Curia

CURIA. - This term, used at first to indicate one of the divisions of the Roman people, came also to mean the seat of the Roman senate, and then certain other offices of Rome; and it was used in analogous meanings in the municipalities. In the Middle Ages it had various acceptations, but that of a court or of the complex of offices relating to the administration of justice soon prevailed.

In canon law, besides the medieval meaning (by now vanished from official terminology and, almost completely, from ordinary language as well) of a judicial body, the name c. has remained above all in the following uses:

I. ROMAN CURIA

An expression that in modern law serves exclusively to designate the vast complex of ecclesiastical dicasteries that assist the Supreme Pontiff in the general government of the Church. Having included, until the beginning of the 20th century, also the Pontifical Court and Household, the CIC later took care to restrict its meaning as above, so that it remained established, by force of can. 242, that the Roman Curia "constat sacris congregationibus, tribunalibus et officiis."

The first use of this expression is found, however, around the middle of the 12th century in an even broader sense than those set out above, inasmuch as it was employed to indicate the Church of Rome itself, a use that did not fail to provoke numerous immediate protests, among them the authoritative one of the prior of Reichersberg, Gerhoh (1093-1169), who complained of it directly to Eugene III: "Neque enim vel hoc ipsum carere macula videtur, quod nunc dicitur C. Romana, quae antehac dicebatur Ecclesia Romana" (PL 194, 9).

The formation of the ecclesiastical dicasteries that make up the Curia was a slow process over time, and although for some of them one can trace back as far as the 4th century, the period within which the individual institutions developed is to be placed between the 12th and the 16th century, precisely up to the reorganization of Sixtus V, thanks to which the Curia organized itself on those foundations that still constitute its basis today.

The first centuries of the Church are characterized by the presence of a special assembly of priests and deacons who, gathered collegially, surrounded the Bishop of Rome and with whom he was accustomed to deal with the common causes of his spiritual government. This is the Presbyterium (Presbyterium Apostolicae Sedis), of whose existence many documents of that early age bear witness. Important in this regard is a letter of St. Cornelius, pope, addressed in 251 to St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, where one reads: "Omni igitur actu ad me perlato placuit contrahi Presbyterium" (PL. 3, 742). The causes discussed in the Presbyterium did not, however, concern the sacred patrimony of faith and morals, for the resolution of which there provided, already in those times, as the sole organ competent for the pronouncing of condemnations and the imposition of canonical penalties, the Synod or Roman Council, before which were agitated the questions of greater importance, pertaining above all to ecclesiastical discipline.

Then with the 11th century, when the cardinals began to be the Pope's most direct collaborators in the government of the Church, the attributions that in the past had belonged to the Presbyterium and to the Roman synods, which, although they did not disappear entirely, nonetheless remained largely stripped of authority, were almost totally transferred to a new and very important organ, the Consistory (Consistorium), composed entirely of cardinals, in whose seat there came to be treated from then on all causes of an exclusively or predominantly spiritual character. The importance attributed to this high assembly of purple-robed prelates is demonstrated by the frequency of its meetings, which, already fixed at once a month by Alexander III, were under the pontificate of Innocent III brought to as many as three times a week (PL. 214, 80-81).

For contentious and criminal causes, from the time of Alexander III, alongside the Consistory there functioned the so-called Auditorium Papae, in which are to be traced the first vestiges of the tribunal of the Holy Roman Rota (v.). But the activity of the Church could not be exhausted in the work, intense though it was, of the organs considered thus far; in fact, starting already from the 4th century, one finds oneself in the presence of an office whose employees, the notaries, were charged with the drafting, dispatch and preservation of pontifical letters and acts. Established probably as a particular section of the archive (serinium) of the Popes, this office assumed over time an ever more organic form, until it took concrete shape in the Pontifical Chancery (v.), within which there was later gradually constituted, between the 14th and 16th centuries, the Apostolic Datary (v.). Among the most ancient dicasteries of the Roman Curia is to be placed moreover the Apostolic Camera (v.), placed in charge of the administration of the goods of the Church and become in the 15th century the absolutely most important organism of the Curia.

