Australian Archbishop Anthony Randazzo has said canon law must remain grounded in the Gospel and serve the church’s communion and mission, in his first interview since taking up leadership of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts.
Speaking to the online canon law journal Vox Canonica, Archbishop Randazzo said the challenges facing the church could not be approached as though the present age were uniquely complex. Christ must remain the church’s enduring point of reference, he said, because “the law is always at the service of the Gospel.”
Pope Leo XIV appointed the former Bishop of Broken Bay prefect of the dicastery on 25 March, conferring on him the personal title of archbishop. The dicastery assists the pope in his legislative authority and works to ensure church laws are correctly interpreted and applied.
Archbishop Randazzo said he preferred to speak of “regeneration” rather than reform – a return to the origins of Christian identity and mission. Canon law did not stand apart from divine revelation, but helped safeguard and foster the communion of faith received from the apostles.
He said synodality and accompaniment were not new realities, even if the vocabulary surrounding them was contemporary. The Latin and Eastern codes already gave juridical expression to communion, participation and mission, including the equal dignity of the baptised and the right of the faithful to contribute to the church’s discernment.
The archbishop also rejected any opposition between sound pastoral care and the correct application of canon law. Applying the law properly was itself pastoral, he said, when undertaken with fidelity to the Gospel, concern for justice and respect for every person’s dignity.
Recalling his own vocation as a canonist, Archbishop Randazzo said he had enjoyed canon law during his seminary studies, building on an earlier love of ecclesiology and church history. Six years after ordination, his archbishop sent him to study at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, although his own preference had been to continue parish ministry.
There, studying alongside 108 lay, religious and ordained students from around the world, he came to see canon law as more than rules and procedures. Its purpose was to foster communion, protect justice and enable the church to proclaim the Gospel.
He also revealed the extraordinary circumstances surrounding his appointment. While travelling from Australia to Rome, he was evacuated from Dubai airport after a missile exploded in the terminal and remained in the city for five days. During that delay, he learnt Pope Leo wished to speak with him.
Once in Rome, the pope invited him to lead the dicastery. Archbishop Randazzo said he remained deeply humbled by the appointment and conscious that it was a call to serve the church rather than a personal distinction.
