ACTA APOSTOLICAE SEDIS. - Official bulletin (official commentary) of the Holy See, prepared by the Secretariat of State, printed by the Vatican Printing Press and published by the Vatican Bookshop; it is issued in fascicles of varying periodicity (about twelve per year), which are then bound into annual volumes and provided with indices. Each fascicle contains the acts of the Supreme Pontiff (encyclicals, constitutions, motu proprio, briefs, chirographs, letters, allocutions); then the acts of the Sacred Congregations (decrees, instructions, resolutions, appointments), of the tribunals (lists of decisions, citations, and the like), of pontifical commissions and of the offices of the Roman Curia; finally, it reports on audiences granted by the Pope to heads of state and their representatives, on the granting of honors or decorations, and on the deaths of cardinals and bishops. It published the text of the Code of Canon Law (vol. II, part II, 28 June 1917). Since 1929 it has included, in Italian, a Supplement for the laws and provisions of the Vatican City State. The periodical is often cited by the abbreviation AAS.
The publication of pontifical laws in the AAS constitutes the necessary condition for their entry into force. Canon 9 of the Code of Canon Law indeed stipulates that they enter into force three months after the date of the fascicle in which they are published, unless their nature requires immediate entry into force or a different term is established.
For several centuries there were no well-defined norms regarding the promulgation and publication of pontifical laws, and accordingly, depending on the case, their dissemination was ensured by transmitting the text to metropolitans or bishops, or even (specifically for certain authentic collections of decretals) by sending them to some universities, until it became common (from the 15th century) to affix pontifical constitutions in certain places in Rome, considering such posting as legal publication—an usage of which there are some examples as early as the 13th century.
Pius X, accepting the proposals made by the commission for the compilation of the Code of Canon Law, established in 1908 the official periodical of the Holy See and decreed that it should publish the text of the acts of the Pontiff as well as those of the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia, and that such publication should have legal force as the promulgation of the acts themselves (constitution *Promulgandi*, 28 Sept. 1908, published at the beginning of the first fascicle dated 1 Jan. 1909).
With the creation of this new periodical—for the editing and administration of which a special regulation was issued on 5 Jan. 1910 (cf. AAS, 2 [1910], p. 37)—the unofficial publication entitled *Acta Sanctae Sedis* (q.v.) ceased. PIO CIPRIOTTI