Fundamental Rights of the Faithful Connected with Participation in the Governance of Temporal Goods

Abstract

Beyond the right and duty of the faithful to assist with the needs of the Church (can. 222 § 1), which is not to be confined to the context of public juridical persons, one should examine a set of fundamental rights of the faithful directly related to the conditio activa in matters of governance of temporal goods: rights to make known the needs and the wishes, opinion and expression, advice and election. Curiously, the fundamental right of information, which also in the patrimonial realm is ever more relevant in a global and technological world, has not yet been formalized by Canon Law.