AD NUTUM

AD NUTUM. – In current canon law, ecclesiastical offices are called a. n. when their holder may be removed at the superior’s discretion, without canonically established causes being exhaustively specified. Such offices include, for example, those of the vicar general (CIC, can. 366, § 2), the vicar forane (can. 446, § 2), the religious parish priest (can. 454, § 5), the parochial vicars (can. 887), and the rectors of churches (can. 880). Any measure revocable at the discretion of its author (a discretionary measure) is likewise said to be a. n.; therefore, this expression has a meaning analogous to that of the other expression: ad beneplacitum nostrum (v.), with the difference that the latter form entails the cessation of the concession even in the event that the grantor loses his power.

Alberto Scola