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In the canon law of the Catholic Church, an oratory is a place which is set aside by permission of an ordinary for divine worship, for the convenience of some community or group of the faithful who assemble there, but to which other members of the faithful may have access with the consent of the competent superior. [1] The word oratory comes from the Latin verb orare, to pray.
Oratories seem to have been developed in chapels built at the shrines of martyrs, for the faithful to assemble and pray on the spot. The oldest extant oratory is the Archiepiscopal Chapel in Ravenna (c. 500). The term is often used for very small structures surviving from the first millennium, especially in areas where the monasticism of Celtic Christianity was dominant; in these cases it may represent an archaeological guess as to function, in the absence of better evidence.
Previously, canon law distinguished several types of oratories: private (with use restricted to an individual, such as a bishop, or group, such as a family, and their invited guests); semi-public (open under certain circumstances to the public); or public (built for the benefit of any of the faithful who wish to use it). (1917 Code of Canon Law, canon 1223). [2] The term is used for instance in the Rule of St Benedict (chapter 52) for the private communal chapel inside monasteries.
In the sacramental law of sacred places, an oratory is a structure other than a parish church, set aside by ecclesiastical authority for prayer and the celebration of Mass. It is for all intents and purposes another word for what is commonly called a chapel, except that a few oratories are set up for the Divine Office and prayers but not Mass.
The distinctions between public, semi-public, and private have been eliminated in the 1983 Code of Canon Law in favour of new terminology. Oratory now means a private place of worship for a group or community which could be opened to the public at the discretion of the group's superior. This definition corresponds with the semi-public oratory of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. [3] The private oratory of the 1917 Code corresponds very closely with the 1983 Code's chapel, as they are both places of worship for specific individuals.
A parish church building may be transferred from the juridic person of a suppressed parish to another parish so that divine worship may continue there under the pastoral ministry of another parish. In some cases, when the parish has been closed, the church building and grounds become the responsibility of a neighbouring parish, because the church building as such is legally distinct from the juridic personality of the parish, and so can be transferred to another juridic person. It usually would not have regular liturgies scheduled, but the oratory can be made available for special liturgical functions, including weddings, funerals, holidays, holy days of obligation, the feast day of the church's patron Saint, and other liturgical celebrations. Recently many churches have been revitalized as oratories for the Roman Mass in the United Kingdom and in the United States, institutions such as the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest have done extensive restoration jobs in those temples.[ further explanation needed ]
The term can also refer to the local house of the Oratorians, the congregation of priests founded by Philip Neri in Rome, Italy, in 1575.
The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also called the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous particular churches of the Catholic Church, in full communion with the Pope in Rome. Although they are distinct theologically, liturgically, and historically from the Latin Church, they are all in full communion with it and with each other. Eastern Catholics are a minority within the Catholic Church; of the 1.3 billion Catholics in communion with the Pope, approximately 18 million are members of the eastern churches. The largest numbers of Eastern Catholics may be found in Eastern Europe, Eastern Africa, the Middle East, and India. As of 2022, the Syro-Malabar Church is the largest Eastern Catholic Church, followed by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
In the Catholic Church, holy days of obligation or precepts are days on which the faithful are expected to attend Mass, and engage in rest from work and recreation, according to the third commandment.
Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object, site or person. This can take the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things. When the sacrilegious offence is verbal, it is called blasphemy, and when physical, it is often called desecration. In a more general sense, any transgression against what is seen as the virtue of religion would be a sacrilege, and so is coming near a sacred site without permission.
In Catholic canon law, an interdict is an ecclesiastical censure, or ban that prohibits certain persons or groups from participating in particular rites, or that the rites and services of the church are prohibited in certain territories for a limited or extended time.
The Catholic Church first prohibited Catholics from membership in Masonic organizations and other secret societies in 1738. Since then, at least eleven popes have made pronouncements about the incompatibility of Catholic doctrines and Freemasonry.
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.
An extraordinary minister of Holy Communion in the Catholic Church is, under the 1983 Code of Canon Law, "an acolyte, or another of Christ's faithful deputed", in certain extraordinary circumstances, to distribute Holy Communion. The term "extraordinary" distinguishes such a person from the ordinary minister of Holy Communion, namely a bishop, priest or deacon. Under ordinary circumstances, only bishops, priests, and deacons may distribute Communion in the Catholic Church. Similarly, only bishops and priests may administer the Sacrament of Anointing of the sick.
A Eucharistic minister, also known as a communion steward, is an individual that assists in the distribution of Holy Communion to the congregation of a Christian Church.
The Mass is the central liturgical service of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, in which bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ. As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass "the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross, is present and offered in an unbloody manner". The Church describes the Mass as the "source and summit of the Christian life", and teaches that the Mass is a sacrifice, in which the sacramental bread and wine, through consecration by an ordained priest, become the sacrificial body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ as the sacrifice on Calvary made truly present once again on the altar. The Catholic Church permits only baptised members in the state of grace to receive Christ in the Eucharist.
In the Catholic Church, an association of the Christian faithful or simply association of the faithful, sometimes called a public association of the faithful, is a group of baptized persons, clerics or laity or both together, who, according to the 1983 Code of Canon Law, jointly foster a more perfect life or promote public worship or Christian teaching, or who devote themselves to other works of the apostolate.
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."
Summorum Pontificum is an apostolic letter of Pope Benedict XVI, issued in July 2007. This letter specifies the circumstances in which priests of the Latin Church could celebrate Mass according to what Benedict XVI called the "Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962" and administer most of the sacraments in the form used before the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council.
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.
The canonical situation of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), a group founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, is unresolved. The Society of Saint Pius X has been the subject of much controversy since 1988, when Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta were illicitly consecrated at Ecône, at the International Seminary of Saint Pius X as bishops in violation of canon law. Lefebvre and the four other SSPX bishops individually incurred a disciplinary latae sententiae excommunication for the schismatic act; the excommunications of the four living SSPX bishops were remitted in 2009.
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, excommunication is a form of censure. In the formal sense of the term, excommunication includes being barred not only from the sacraments but also from the fellowship of Christian baptism. The principal and severest censure, excommunication presupposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Catholic Church can inflict, it supposes a grave offense. The excommunicated person is considered by Catholic ecclesiastical authority as an exile from the Church, for a time at least.
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 Catholic Church, communicatio in sacris, also called communicatio in divinis or communicatio in ritibus, designates the regulations for the partaking of a Catholic person to a non-Catholic sacrament or liturgical celebration, or for the partaking of a non-Catholic person to a Catholic sacrament or liturgical celebration. The expression is also used to refer to said acts of partaking themselves.
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".
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