can to avoid disruptions.

From what I understand, Roman law cares more about correctness, whereas the common law cares more about continuity of government. A judge trained under the Roman system will be much more willing to toss out bad prior judgements, but a common law judge will be much less inclined to, on the basis that it's better to operate under a predictable but imperfect system than a a more predictable but more perfect one. I think a lot of the difference in certain national characters can be seen in these two approaches.

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Sergio Christodoulos's avatar

Just return to Holy Orthodoxy. After all its clear its Protestant Germanics and Anglo-Saxons who actually follow your conception of Roman Law by throwing out any canon law they please, including Nicea. And that's where your conception will take you. Abandon that silly conception and submit to the true church, the Holy Orthodox Church!

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