EXEQUATUR and PLACET. — A form of control exercised by jurisdictionalist States over acts of the Church, consisting in the requirement of prior examination and authorization by the civil authority for any provision of the ecclesiastical authority, especially the pontifical authority, in order that it might be published and enforced within the territory of the State. This institution—which, depending on the place or the material sphere of application, appears under the most diverse names: e., p., vidimus, parensis (from the literal meaning of the words themselves: it is approved, it pleases, etc.), placitum regium, praemunire, droit d'annexe, de vérification, lettre d'attache, regio pass—and which is commonly designated in public-law terminology as the right of placet, constituted one of the most notable and controversial juridical-political prerogatives arrogated in the past by governments in relation to the Church, understood both as an assertion of supremacy over it and as a precautionary measure, deriving as a corollary from the so-called ius cavandi, or the right to remain on guard with regard to II.
When this institution—which, naturally, always provoked the Church’s most vigorous protests—first began cannot be established with certainty. The earliest traces seem to be found, although merely as occasional measures and not as an assertion of the State’s right to control the whole of ecclesiastical legislation, in England, in the measures of William the Conqueror (1803–89) prohibiting the reception of papal envoys or the publication of pontifical bulls, and the assembly of synods and councils without his consent. Later, again in England, it took more definite shape in the institution of the praemunire, established in the thirteenth century, which under Richard II was directed especially toward prohibiting the importation of bulls and excommunications without royal consent, and the acceptance of benefices directly from the pope.
The institution’s most remote precedent was also sought, still in the fourteenth century, in the faculty granted during the Western Schism by Urban VI to the prelates of certain places, whereby they were not to permit the execution of pontifical acts unless these had first been presented to and approved by them, in order to avoid the inconveniences that might result from the execution of bulls issued by different popes. In any event, the institution became generalized throughout Europe and acquired a juridical character only in the sixteenth century; and despite the Church’s most vigorous protests (the constitution Quond antidota of Martin V, 30 April 1418; the bull In coena domini of Julius II of April 1511; etc.), it was introduced ever more broadly in the various States. The right of placet was thus extended to ecclesiastical acts providing major and minor benefices, to pontifical bulls, to the citations and decisions of the Roman tribunals and congregations, to episcopal pastorals, instructions, and circulars, to the deliberations of chapters and synods, as well as to provisions issued by ecclesiastical authorities residing only temporarily in the State, such as nuncios, delegates, and apostolic visitors. The government’s prior assent was even required for the convocation of synods and councils and, in that eighteenth century which was for the Church a period of the greatest humiliation in the face of the States’ assertions of supremacy, communication between the clergy and the faithful and the Holy See was prohibited except through the official channel of the State. Some even asserted the necessity of prior governmental examination for the promulgation not only of measures concerning so-called matters of mixed nature (for this reason, for example, the disciplinary decrees of the Council of Trent were not received in France), but also of purely dogmatic documents, that is, those concerning solely Faith and doctrine, albeit on the grounds that it was necessary to ascertain that prescriptions of another nature had not been mixed in with them. In practice, this made the admission even of purely dogmatic bulls dependent on the government’s good pleasure.
It is therefore not surprising that, while regalists such as Van Espen defined the p. as “a right of guarantee against the attacks of the Church inherent by nature in political government,” it was the object, in various pontifical acts, of the most vehement condemnations, and that orthodox authors said it came so close “to heresy that it would not be swallowed up in the abyss of anathema only through the lack of a canon formally condemning it as such” (D’Avino).
In essence, the right of placet permitted the State’s extremely detailed interference in ecclesiastical matters, which the jurisdictionalists justified by a threefold purpose: police (especially by prohibiting the dissemination of acts of the ecclesiastical authorities and controlling correspondence between citizens and the Holy See); political-economic (particularly through interference in the conferral of benefices and dignities); and statutory or juridical (aimed at controlling changes and additions to the body of the Church’s laws and statutes, so that they would not conflict with the laws of the State).
It is clear that this entire construction was not only plainly contrary to the Catholic doctrine of relations between Church and State (v.), but also incompatible with the most common conception of the functions and competence of the modern State and with an exact delimitation of its sphere of activity, which does not permit encroachments and intrusions into relations foreign to its order. Religious matters are of this kind: they fall under the sole competence of the Church, a perfect society or original juridical order, and are therefore autonomous and sovereign within its own order. Thus, if there are mixed relations that may in some way concern both orders or spheres of competence, their regulation can be resolved only on the basis of agreements between the two powers, and not through a simple unilateral activity of control of a more or less police-like type such as the right of placet.
In Italy, the exercise of the right of placet, which in various forms was still in force in almost all the former States, was initially brought under uniform regulation by R. D. 5 March 1863 no. 1169, and by R. D. 26 July 1863 no. 1374 and other subsequent provisions. Article 16 Law of Guarantees (v.) declared “the exequatur and royal placet and every other form of governmental assent for the publication and execution of acts of the ecclesiastical authorities abolished,” except for acts concerning the allocation of ecclesiastical property and the provision of major and minor benefices, with the exception of those of Rome and the suburban sees. A subsequent R. D. of 25 June 1871 no. 326 specified that the exequatur was required for acts and provisions of the Holy See, and the Regio placet for those of diocesan ordinaries. The exequatur was granted or denied by royal decree, whereas the granting of the placet was delegated to the Attorney General at the Court of Appeal of the place where the benefices were located. Subsequently, however, the Consolidated Act of 6 May 1920 no. 640 established instead that acts of the Holy See concerning the provision of major benefices and the allocation of the property connected with them were subject to the exequatur, while acts of the Holy See and of diocesan Ordinaries concerning dignities, canonries, parishes, and other minor benefices were subject to the placet.
Exequatur and placet were abolished by the Concordat of 11 February 1929 (art. 24), which nevertheless established special procedures so that appointments to ecclesiastical offices and benefices would be made in agreement with the Italian Government.
of the benefices vacant in Lombardy, Milan 1894; H. Saegmüller, Lerbbuch des katholischen Kirchenrechts, 4th ed., Freiburg im Br. 1925, p. 93 ff.; P. Gismondi, Exequatur e placet, in Nuovo Digesto Italiano, V, pp. 740–44. Arnaldo Bertola