Expiatory Penalties in the New Legislation of the Latin Catholic Church sui iuris

This article presents one sub-area of the penal law of the Latin Catholic Church, amended in 2021 in a radical way: by replacing the entire existing Book 6 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law with a new text in 2021. Significant changes have been made, especially in the area of expiatory penalties. The first chapter gives a brief description of the four legislative texts regarding expiatory penalties since the beginning of the 20th century: the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the original 1983 version of the Code of Canon Law, the comprehensive draft of the amended 6th Book of the Code sent for comments in 2011, and the final amended text promulgated in 2021. The second chapter uses the method of comparison to show the legislative development of the individual expiatory penalties currently in force. The third and fourth chapters present the penalties that were not taken over from the earlier normative regulations into the amendment of 2021: due to the vastness of the matter in the third chapter, the penalties not taken over from the 1917 Code of Canon Law, and in the fourth chapter the penalties not taken over from the original text of the 1983 Code of Canon Law and the 2011 comprehensive draft. The author also provides the theological context of some of the new legal regulations.