DE CRETA AUTHENTICA SACRAE RITUUM CONGREGATIONIS
This is the name given to the collection of decrees and other decisions of the Sacred Congregation of Rites concerning liturgical matters. Indeed, liturgy, which constitutes the public and social worship that the Catholic Church officially renders to God, has its foundation in divine institution. Therefore, for the Eucharistic Sacrifice and the other sacraments, which are the principal elements of the liturgy, the Church soon took care to determine the form by which they should be venerated, so as to make their dignity and efficacy ever more clearly understood by the faithful through prayers, rites, and ceremonies that would give them greater prominence. The Church also established other acts of worship, such as the Divine Office and the sacramentals, and has always proposed to the edification of the faithful the heroic virtues of its most perfect members. Since, therefore, the object of sacred liturgy is the worship of God and the saints, it follows that the related legislation must proceed from the supreme head of the Church, the Roman Pontiff, who, for the Latin rite, before the institution of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, issued such laws by means of special constitutions or other acts, as, for example, the Rubrics of the liturgical books, validated by papal bulls. Subsequently, however, almost all the laws have been issued by the Sacred Congregation itself, established by the Supreme Pontiff as the competent body in the matter, and its decisions have been given such authority that «decrees emanated from it and responses given to doubts proposed to it [firmly] have the same authority as if they had immediately proceeded from the Supreme Pontiff himself, even though no report thereof has been made to His Holiness» (Doubt proposed by the Order of the Friars Preachers, with an affirmative response from the Sacred Congregation of Rites, 1846, fol. 109). In the *Decreta authent.*, II, Rome 1898, no. 2996, the word *firmiter* does not belong to the original text.
These decrees are distinguished into general and particular. The general ones, with the force of law throughout the Church, bear the title: *Decretum* or *Decretum generale*, or *Urbis et Orbis*, while the particular ones have the force of law for specific places, classes of persons, or individual cases. It should be noted, however, that if any decree, issued in response to a particular query, declares the meaning of a general law, a Rubric, etc., this declaration constitutes an authentic interpretation of the law itself and has the force of law. This is evident not only from the object of the decree but also from its final clauses, which vary. The *Responsum* or *Rescript* is a general formula and merely signifies that the Congregation is responding to a factual inquiry. The clause *Indulsi* or similar indicates the granting of a privilege, the confirmation of a custom, etc.; if, however, the indult in question required sovereign grace, the formula *Facto verbo cum Sanctissimo* would be used. The clause *Declaravit* signifies that the decree provides an authentic interpretation of the law. Finally, the clause *Servari mandavit* reinforces the preceding response by imposing the precept of its strict observance.
The Sacred Congregation has not published the many thousands of its decrees, but only those of a general nature for the universal Church. These form the collection published in the years 1898–99 by the printing house of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, which contains those issued from 1588, the year in which the Sacred Congregation of Rites was established, up to 15 December 1899, under the auspices of Pope Leo XIII, by the Vatican Press; then, in the years 1912–1927, under the auspices of Pope Pius X and Pope Pius XI, up to 14 May 1926, with no. 4103. The title is: *Decreta authentica Congregationis Sacrorum Rituum, ex actis eiusdem collecta eiusque auctoritate promulgata*. After this date, the collection was not continued; however, the most important decrees have been published in the *Acta Apostolicae Sedis*.
Individual decrees, apart from their inclusion in the collection, are authentic, but their existence would otherwise have remained unknown to most. The publication, therefore, not only made them known but, as expressly stated in the papal decree of approval, ensures that decrees which do not agree with those in the collection «are to be considered as abrogated, except only those which pertain to particular churches as indults or privileges». These decrees, together with the Rubrics contained in the liturgical books, thus form the jurisprudence of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. It should be noted, however, that with the reform of the Rubrics introduced by Pius X in the Missal and the Breviary and with the *Codex Iuris Canonici*, many decrees have lost some of their force.