Chapter III: Of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church

The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church constitute the Senate of the Roman Pontiff, and assist him in governing the Church as his principal counselors and helpers.

§ 1. The Sacred College is divided into three orders: the episcopal, to which alone belong the six Cardinals set over the suburbicarian dioceses; the presbyteral, which consists of fifty Cardinals; and the diaconal, which consists of fourteen.

§ 2. To Cardinals of the presbyteral and diaconal orders there is assigned to each his own title or diaconia in the City by the Roman Pontiff.

§ 1. Cardinals are freely chosen by the Roman Pontiff from the whole world, men at least constituted in the order of the presbyterate, outstanding in doctrine, piety, and prudence in conducting affairs.

§ 2. The following are kept from the dignity of the cardinalate:

1° Illegitimates, even if they have been legitimated by subsequent marriage; likewise other irregulars or those impeded from sacred orders according to canonical sanctions, even if dispensation has been given to them by apostolic authority for orders and dignities, even episcopal dignity.

2° Those who have offspring, even received from a legitimate marriage, or a grandchild from that offspring.

3° Those who are joined in the first or second degree of consanguinity to any living Cardinal.

§ 1. Cardinals are created and published by the Roman Pontiff in Consistory, and thus created and published they obtain the right to the election of the Roman Pontiff and the privileges mentioned in can. 239.

§ 2. If, however, the Roman Pontiff has announced in Consistory the creation of someone while reserving the person's name to himself in pectore, the person so promoted meanwhile enjoys none of the rights or privileges of Cardinals; but after his name has been published by the Roman Pontiff, he enjoys them from publication, and the right of precedence from the reservation in pectore.

A promoted person absent from the Curia, when receiving the red biretta, must swear that within a year, unless he is detained by a legitimate impediment, he will approach the Supreme Pontiff.

Unless provision has been made otherwise by the Holy See in particular cases, by promotion to the sacred purple not only do all dignities, churches, and benefices which the promoted person possesses become vacant by the fact itself, but ecclesiastical pensions also are lost.

§ 1. By option made in Consistory and approved by the Supreme Pontiff, with priority of order and promotion observed, Cardinals from the presbyteral order can pass to another title, and Cardinals from the diaconal order to another diaconia and, if they have remained in the diaconal order for a full ten years, also to the presbyteral order.

§ 2. A Cardinal from the diaconal order, passing by option to the presbyteral order, obtains place before all those Cardinal priests who were assumed to the honor of the sacred purple after him.

§ 3. If a suburbicarian see is vacant, Cardinals from the presbyteral order who at the moment of vacancy were present in the Curia, or absent from it temporarily because of some business committed to them by the Roman Pontiff, can opt for it in Consistory, with priority of promotion observed.

§ 4. Cardinals to whom one of the suburbicarian churches has been assigned cannot opt for another; but when a Cardinal has reached the rank of Dean, he joins his own diocese with Ostia, which therefore is always joined with one or another suburbicarian diocese in the person of the Cardinal Dean.

§ 1. The Dean presides over the Sacred College of Cardinals, that is, the one older by promotion to some suburbicarian see; nevertheless he has no jurisdiction over the other Cardinals, but is held first among equals.

§ 2. When the deanery is vacant, by the law itself the Subdean succeeds, whether at the time of vacancy he is present in the Curia, or is staying in his own suburbicarian diocese, or is temporarily absent because of an office committed to him by the Roman Pontiff.

§ 1. Cardinals are bound by the obligation of residing in the Curia, and it is not lawful for them to depart from it without the permission of the Roman Pontiff, without prejudice to the prescription of Sec. 2 and Sec. 3 of this canon.

§ 2. This obligation also binds Cardinal Bishops of suburbicarian sees; but they do not need permission to go to the dioceses committed to them whenever they judge it opportune.

§ 3. Cardinals who are Bishops of a non-suburbicarian diocese are exempt from the law of residing in the Curia; but when they have come to the City, they are to approach the Supreme Pontiff, and they are not to depart from the City before they have obtained from him permission to leave.

§ 1. Besides other privileges which are enumerated under their own titles in this Code, all Cardinals from their promotion in Consistory enjoy the faculty:

1° Of hearing confessions everywhere in the world, even of religious of either sex, and of absolving from all sins and censures, even reserved ones, except only censures reserved to the Apostolic See in a most special manner and those attached to revelation of the secret of the Holy Office.

2° Of choosing for themselves and their households a priest for receiving confessions, who, if he lacks jurisdiction, obtains it by the law itself, even as regards sins and censures, also reserved ones, except only those censures mentioned in n. 1.

