Quinquennial, Faculty

QUINQUENNIAL, FACULTY. - I. GENERAL NOTIONS. THE FACULTIES OF THE SACRED CONGREGATION OF THE CONSISTORY. - The various powers or indults by which a competent ecclesiastical superior, in virtue of his jurisdiction, authorizes a subordinate to perform validly and licitly, for both the internal and the external forum, acts which, either by their nature or by explicit reservation of law, would belong to the superior himself, canonically take the name of habitual faculties when they are granted for habitual or at least repeated use, that is to say either in perpetuity, for several persons or for a numerically indeterminate number of cases, or even for a fixed period or for a determined number of cases. If, on the other hand, they are granted for one or two cases or with an individual determination of case or person, they are called actual or particular faculties.

Any ecclesiastic endowed with ordinary jurisdiction may, within the sphere of his competence, grant such faculties. Thus there are, by reason of the granting subject, the apostolic or pontifical faculties, the most important of all, granted by the Pope directly or through the competent dicasteries of the curia, the episcopal faculties, and the ordinary faculties of regular prelates. By reason of the object of the grant, there are jurisdictional faculties, which involve a true exercise of the power of jurisdiction (of absolving or of dispensing from a law), and non-jurisdictional faculties, for the granting of graces and licences only. The distinction of faculties into ordinary and extraordinary was made in the past on the basis of the formulas of grant, whereas at present it refers for the most part to the content of the grant itself. Often the criterion of distinction is drawn from the duration of the faculties; there are annual, triennial, quinquennial, decennial, vicennial faculties, etc. Among all the best known and most important are the apostolic quinquennial faculties which the Sacred Congregation of the Consistory and that of Propaganda Fide are accustomed to grant, each for its own sphere of competence, to the Ordinaries of the territories subject to them. The list of the quinquennial faculties of the Sacred Congregation of the Consistory, at present existing, was promulgated on 17 May 1922, after the previous ones had been declared lapsed with the new CIC. Such faculties are granted to the Ordinaries concerned in the year in which they must present to the same Congregation the report on the state of their dioceses.

There follow, in order of importance, the faculties customarily granted by the Holy See, for the respective territories, to nuncios, internuncios and apostolic delegates, those of the Sacred Penitentiary to confessors, and those of the Sacred Congregation of Religious to the superiors general of the various religious orders. Habitual faculties take on the nature of real privileges and are classified by the canonist legislator in the category of privileges praeter ius (can. 66 § 1, 2). This means that they enjoy a particular favor iuris, by which they must be regarded and treated as privileges, even if by their intrinsic nature they are not such, indeed as privileges praeter ius, even if they sometimes imply grants contra ius. Insofar as they are real privileges, they belong to the office, not to the person: therefore all those who for any title hold the office may make use of them; they pass by right to successors, unless it is a question of a personal grant or it is otherwise provided in the grant itself. Granted to a bishop, they are understood to be granted also to the vicar general (can. 66 § 2). Insofar as they are privileges praeter ius, they always admit a broad, that is favourable, interpretation (cann. 50, 200 § 1), but never an extensive one (can. 67). With the faculty granted, moreover, those faculties which are necessary for its use must be understood to be implicitly granted; for example, the faculty of absolving from the penalties incurred of one who is authorized to dispense from some canonical impediment, when the existence of the penalty would be an obstacle to obtaining the dispensation (can. 66 § 3).

Since these are delegated faculties, their use must be regulated on the basis of the principles relating to delegated power (can. 199 ff.). They are subdelegable, even habitually, provided that subdelegation is not forbidden or that it is not a question of a personal grace. Further subdelegation on the part of a subdelegate is not permitted, however (can. 199 §§ 2, 5).

Habitual faculties and special indults are found granted by the supreme pontiffs, from the earliest centuries, to the first evangelizers of pagan Europe, in the guise of apostolic legates, to St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. 604), to St. Boniface (d. 755) and to the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius (9th century). Beginning with the 14th century, such faculties went on multiplying more and more, especially in favour of the first Franciscan and Dominican missionaries and of the bishops of regions very far from Rome. In the 16th century, to the missionaries destined for the evangelization of the Americas, then newly discovered, they were already customarily granted under fixed formulas and in defined lists. At the same time they are already found granted, in the same terms, to nuncios and apostolic legates, and, very soon, to almost all the bishops of non-Italian dioceses. Urban VIII, with the apostolic constitution Operosum of 10 February 1637, reformed them, fixing new formulas and new lists. The ordinary formulas of grant were ten, distinguished by Roman numerals; the extraordinary ones were without number, arranged by capital or small letters. The dicastery competent to grant them was, in the past, the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, even for territories not subject to it, until Pius X, with the apostolic constitution Sapienti Consilio (29 June 1908), assigned their grant to the individual congregations according to their respective competence. With a view to a reorganization of the matter, by decree of 25 April 1918 the Sacred Congregation of the Consistory (AAS, 10 [1918], p. 191) abolished all apostolic faculties, except those granted for its own territories by Propaganda Fide and those, for the internal forum, by the Sacred Penitentiary, and a new list with the new formulas was promulgated and sent to the diocesan Ordinaries on 17 May 1922 by the Sacred Congregation of the Consistory, to which, by the motu proprio Post datam of 20 April 1923, the grant of them was definitively reserved for the territories of common law (AAS, 15 [1923], p. 193). Every five years the updating of the formulas was to be provided for, after consultation of the individual dicasteries competent in the matter. The aforementioned Congregation at the same time provides for the compilation of the new formulas for the faculties of nuncios, internuncios and apostolic delegates.

