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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.
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.
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, tribunes of the people; others again were trade unions or guilds, as the colleges of bakers, carpenters.
The early Roman Christians are said to have sometimes held church property during times of persecution under the title of collegium. [2]
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
A synod is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word synod comes from the Greek: σύνοδος [ˈsinoðos] meaning "assembly" or "meeting" and is analogous with the Latin word concilium meaning "council". Originally, synods were meetings of bishops, and the word is still used in that sense in Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not. It is also sometimes used to refer to a church that is governed by a synod.
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 canon is a member of certain bodies subject to an ecclesiastical rule.
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.
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church consists of its bishops, priests, and deacons. In the ecclesiological sense of the term, "hierarchy" strictly means the "holy ordering" of the Church, the Body of Christ, so to respect the diversity of gifts and ministries necessary for genuine unity.
In the Roman Curia, 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 ancient Rome, the principle of private association was recognized very early by the state. Sodalitates for religious purposes are mentioned in the XII Tables, and collegia opificum, or trade guilds, were believed to have been instituted by Numa Pompilius, which probably means that they were regulated by the jus divinum as being associated with particular cults.
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 Pontifical Urban University, also called the Urbaniana after its names in both Latin and Italian, is a pontifical university under the authority of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. The university's mission is to train priests, religious brothers and sisters, and lay people for service as missionaries. Its campus is located on the Janiculum Hill in Rome, on extraterritorial property of the Holy See.
In the Roman 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. In the 1983 Code of Canon Law, parishes are constituted under cc. 515–552, entitled "Parishes, Pastors, and Parochial Vicars."
The collegia were government departments in Imperial Russia, established in 1717 by Peter the Great. The departments were housed in the Twelve Collegia building in Saint Petersburg.
A collegium was any association in ancient Rome with a legal personality. Such associations had various functions, civil and religious.
A Donation, when referred to in canon law in the Roman Catholic Church, is defined as 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. Such codes distinguish between conventional and perfect donation, i.e. the actual transfer of the thing or right. In some countries the contract itself transfers ownership. A donation is called remunerative when inspired by a sentiment of gratitude for services rendered by the donee. Donations are also described as inter vivos if made while the donor yet lives, and causa mortis, when made in view or contemplation of death; the latter are valid only after the death of the donor and until then are at all times revocable. They much resemble testaments and codicils. They are, however, on the same footing as donations inter vivos once the donor has renounced his right to revoke. In the pursuit of its end the church needs material aid; it has the right therefore to acquire such aid by donation no less than by other means. In its quality of a perfect and independent society the Roman Catholic Church may also decide under what forms and on what conditions it will accept donations made to works of religion ; it pertains to the State to legislate for all other donations.
Urbano Navarrete Cortés, S.J. was a professor of Canon Law and former rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University. He was made Cardinal in 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI, though he was over the age of 80 and thus could not vote in a papal conclave. His appointment followed the precedent set by previous Popes for rewarding priests who have made significant contributions to the life and work of the Church.
This is a glossary of terms used within the Catholic Church.
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 juridic 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.
The philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of 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".
The canon law of contract follows that of the civil jurisdiction in which canon law operates..
