Auguste Boudinhon

“ In practice the different degrees of jurisdiction, as represented in the pope, are of no importance: he is bishop of Rome and governs his diocese by direct episcopal authority; he is also the head of the Church, and in this capacity governs all the dioceses, though the regular authority of each bishop in his own diocese is also ordinary and immediate, i.e. he is not a mere vicar of the pope.
But the mode of exercise of a power and its intensity are subject to variation, while the power remains essentially the same. ”

“ We decree that when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is to say, when, in his capacity as Pastor and Doctor of all Christians he defines, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, a certain doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he enjoys, by the divine assistance promised to him in the Blessed Peter, that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer has thought good to endow His Church in order to define its doctrine in matters of faith and morals ”

“ The cardinals constitute the council or senate of the sovereign pontiff, his auxiliaries in the general government of the Church; it is they who act as administrators of the Church during a vacancy of the Holy See and elect the new pope. Together they constitute a spiritual body called the Sacred College. The dignity of cardinal is not an essential part of the legal constitution of the Church; it is a reflection of and participation in the sovereign dignity of the Head of the Church, by the chief clergy of the Church of Rome. ”

“ In modern Protestantism, on the other hand, the idea of an infallible authority whether in the Church or the Bible has tended to disappear, religious truths being conceived as valuable only as they are apprehended and made real to the individual mind and soul by the grace of God, not by reason of any submission to an external authority. ”

“ Since concordats are contracts they give rise to that special mutual obligation which results from every agreement freely entered into; for a contract is binding on both parties to it. Concordats are undoubtedly conventions of a particular nature. They may make certain concessions or privileges once given without any corresponding obligation; they constitute for a given country a special ecclesiastical law; and it is thus that writers have sometimes spoken of concordats as privileges. ”

“ The pope on his side grants the temporal sovereign certain rights, such as that of making or controlling the appointment of dignitaries; engages to proceed in harmony with the government in the creation of dioceses or parishes; and regularizes the situation produced by the usurpation of church property &c. The great advantage of concordats—indeed their principal utility—consists in transforming necessarily unequal unilateral claims into contractual obligations analogous to those which result from an international convention. ”

“ At the death of the pope, the cardinals Laws
made by
Gregory X. who were present are to await their absent colleagues for ten days; they are then to meet in one of the papal palaces in a closed conclave; none of them is to have to wait on him more than one servant, or two at most if he were ill; in the conclave they are to lead a life in common, not even having separate cells; they are to have no communication with the outer world, under pain of excommunication for any who should attempt to communicate with them ”

“ Men of illegitimate birth are excluded, as well as near relatives of the pope (with one exception) and of the cardinals; the personal qualities to be most sought for are learning, holiness and an honourable life. All these recommendations have been, on the whole, well observed, and are so better than ever in the present day. We may add that the religious orders have had a certain number of representatives, four, at least, in the Sacred College, since Sixtus V., several of whom, as we know, became popes. ”

“ It is practically only bulls of canonization which are signed by the pope and all the cardinals present in Rome; the signature of the pope is then “ (Pius) Episcopus Ecclesiae catholicae,” while his ordinary signature bears only his name and number, “Pius PP. X.” Ordinary bulls are signed by several officials of the chancery, and a certain number only by the cardinal at its head, who until 1908 was styled vice-chancellor, because the chancellor used formerly to be a prelate, not a cardinal; but since the constitution Sapienti has been entitled chancellor. ”

“ Cardinals can pass from one order, title or see to another, by a process of “option.” When a suburbicarian see falls vacant, the cardinals resident at Rome have the right of “opting” for it in order of rank,—that is to say, of claiming it in consistory and receiving their promotion to it. In the same way cardinal deacons can pass after ten years to the order of priests, while retaining after their passage the rank in the Sacred College given them by the date of their promotion. ”

“ A limited electoral body lends itself to more minute legislation than a larger body; the college for electing the pope, thus reduced so as to consist in practice of the cardinals only, was subjected as time went on to laws of increasing severity. Two points of great importance were established by Alexander III. at the Lateran Council of 1179. The constitution Licet de vitanda discordia makes all the cardinals equally electors, and no longer mentions the lower clergy or the people; it also requires a majority of two-thirds of the votes to decide an election. ”

“ We cannot say precisely at what time during the 16th century this transformation of the practice into a right, tacitly accepted by the Sacred College, took place; it was doubtless felt to be less dangerous formally to recognize the right of the three sovereigns each to object to one candidate, than to face the inconvenience of objections, such as were formulated on several occasions by Philip II., which, though less legal in form, might apply to an indefinite number of candidates. ”

“ In the Western Church the episcopal consistory was simply the bishops’ tribunal, the proceedings of which took a more or less strictly judicial form. But the name has disappeared almost everywhere; the only episcopal consistories outside England (see Consistory Courts) which survive are in Austria and in certain dioceses of Bavaria and Germany (see Vering, Kirchenrecht, § 149) . Thus the name consistory has come to be applied almost exclusively to meetings of the college of cardinals with the pope as president, formerly for deliberative purposes, but nowadays purely formal. ”

“ Certain concordats deal with the orders and congregations of monks and nuns with a view to subjecting them to a certain control while securing to them the legal exercise of their activities. Ecclesiastical immunities, such as reservation of the criminal cases of the clergy, exemption from military service and other privileges, are expressly maintained in a certain number of pacts. One of the most important subjects is that of church property. ”

