 | This article incorporates unedited text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia . It may be out of date, or may reflect the point of view of the Catholic Church as of 1913.(June 2017) |
A college, in the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, is a collection (Latin : collegium) of persons united together for a common object so as to form one body. The members are consequently said to be incorporated, or to form a corporation. [1]
Colleges existed among the Romans and Greeks from the earliest times. The Roman laws required at least three persons for constituting a college. Legal incorporation was made, at least in some cases, by decrees of the Senate, edicts of the emperor, or by special laws. There were, however, general laws under which colleges could be formed by private persons, and if the authorities judged that the members had conformed to the letter and spirit of these laws, they had incontestable rights as collegia legitima; if the requisites were not adhered to they could be suppressed by administrative act. [1]
The colleges could hold property in common and could sue and be sued. In case of failure this common property could be seized, but that of the individual members was not liable to seizure. The Roman collegium was never instituted as a corporation sole; still, when reduced to one member, that individual succeeded to all the rights of the corporation and could employ its name. [1]
Colleges were formed among the ancient Romans for various purposes. Some of these had a religious object, as the college of the Arval Brothers, of the Augurs, etc.; others were for administrative purposes, as of quæstors or tribunes of the people; others again were trade unions or guilds, as the colleges of bakers or of carpenters. [1]
The early Roman Christians are said to have sometimes held church property during times of persecution under the title of collegium. [lower-alpha 1] [1]
Most of the prescriptions of the ancient civil law were received into the law of the Roman Catholic Church and they are incorporated in the Corpus Juris Canonici . By canonists, a college has been defined as a collection of several rational bodies forming one representative body. Some authors consider "university" and "community" as synonymous terms with college, but others insist that there are points of difference. Thus, there are canonists who define university as a collection of bodies distinct from one another, but employing the same name specially conferred upon them. Pirhing remarks that a community of priests attached to the same church do not form a college unless they are members of one body whose head is a prelate elected by that body. [1]
According to canon law three persons are required to form a college. Some authors maintained that two were sufficient for the purpose, because Pope Innocent, alluding to St. Matthew, xviii, 20, says that no presbyter is to be chosen for a church where two or three form the congregation, except by their canonical election. As congregation here evidently means college, these writers contend that two can therefore form a college. As a matter of fact, however, the pontiff is simply affirming that the right of election will remain with an already constituted college even though only two of its members remain after the death of the prelate. Pirhing gives as the reason why two cannot constitute a college, that though it be not necessary that the college actually have a head, yet it must be at least capable of giving itself a presiding officer, or rector of the college. If, then, there be only two members and one be constituted the head, the other can not form the body, for the body requires several members, and the head is distinct from the body. He does not mean to assert, however, that if a college be reduced to two members, it can not preserve its corporate rights. On the contrary, the canon law explicitly affirms that one surviving member can conserve the privileges of the corporate body, not for himself personally, but for the college. When a legally constituted college has been reduced to two members, one can elect the other as prelate. If the college be reduced to one member, it becomes a virtual, not an actual, corporation. The single remaining member can exercise the acts belonging to the college, and although he can not elect himself prelate, yet he can choose or nominate some other proper person to the prelacy. He may also commit the election to other persons, or even to one, as the bishop. [1]
The ancient canonists, when stating that three constitute a college, give also the numbers requisite for other canonical bodies, thus: five are necessary to form a university, two a congregation, more than two a family, and ten a parish. Among conspicuous ecclesiastical colleges may be mentioned the College of Cardinals and collegiate and cathedral chapters. The name college is specially applied also to corporate educational bodies within the Church, as without it. [1]
Before the Protestant Reformation, and even in the first years of Elizabeth I of England, the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge were always spoken of as ecclesiastical corporations. [1] By English law they are now purely lay corporations.
The title "Apostolic College" is applied in Rome to those institutions which are immediately subject to and controlled by the Holy See, and are consequently exempt from any other spiritual or temporal authority; the students are declared to be under the direct protection of the pope. Such institutions are, among others, the College of the Propaganda, and the Roman Colleges. [1]
The Society of Saint Pius X is a canonically irregular traditionalist Catholic fraternity of priests founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Lefebvre was a leading traditionalist at the Second Vatican Council with the Coetus Internationalis Patrum and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers until 1968. The society was initially established as a pious union of the Catholic Church with the permission of François Charrière, the Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg in Switzerland.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, a distinction is made between the internal forum, where an act of governance is made without publicity, and the external forum, where the act is public and verifiable. In canon law, internal forum, the realm of conscience, is contrasted with the external or outward forum; thus, a marriage might be null and void in the internal forum, but binding outwardly, i.e., in the external forum, for want of judicial proof to the contrary.
A benefice or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term beneficium as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by the Western Church in the Carolingian Era as a benefit bestowed by the crown or church officials. A benefice specifically from a church is called a precaria, such as a stipend, and one from a monarch or nobleman is usually called a fief. A benefice is distinct from an allod, in that an allod is property owned outright, not bestowed by a higher authority.
College of Bishops, also known as the Ordo of Bishops, is a term used in the Catholic Church to denote the collection of those bishops who are in communion with the Pope. Under Canon Law, a college is a collection of persons united together for a common object so as to form one body. The Bishop of Rome is the head of the college.
