ACTA APOSTOLICAE SEDIS. - Official bulletin (Commentarium officiale) of the Holy See, drawn up by the Secretariat of State, printed by the Vatican Typography and published by the Vatican Library; it is issued in fascicles at variable intervals (about twelve a year), which are gathered into annual volumes and provided with indexes. Each fascicle contains the acts of the Supreme Pontiff (encyclicals, constitutions, motu proprios, briefs, chirographs, letters, allocutions); then the acts of the Sacred Congregations (decrees, instructions, resolutions, appointments), of the tribunals (list of decisions, citations and the like), of the pontifical commissions and of the offices of the Roman Curia; finally, it gives notice of the audiences granted by the Pope to heads of state and their representatives, of the granting of honors or decorations, and of the deaths of cardinals and bishops. It published the text of the CIC (vol. II, part II, 28 June 1917). Since 1929 it has carried, in Italian, a Supplement for the laws and provisions of Vatican City. In citing the title of the periodical the abbreviation AAS is often used.
The publication of pontifical laws in the AAS constitutes the necessary condition for the entry into force of those laws. Canon 9 of the CIC indeed provides that they enter into force three months after the date of the fascicle in which they are published; unless by their nature they must enter into force immediately, or a different term is established.
For several centuries there were no well-defined norms on the promulgation and publication of pontifical laws, and therefore, according to the case, their dissemination was attended to by transmitting the text to the metropolitans or to the bishops, or even (especially for certain authentic collections of decrees) by sending it to certain universities, until the practice became common (from the 15th century), of which there is some example as early as the 13th century, of posting the pontifical constitutions in certain places in Rome, considering such posting as legal publication.
Pius X, accepting the proposals made by the commission for the compilation of the CIC, instituted in 1908 the official periodical of the Holy See and established that the text of pontifical acts as well as those of the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia be published therein, and that such publication have legal value as promulgation of the acts themselves (const. Promulgandi, of 28 Sept. 1908, published at the beginning of the first fascicle bearing the date of 1 Jan. 1909).
With the creation of the 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 publications of the unofficial review entitled: Acta Sanctae Sedis (v.) ceased. Pius Ciprotti