Proceedings of the 86th Annual Convention: Albuquerque, NM October 14-17, 2024

The Canon Law Society of America is pleased to publish these Proceedings of the Eighty-Sixth Annual Convention. This year’s convention was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from October 14 through 17, 2024. The theme for the convention was “Role of Law in the Life of the Church: Is It Relevant Now?”The events of the 2024 convention are recorded here in these CLSA Proceedings, and they join eighty-five years of previous publications from our annual in-person gatherings. We are happy to announce that during the past year, the society partnered with HeinOnline to make our archive of CLSA Proceedings available through HeinOnline’s online library database. By allowing digital cataloging and publication of CLSA Proceedings, the society has arranged for its members to have access to HeinOnline’s database known as “Religion and the Law,” which provides a research platform for the development, history, organization, and fundamental principles of various world religions.We are grateful to all of the convention presenters who carefully delivered their presentations, all of whom submitted their written texts for this publication. Their contributions have been edited in conformity with the most recent CLSA style and publication guidelines and with previous editions of CLSA Proceedings. Our annual business meeting was held on Wednesday, October 16, 2025, and the minutes from that meeting are included herein with the varia.We are grateful to all of those who stood for election, and we congratulate and look forward to working with all those who were elected to serve the Society. We were very happy to welcome more than 400 attendees again this year to the three-day convention. A list of participants is included at the end of this volume.Special thanks go to Ms. Kathleen Butler (General Secretary) and Mr. Mark Francisco (Membership Coordinator) for their indispensable help in preparing this volume of CLSA Proceedings for publication, particularly for their keen eyes in editing and their collective knowledge of the publication process.The CLSA, established as a professional association on November 12, 1939, presently has more than 1200 members who serve the People of God in more than thirty countries. Interested persons may apply for membership via the CLSA website (clsa.org) or by contacting the administrative office. We offer Active, Associate, and Student memberships to qualified persons. Read more