In the Roman Curia of the Catholic Church, a congregation is a type of department of the Curia. They are second-highest-ranking departments, ranking below the two Secretariats, and above the pontifical councils, pontifical commissions, tribunals and offices.
In the jurisprudence of the canon law of the Catholic Church, a dispensation is the exemption from the immediate obligation of law in certain cases. Its object is to modify the hardship often arising from the rigorous application of general laws to particular cases, and its essence is to preserve the law by suspending its operation in such cases.
The canon law of the Catholic Church is "how the Church organizes and governs herself". It is the system of laws and ecclesiastical legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Catholic Church to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church. It was the first modern Western legal system and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West, while the unique traditions of Eastern Catholic canon law govern the 23 Eastern Catholic particular churches sui iuris.
The Corpus Juris Canonici is a collection of significant sources of the Canon law of the Catholic Church that was applicable to the Latin Church. It was replaced by the 1917 Code of Canon Law which went into effect in 1918. The 1917 Code was later replaced by the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the codification of canon law currently in effect for the Latin Church.
Licentiate of Canon Law is the title of an advanced graduate degree with canonical effects in the Roman Catholic Church offered by pontifical universities and ecclesiastical faculties of canon law. Licentiate is the title of a person who holds an academic degree called a licence. The licentiate of canon law is the ordinary way for forming future canonists, according to Veritatis gaudium.
In the Catholic Church, a parish is a stable community of the faithful within a particular church, whose pastoral care has been entrusted to a parish priest, under the authority of the diocesan bishop. It is the lowest ecclesiastical subdivision in the Catholic episcopal polity, and the primary constituent unit of a diocese or eparchy. Parishes are extant in both the Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches. In the 1983 Code of Canon Law, parishes are constituted under cc. 515–552, entitled "Parishes, Pastors, and Parochial Vicars."
A donation, in the context of the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, is the gratuitous transfer to another of some right or thing. When it consists in placing in the hands of the donee some movable object it is known as a gift of hand. Properly speaking, however, it is a voluntary contract, verbal or written, by which the donor expressly agrees to give, without consideration, something to the donee, and the latter in an equally express manner accepts the gift. In Roman law and in some modern codes this contract carries with it only the obligation of transferring the ownership of the thing in question; actual ownership is obtained only by the real traditio or handing over of the thing itself, or by the observation of certain juridically prescribed formalities.
The 1983 Code of Canon Law, also called the Johanno-Pauline Code, is the "fundamental body of ecclesiastical laws for the Latin Church". It is the second and current comprehensive codification of canonical legislation for the Latin Church of the Catholic Church. The 1983 Code of Canon Law was promulgated on 25 January 1983 by John Paul II and took legal effect on the First Sunday of Advent 1983. It replaced the 1917 Code of Canon Law which had been promulgated by Benedict XV on 27 May 1917.
Canon 915, one of the canons in the 1983 Code of Canon Law of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, forbids the administration of Holy Communion to those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, or who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin:
Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.
This is a glossary of terms used within the Catholic Church. Some terms used in everyday English have a different meaning in the context of the Catholic faith, including brother, confession, confirmation, exemption, faithful, father, ordinary, religious, sister, venerable, and vow.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, a person is a subject of certain legal rights and obligations. Persons may be distinguished between physical and juridic persons. Juridic persons may be distinguished as collegial or non-collegial, and public or private juridical persons. The Holy See and the Catholic Church as such are not juridic persons since juridic persons are created by ecclesiastical law. Rather, they are moral persons by divine law.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, custom is the repeated and constant performance of certain acts for a defined period of time, which, with the approval of the competent legislator, thereby acquire the force of law. A custom is an unwritten law introduced by the continuous acts of the faithful with the consent of the legitimate legislator. Historically, some ritual and regulatory customs would be recorded in texts known as customaries for use both within particular cathedrals and religious orders or for dissemination among associated ecclesial communities.
The jurisprudence of Catholic canon law is the complex of legal theory, traditions, and interpretative principles of Catholic canon law. In the Latin Church, the jurisprudence of canon law was founded by Gratian in the 1140s with his Decretum. In the Eastern Catholic canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches, Photios holds a place similar to that of Gratian for the West.
The philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of Catholic canon law are the fields of philosophical, theological (ecclesiological), and legal scholarship which concern the place of canon law in the nature of the Catholic Church, both as a natural and as a supernatural entity. Philosophy and theology shape the concepts and self-understanding of canon law as the law of both a human organization and as a supernatural entity, since the Catholic Church believes that Jesus Christ instituted the church by direct divine command, while the fundamental theory of canon law is a meta-discipline of the "triple relationship between theology, philosophy, and canon law".
In Catholic canon law, the canon law of contract follows that of the civil jurisdiction in which Catholic canon law operates.
A censure, in the canon law of the Catholic Church, is a medicinal and spiritual punishment imposed by the church on a baptized, delinquent, and contumacious person, by which he is deprived, either wholly or in part, of the use of certain spiritual goods until he recovers from his contumacy. These goods can encompass access to the sacraments, participation in certain liturgical activities, and involvement in ecclesiastical functions.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Fanning, William H. W. (1908). "College (in Canon Law)". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia . Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites: 