Morals of the Church
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Article — Sabetti-Barrett, Compendium of Moral Theology

Article III. On the Offices of the Roman Curia

¶1.

§ 1. To the Apostolic Chancery, over which presides the Cardinal Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, this proper duty belongs: to expedite apostolic letters or bulls for the provision of consistorial benefices and offices, for the institution of new provinces, dioceses, and chapters, and for the carrying out of other greater affairs of the Church.

§ 2. These letters or bulls are not to be expedited except by mandate of the Consistorial Congregation concerning affairs pertaining to its competence, or by mandate of the Supreme Pontiff concerning other affairs, with the limits of the mandate itself observed in individual cases (Can. 260).

To the Apostolic Dataria, which is moderated by the Cardinal Datary of the Holy Roman Church, it is committed to take cognizance of the suitability of those to be promoted to non-consistorial benefices reserved to the Apostolic See; to draw up and expedite apostolic letters for their collation; to exempt, in conferring a benefice, from the required conditions, as often as its collation does not pertain to the Ordinary; and to take care of the pensions and burdens which the Supreme Pontiff shall have imposed in conferring the aforesaid benefices (Can. 261).

To the Apostolic Camera, over which presides the Cardinal Camerarius of the Holy Roman Church, belongs the care and administration of the temporal goods and rights of the Holy See, especially at the time when it is held vacant; and then the norms established in the constitution of Pius X Vacante Sede Apostolica, 25 Dec., 1904, are to be observed with exactness (Can. 262).

The Office of the Secretariat of State, whose moderator is the Cardinal Secretary of State, consists of three parts in this order:

1st. The first part, over which presides the Secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, is occupied with affairs which must be subjected to the same Congregation for examination, according to the norm of can. 255, the rest being remitted, according to their diverse nature, to particular Congregations;

2nd. The second part, over which the Substitute presides, applies itself to ordinary affairs;

3rd. The third part is directed by the Chancellor of Apostolic Briefs, who is devoted to the expedition of Briefs (Can. 263).

To the Secretariats of Briefs to Princes and of Latin Letters belongs the duty of writing in Latin the acts of the Supreme Pontiff committed to them by the same (Can. 264).

The Council or Commission for authentically interpreting the canons of the Code was instituted by the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XV, by Motu proprio Cum juris, on the fifteenth day of the month of September in the year 1917.

  1. To this Commission alone will belong the right of authentically interpreting the canons of the Code, yet with that Sacred Congregation heard in matters of greater moment whose proper affair it is. It consists of some Cardinals, one of whom presides over the assembly; to these there will be added an approved man who will be Actuary of the Sacred Council, and Consultors from both clergies; the Council will have the right of interrogating the Consultors of the Sacred Congregations, each according to his own matter.

  2. Let the Sacred Roman Congregations from now on not make new General Decrees, unless grave necessity persuades otherwise. Therefore their ordinary duty will be both to take care that the prescripts of the Code be religiously observed, and to issue Instructions which bring greater light to the same precepts and produce efficacy. These documents are to be composed so that they are and appear as certain explanations and complements of the canons.

  3. When the good of the universal Church will demand that a new decree be established by some Congregation, let that Congregation establish the decree; but if it disagrees with the prescripts of the Code, let it warn the Supreme Pontiff concerning the discrepancy. The Congregation is to refer the decree approved by the Supreme Pontiff to the Council, whose role it will be to draw up a canon according to the sentence of the Decree. If the Decree disagrees with a prescript of the Code, let the Council indicate for which law of the Code the new law is to be substituted; if the matter concerns a thing about which the Code is silent, let the Council establish in what place the new canon is to be inserted, with the number of the canon which immediately precedes repeated twice, three times, etc., lest any canon be moved from its place or the series of numbers be disturbed. All these things, after the Decree of the Sacred Congregation, are to be reported in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Church. To it are reserved all affairs of whatever kind which are referred either to the persons, or to the discipline, or to the rites of the Oriental Churches, even if they are mixed, that is, which by reason either of the matter or of the persons also touch Latins. The Supreme Pontiff presides over it; he created it by Motu proprio Dei providentis on the 1st day of the month of May, in the year 1917.

Cf. Ferreres, Razon y Fe, t. 491; La Civilta Cattolica, an. 1917, 1918; Boudinhon, Revue du Clerge Francais, t. 92; The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 1917, 1918; The Irish Theological Quarterly, 1917, 1918. - The American Ecclesiastical Review, 1917, 1918; Papi, Religious Profession - Marc, Institutiones Morales, Ed. 15, Supplement, 1917.

The Roman Curia