3° Of preaching the word of God everywhere.

4° Of celebrating, or permitting another to celebrate before them, one Mass on Thursday of major week and three Masses on the night of the Nativity of the Lord.

5° Of blessing everywhere, by the sign of the cross alone, with all the indulgences customarily granted by the Holy See, rosaries and other prayer chaplets, crosses, medals, statues, and scapulars approved by the Apostolic See, and of imposing them without the burden of inscription.

6° Of erecting, with one blessing, in churches and oratories even private ones and in other pious places, stations of the Way of the Cross with all indulgences which have been imparted to those performing this kind of pious exercise; and also of blessing, for the faithful who because of illness or another legitimate impediment cannot visit the sacred stations of the Way of the Cross, images of the Crucified with application of all indulgences attached by the Roman Pontiffs to the devout exercise of the same Way of the Cross.

7° Of celebrating upon a portable altar not only in the house of their own dwelling, but wherever they stay; and of permitting another Mass to be celebrated while they are present.

8° Of celebrating at sea, with due precautions employed.

9° Of celebrating Mass in all churches and oratories conforming to their own calendar.

10° Of enjoying a daily personal privileged altar.

11° Of gaining in their own chapels the indulgences for the acquisition of which the visitation of some church or public shrine of the city or place in which the Cardinals are actually staying is prescribed; their households also can enjoy this privilege.

12° Of blessing the people everywhere in the manner of Bishops; but in the City only in churches, pious places, and assemblies of the faithful.

13° Of wearing, in the manner of Bishops, the cross before the breast even over the mozzetta, and of using the miter and pastoral staff.

14° Of celebrating the sacred rite in any private chapel without prejudice to one who enjoys an indult.

15° Of performing pontifical functions with throne and baldachin in all churches outside the City, after the Ordinary has been forewarned, if the church is cathedral.

16° Of enjoying the honors customarily accorded to local Ordinaries wherever they go.

17° Of making proof in the external forum when testifying concerning a pontifical oracle.

18° Of enjoying a chapel exempt from visitation by the Ordinary.

19° Of freely disposing of benefice revenues even by testament, without prejudice to the prescription of can. 1298.

20° Of performing consecrations and blessings of churches, altars, sacred furnishings, Abbots, or other similar things, except the consecration of sacred oils if the Cardinal lacks the episcopal character, everywhere, with the things to be observed being observed, the prescription of can. 1157 remaining firm.

21° Of preceding all Prelates, even Patriarchs, indeed even Pontifical Legates, unless the Legate is a Cardinal residing in his own territory; but a Cardinal Legate a latere precedes all others outside the City.

22° Of conferring first tonsure and minor orders, provided that the one to be promoted has dimissorial letters of his own Ordinary.

23° Of administering the sacrament of confirmation, the burden of inscription of the name of the confirmed person according to the norm of law remaining firm.

24° Of granting indulgences of two hundred days, even to be gained as often as performed, in places or institutes and for persons of their jurisdiction or protection; likewise in other places, but to be gained by those present only, each time.

§ 2. The Cardinal Dean enjoys the privilege of ordaining and consecrating the elected Pontiff, if he needs ordination or episcopal consecration, and then he uses the pallium; this privilege, in the absence of the Cardinal Dean, belongs to the Subdean, and when he also is absent, to the older Cardinal Bishop of a suburbicarian see.

§ 3. Finally, the Cardinal Protodeacon imposes the pallia, in place of the Roman Pontiff, on Archbishops and Bishops enjoying the privilege, or on their procurators; and he announces the name of the newly elected Pontiff to the people.

§ 1. A Cardinal promoted to a suburbicarian see and canonically placed in possession of it is the true Bishop of his diocese, and in it he possesses that power which residential Bishops obtain in their own diocese.

§ 2. The other Cardinals, in their titles or diaconias, after they have taken canonical possession of them, can do all things which local Ordinaries can do in their churches, except the order of trials and any jurisdiction over the faithful, but with the power saved in those things which pertain to discipline, correction of morals, and service of the church.

§ 3. With throne and baldachin, a Cardinal of the presbyteral order can perform pontifical functions in his own title, and a Cardinal of the diaconal order can assist pontifically in his own diaconia, and no one else can do this there without the Cardinal's consent; but in other churches of the City Cardinals cannot use throne and baldachin without the permission of the Roman Pontiff.

While the Apostolic See is vacant, the Sacred College of Cardinals and the Roman Curia have no other power than that which is defined in the constitution of Pius X Vacante Sede Apostolica, Dec. 25, 1904.