“ The word in the sense of a list or catalogue is used of a collection of eighty condemned propositions, addressed by order of Pius IX. to all the Catholic episcopate, under the date of the 8th of December 1864. The official title is: “A collection (syllabus) containing the principal errors of our times as noted in the Allocutions, Encyclicals and other Apostolic Letters of our Holy Father Pope Pius IX.” This collection has a rather curious history. ”

“ Each vote is immediately counted by three scrutators, appointed in rotation, the most minute precautions being taken to ensure that the voting shall be secret and sincere. When one cardinal has at last obtained two-thirds of the votes, the dean of the cardinals formally asks him whether he accepts his election, and what name he wishes to assume. ”

“ Nowadays, the Sacred College is still composed of three orders or categories: cardinal bishops, cardinal priests, and cardinal deacons. But the process of evolution has not been the same in the case of all these orders.
Cardinal bishops are the bishops of suburbicarian churches, situated in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. Very early we find them assisting the pope in his ritual functions and in dealing with important business ”

“ In reality it was Gallicanism alone which was condemned at the Vatican Council, and it is Gallicanism which is aimed at in the last phrase of the definition we have quoted.
(d) Infallibility is the guarantee against error, not in all matters, but only in the matter of dogma and morality; everything else is beyond its power, not only truths of another order, but even discipline and the ecclesiastical laws, government and administration, &c.
(e) Again, not all dogmatic teachings of the pope are under the guarantee of infallibility ”

“ An agreement is come to as to the conditions on which pious foundations are able to be made; the measure in which church property shall contribute to the public expenses is indicated; and, in the 19th century, the position of those who have acquired confiscated church property is regularized. In exchange for this surrender by the church of its ancient property the state engages to contribute to the subsistence of the ministers of public worship, or at least of certain of them.
Scholars agree in associating the earliest concordats with the celebrated contest about investitures (q.v.) ”

“ Already, at the Vatican Council, several bishops had submitted requests for a reform of the Index, but the Council was not able to deal with the question. The reform was accomplished by Leo XIII., who, on the 25th of January 1897, published the constitution Officiorum, in 49 articles. In this constitution, although the writings of heretics in support of heresy are condemned as before (No. 1) , those of their books which contain nothing against Catholic doctrine or which treat other subjects are permitted (Nos. 2-3) . Editions of the text of the Scriptures are permitted for purposes of study ”

“ The Visitation is the personal inspection of institutions, churches, religious establishments and their personnel, to correct abuses and enforce the observation of rules. Through this The Visitation. Congregation the pope, as bishop of Rome, made the inspection of his diocese; it is for this reason that he was president of this commission, the most important member of which was the cardinal vicar. He takes the place of the pope in the administration of the diocese of Rome; he has his own offices and diocesan assistants as in other bishoprics. ”

“ With the exception of the classes resulting from the order to which they belong, there are no distinctions between the rights of the various cardinals. As to the ordination obligatory upon them, it is that indicated in their title; cardinal bishops must naturally be bishops; for cardinal priests it is enough to have received the priesthood, though many of them are actually bishops; similarly, it is enough for cardinal deacons to have received the diaconate, though most of them are priests ”

“ Under the jurisdiction of the Rota, in addition to cases of first instance submitted to it by the pope, are such judgments of episcopal courts as are strictly speaking subject to appeal; for petitions against non-judicial decisions are referred to the Congregations. Appeal is sometimes allowed from one “turn” to another; if the second sentence of the Rota confirms the first, it is definitive; if not, a third may be obtained.
(3) The supreme tribunal of the papal Signatura (Signatura Apostolica) . ”

“ In the middle ages, when the cardinals were few in number, consistories were held very often. Thus the Gesta of Innocent III. tell us that this great pope “held publicly, three times a week, according to the usage then established, a solemn consistory; in it he heard complaints from all men, and examined in person even affairs of the least importance with a prudence and perspicacity which were the admiration of all.” Later we have recorded only one consistory a week ”

“ The latter are actually the Apostolic Letters, i.e. those documents in which the pope speaks in his own name (bulls, briefs, encyclicals, &c.) even when he does not sign them, as we shall see. The Apostolic Letters alone may be ex cathedra documents, and may have the privilege of infallibility, if the matter admit of it. There are also certain differences between the two sorts of documents with regard to their penal consequences. But in all cases the disciplinary authority is evidently the same; we need only note that acts concerning individuals do not claim the force of general law ”

“ These groups upheld or opposed certain candidates. The Catholic courts naturally entrusted the cardinals “of the crown,” i.e. those of their nation, with the mission of removing, as far as lay in their power, candidates who were distasteful to their party; the various governments could even make public their desire to exclude certain candidates. But they soon claimed an actual right of formal and direct exclusion, which should be notified in the conclave in their name by a cardinal charged with this mission, and should have a decisive effect ”

“ The foregoing statements must not be taken to mean that concordats are in their nature perpetual, and that they cannot be broken or denounced. They have the perpetuity of conventions which contain no time limitation; but, like every human convention, they can be denounced, in the form in use for international treaties, and for good reasons, which are summed up in the exigencies of the general good of the country. ”

“ In 1557, and again in 1559, Pope Paul IV., through the Inquisition at Rome, published what may be regarded as the first Roman Index in the modern ecclesiastical use of that term (Index auctorum et librorum qui tanquam haeretici aut suspecti aut perversi ab Officio S. R. Inquisitionis reprobantur et in universa Christiana republica interdicuntur) . ”