STUDY ASSISTANT. - He is a senior official of the Sacred Congregations and offices of the Holy See, and represents the highest rank among the junior officials, below the undersecretaries or substitutes.
His duty is to study and report, either directly to his superiors (the secretary or undersecretary) or in the Congress, on matters pertaining to his subject area or to the geographical region assigned to him. He prepares drafts for the various provisions concerning current business, to be reviewed, before being copied and dispatched, by the secretary (or assessor) or by the cardinal prefect (or secretary), who will then sign them. He draws up the official paper to be printed for the reports dealt with in the Plenary meeting of the cardinals and carries out the decisions taken. He attends the weekly Congresses presided over by the cardinal and explains matters within his competence; he drafts rescripts of grace, determining their clauses, the fee due, etc.
It is naturally impossible to specify more precisely the activity of study assistants, since it varies greatly according to the individual congregations and offices; these are nevertheless duties of considerable importance, since, within the sphere of his functions, by subject matter or, often, by geographical division (which, for example, exists in the Sacred Congregation of the Consistory, Propaganda, the Oriental Congregation, the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, and that of Seminaries), the study assistant acquires a specific competence that cannot easily be replaced by others. Vittorio Bartoccetti