Chapter VII. Special Duties of Bishops

THE duties of bishops of the Catholic Church are treated of at length in canon law; here we will touch upon the chief of them in so far as they affect conscience.

In order to be able to fulfil his various duties a bishop must habitually reside within the limits of his diocese.

It is a disputed point among theologians whether this obligation is derived immediately from the divine law or from the positive law of the Church. We may say that at least remotely and in substance it belongs to the divine law, for in detail it is determined by the positive law of the Church. The bishop need not always live in the episcopal city, but he should be there to pontificate in the cathedral on the more solemn festivals of the year. Notwithstanding the obligation of residence the Code of Canon Law allows a bishop to absent himself from his diocese for good cause for a period of two or three months every year provided that he can do so without injury to his flock. His own conscience must decide what cause is sufficient to justify his absence. Besides these two or three months a bishop may further absent himself if Christian charity, urgent necessity, due obedience, or the evident advantage of Church or State require it. But besides these reasons, in countries subject to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, the leave of the Sacred Congregation is also required for longer absence than the two or three months mentioned above.

At stated times bishops are bound to visit their dioceses in order to promote sound religious teaching and to correct errors in doctrine, to protect the good and punish the wicked, and to exhort the people to lead religious, peaceful, and good lives.¹ They are specially bound to watch over the morals and discipline of the clergy, and that there may be a constant supply of zealous priests for the needs of the diocese they should have a seminary for the education of those whom God calls to the clerical state. By the authority of the Holy See several dioceses may have a seminary in common if they are too small and poor to support a separate one for themselves. The care of sound Christian doctrine is specially entrusted to bishops, and in the exercise of this charge they may visit public and private institutions, except such as are exempted from their jurisdiction, and they may condemn bad books not only by their ordinary authority, but as delegates of the Holy See in this important matter, They are bound at times to preach the word of God; every Sunday and day of obligation, even on the feast days that have been suppressed, they are bound to offer up Mass for the people committed to their charge; they should hold a diocesan synod every ten years, and make their visit ad limina at the fixed times, in order to render an account of the state of their dioceses to the Holy See.

¹ Can. 343