Zaccaria da San Mauro

II. THE POWERS OF THE S. CONGREGATION OF PROPAGANDA FIDE

Before the institution of the S. Congregation of Propaganda Fide (1622), all missionaries at that time belonged to some religious institute, and by direct concession or by communication enjoyed many privileges and faculties. The Pope granted them through the S. Congregation of the Holy Office or by brief; the cardinal protectors of the seminaries, the rectors of the same, and even the generals or other superiors of the religious orders granted them in vim literarum apostolicarum vel vivus vocis oraculorum (Arch. di Prop. Fide, Miscellanea missioni, t. X, f. 155). Over the years, however, the formulas of the faculties granted multiplied greatly even for a single region and did not always correspond to the needs of the places. The new Congregation of Propaganda Fide immediately understood that provision had to be made.

In the early years requests concerning the concession or renewal of faculties were almost always transmitted to the Holy Office. In many cases, however, Propaganda examined them directly in the plenary congregations, afterward obtaining pontifical approval.

It was necessary to review this vast matter according to new criteria; Pope Urban VIII (1623-44) instituted within Propaganda a particular congregation super facultatibus missionariorum. The first assembly recorded (cf. Miscellanea Missioni, t. X, ff. 155-58) is that of 25 April 1633: it was composed of certain cardinals, the assessor of the Holy Office and the secretary of Propaganda; it was to have a permanent character, but the last assembly recorded is that of 1643. In 1637 it had completed the work of reform by establishing seven general rules for the concession of the five formulas drafted. The fifth, however, was never printed. On the model of the first five, four others were added, thus rising to nine and then to ten, which were granted with slight modifications to the various mission countries. Besides these ordinary ones there were also the extraordinary faculties granted generally by the Holy Office. Around the middle of the 19th century Propaganda itself began to grant certain extraordinary faculties according to new formulas, which were indicated by the letters of the alphabet in uppercase or lowercase form. No indication was given, nor is it given today, for the faculties granted to religious missionaries, to the students of the Collegio Urbano and to missionaries ad honorem. After the CIC the ordinary and extraordinary formulas, examined anew directly by the cardinal prefect together with the principal officials of the Congregation, were reduced to three: first, second and third, with a twofold redaction, major and minor. Approved on 6 February 1919 by Benedict XV, they began to have force from 1 January 1920. To the third formula was joined a supplement of faculties concerning confraternities and blessings. Later (1931) an extra ordinem formula was drafted for the dioceses of south-eastern Europe, analogous to the one customarily granted by the S. Congregation Consistorial for the bishops of the same territory dependent on it. The new redaction, compared with the preceding one, was clearer and more precise and contained broader faculties, and many were communicable to missionaries. There was no mention of dispensation from irregularities, from the law of fasting, or of the faculty concerning prohibited books, perhaps because the CIC already gave various faculties in the matter to Ordinaries.

The great development of the missions in recent years made the need to simplify the formulas still further more keenly felt, all the more so since the criterion of distance from Rome could no longer have the consideration it once had, given the ease of communication. The new redaction, prepared by the special commission of Consultors, was submitted to the examination of the plenary congregation and then to the approval of the Pope on 20 February 1941. The three formulas in use were reduced to two: major and minor. The first is reserved to Ordinaries with episcopal character and the second to those without episcopal character.

The faculties, granted ad decennium, entered into force on 1 January 1941. The two formulas include in their text also the supplement added to the old ones and are the broadest hitherto granted. There is also found in them the faculty concerning permission to read prohibited books. The whole matter is distributed in four chapters which treat of the faculties concerning sacramenta et sacros ritus (arts. 1-28 for the major formula and 1-27 for the minor); concerning absolutiones, benedictiones, indulgentias et indulta varia (arts. 29-49 for the major formula and 28-49 for the minor); pro ipso Ordinario (arts. 50-53 for the major and 50-52 for the minor). To the articles are added three animadversiones. The first says that the subdelegable faculties are marked with an asterisk; the second recalls that they can be exercised « intra fines suae iurisdictionis », « gratis », « et facta mentione apostolicae delegationis »; the third concerns their renewal and the case in which through forgetfulness or inadvertence they were used beyond the time of expiry. The minor formula also had an art. no. 53 which in the reprint of 1947 was suppressed. In it was granted to apostolic prefects the use of the insignia and privileges of apostolic protonotaries de munere participantium even outside their own territory. In the reprint of 1947 there were abolished at no. 24 of the major formula and at no. 23 of the minor formula the words « tam natae quam ».

Besides these decennial faculties, Propaganda grants to the Ordinaries of missions in Latin America other faculties ad decennium, which are linked to the apostolic letter Trans Oceanum of Leo XIII dated 18 April 1897, and furthermore to the Ordinaries of south-eastern Europe it continues to grant the faculties according to the extra ordinem formula.

Saverio Paventi