Canon Law: The Roman Catholic Church is the only and exclusive divine agency of spiritual welfare and of salvation. As such, the church by divine institution is a perfect society, autonomous and self-sufficient, endowed with sovereign, legislative, judicial, and coercive powers in spiritual and moral matters and in all temporal matters connected directly or indirectly with its spiritual and moral mission (Canons 100, 1322, 1553, 2214). Since the sphere of spiritual and moral life is higher than that of temporal affairs, canon law is above civil law and in cases of conflict should prevail over it.