Apostolic Constitution Concerning the Suburbicarian Dioceses

To n. 203.

"Among the acts indeed last in time, but first in weight and usefulness, of Pius X, Supreme Pontiff of most holy memory, one is that which is contained in the Motu Proprio Edita a Nobis of May 5, 1914, concerning the Suburbicarian Dioceses. For a long time that complaint, certainly grave, had been common: that the governance of these dioceses, excepting Velletri and Ostia, was altogether unstable and as it were precarious. For the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, obtaining one of them by right of option, since they could always, after dismissing that one, choose another for themselves, it often happened that they had already changed several sees before they arrived at the place of Dean...

...of Dean. How many inconveniences and detriments this frequent change of sees would bring to the care of souls, the Pontiff, according to his vigilance, well observed, and determined to meet the matter directly. Therefore, by that Motu Proprio which we have mentioned, it is sanctioned: "that whatever See each Cardinal Bishop obtained at the beginning, he remain in it even when he has reached the rank of Dean; for then he will join his own diocese with Ostia. Wherefore, the perpetual conjunction of the diocese of Velletri and of Ostia having been dissolved, to which indeed it will happen that it is joined with one or another diocese in the person of the Cardinal Dean, these will be the Suburbicarian sees: Porto and Santa Rufina, Albano, Palestrina, Sabina, Frascati, Velletri." These things Our Predecessor most wisely established.

Now, with the stability of the Cardinal Bishops in each one's own see having been established, and with a law enacted that he who has become Dean does not dismiss the diocese which he holds when assuming Ostia, you would rightly say that sufficient provision has been made for the governance of those dioceses, and that, the cause of the inconvenient condition of things having been removed, the necessity no longer presses so urgently of assigning to the individual dioceses suffragan Bishops who, in the name of the Cardinals, would govern them; concerning which suffragans the same Pius X had decreed four years earlier in the Apostolic Constitution Romanorum Pontificum of April 15, 1910.

There is added that the Suburbicarian Dioceses have such smallness of territory and nearness to the City, and now especially such ease of travel, that each Cardinal residing in the City, although occupied, seems able rightly to govern by himself whichever of them he has received to be governed perpetually. But if it should happen to someone, from health, or from age, or from another cause, that he needs a helper for rightly discharging the office of bishop, it will always be easy for him to seek and obtain this helper or suffragan from the Apostolic See.

Therefore, since Our Predecessor, by the Motu Proprio Edita a Nobis, in that part in which we have brought forward its prescriptions, withdrew the foundation, as it were, from the Apostolic Constitution, and since other reasons also of no light moment have been added to this, We, after employing as counsel several Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, declaring that Constitution abrogated, release the suburbicarian Cardinal Bishops from the office and burden of choosing suffragans, by which they were bound according to the prescriptions of that same Constitution.

Likewise, whatever was established by the mentioned Motu Proprio concerning annual payments which had to be supplied to the individual suffragans, and concerning all the goods of the suburbicarian churches to be administered jointly by the Office of Spoils at the sacred council of the Propagation of the Faith, these also, as it is fitting that they be abolished, so We declare abolished. But let that be sacred and inviolable which in that same Motu Proprio We said was established by Pius X with singular wisdom: that whatever see each Cardinal Bishop accepted at the beginning, he never change it; and that the Dean, besides that one, assume also Ostia. Finally, each Cardinal Bishop will administer, as before, all the revenues and goods of each of those same churches. Nevertheless We will that every year they take care to render an account of their administration to the economic Office of Spoils, which was spoken of above..." February 1, 1915; Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. 7, p. 229 ff.