In the twelfth century, a university scholar in Bologna named Gratian was commissioned by the Pope to collect all of the legal documents that had been created since the beginning days of an organized church. The collection was known as the Concordia discordantium canonum or Gratian’s Decretum, and was used throughout Europe by officials of the Church as an official legal resource.
At the time of the First Vatican Council, the leaders of the church decided that the law needed to be consolidated into one codified system. Cardinal Gasparri led the project, and the official Code of Canon Law was promulgated, or approved by the Roman Pontiff, in 1917. During the twentieth century, the church had undergone great theological growth, especially as a result of Vatican Council II. It was decided that the law had to integrate the sense of spiritual renewal as well and after years of revisions, Pope John Paul II promulgated the revised Code of Canon Law on January 27, 1983. This is the same code that is used to this very day.
The code is divided into seven books: General Norms, People of God, Teaching Office, Sanctifying Function of the Church, Temporal Goods, Sanctions, and Procedures. There are 1,752 canons in the Code.
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