The paper focuses on reception processes of a canonical rule as a mean of integrating the faithful community's consensus in a legal system centred on the normativity of truth, as mediated by the legitimate authority. In particular, it aims at exploring the way socio-cultural transformations, such as the progressive democratisation of decisional processes in contemporary societies and the increasing ethical pluralism, are reflected in the positive or negative reception attitude of Catholic faithful towards canonical norms issued by ecclesiastical authorities, through the comparison between past and current examples of reception/non-reception of canonical rules.