Simultaneously with the development and consolidation of these offices and alongside the Consistory, the pontiffs provided from time to time for the appointment of commissions of cardinals, to which to entrust the handling of special affairs; but these were always institutions of a transitory character, so that, once matters were concluded, they automatically ceased from the competences with which they had been invested. Nevertheless, the ever broader expansion of the spiritual and political relations of the Holy See with the Catholic nations and the insufficiency of a single organ upon which was concentrated the entire mass of affairs arising from them, made the Popes feel, in the first half of the 16th century, the urgent necessity of creating, to relieve the Consistory, permanent organisms with which to share the care of the affairs of government. From these organisms there therefore came to life the Roman Congregations (v.), established later by Sixtus V, in the midst of his general reorganization of the Curia carried out with the famous constitution Immensa aeterni Dei of 22 Jan. 1588, at fifteen in number, including the five already existing. But a reform, above all moral, of the Curia had already been thought of by Paul IV with the institution, in Jan. 1556, of a special Congregation for the reform of the Curia, composed of 62 members, later risen to 144, and divided into three classes, each presided over by a cardinal (Pastor, VI, p. 429 ff.). With the new ordering of Sixtus V, which represented the crowning of the noble efforts in this direction vainly pursued in 1556 by Paul IV and in 1566 by Pius V, the Roman Curia set out to become that vast and delicate complex of governmental institutions which, thanks also to the broad contribution of the succeeding Pontiffs, it presents even today.

Nonetheless, the succession of all the institutions that flourished after the Sistine reform until almost the whole of the 19th century, if on the one hand it contributed to bringing into the regime of the Church the order necessary in the handling of the affairs of the spiritual and temporal government of the pontiffs, on the other hand it determined, because of mutual interferences, a not negligible confusion in the attributions of each. And although there were not lacking over the course of time precise provisions directed at the elimination of this inconvenience, such as those issued by Innocent XII in 1592 and by Clement XIII in 1759, one must nevertheless reach as far as Pius X for the carrying out of a further reform of the Roman Curia, intended, among other things, to regulate the sphere of the competences of each dicastery. This reform, carried out with the constitution Sapienti consilio of 29 June 1908, provides therefore for clearly delimiting the powers of the individual dicasteries, for separating administrative matters from those strictly judicial, for re-establishing the two tribunals of the Holy Roman Rota and of the Apostolic Signatura, which had fallen into disuse after 1870, for suppressing certain Congregations and for instituting new ones.

The Code of Canon Law, promulgated by Benedict XV in 1917, has substantially accepted the Pian reform, systematizing it in cann. 242-64. The only innovations of note subsequently introduced were the institution of the Congregation for the Oriental Church (v.) and of the Congregation of Seminaries and Universities (v.), through the work of Benedict XV himself, and the suppression of the Congregation of the Index, whose attributions were poured into the Holy Office. At present, therefore, the Roman Curia is composed of eleven Congregations (to which, however, there is added as a twelfth the Congregation of the Rev. Fabric of St. Peter, although it is passed over in silence by the Code), three tribunals and six offices.

Niccolò Del Re

II. DIOCESAN CURIA

It is made up of the body of administrative or judicial offices (as a rule, all non-beneficed: v. BENEFICE), which assist the bishop or his representative in the government of the whole diocese (CIC, can. 363). Similarly, a curia may exist in territorial circumscriptions parallel to dioceses, such as apostolic vicariates and prefectures, prelatures or nullius abbeys (in which circumscriptions, however, the curia may be lacking or may be constituted in a more reduced form).

The diocesan curia may be considered as made up of two sections, one for administrative matters, the other for judicial affairs.

The administrative section includes: a) the vicar general (v. VICAR), when one exists; indeed, in that case he is, as it were, its head, albeit in strict dependence on the bishop; b) the chancellor, with the functions of archivist and notary; and possibly a vice-chancellor or vice-archivist, and other notaries who may exceptionally even be laymen (cann. 372-384; v. also ARCHIVE); c) the synodal examiners (v.) and the consultor parish priests (v. PARISH PRIEST).

The judicial section includes the synodal or pro-synodal judges, headed by an official, who he may be assisted by one or more vice-officials (v. TRIBUNALE); and furthermore the other members of the tribunal, namely: the promoter of justice (v.), the defender of the bond (v.), the notary or actuary (v. NOTAIO) who quite often is the same as the chancellor, the cursors (v.) and the apparitors.

The cathedral Chapter (v. CAPITOLO) and the college of diocesan consultors (v. CONSULTORI DIOCESANI) are not part of the diocesan curia, although they take part in the government of the diocese.

For the history of the diocesan curia v. the entries referred to above.

III. PALATINE CURIA

For this, which is the curia of the palatine Ordinary, v. PALATINE, CHURCHES and CHAPELS.

IV. GENERAL CURIA

In many male religious orders (v.), especially clerical ones, the office of the superior general, together with the religious attached to it, is customarily called the curia generalizia.

Pio Ciprotti