FORUM. — The Latin term forum or forum originally denoted the place or open space outside the house, or even the vestibule surrounding tombs. Subsequently, it designated the place where the market was held, which could also be a private location in fields or along roads; hence the term forum came to refer to the centres of the city or those situated along major thoroughfares, where inhabitants gathered for both private and public business (i.e., to hold markets, conduct assemblies or elections, promulgate laws, celebrate ceremonies, and seek and obtain the administration of justice). This latter meaning became the prevalent one, and forum came to denote without further qualification the place where judicial controversies were settled, that is, the place where jurisdiction was exercised or even the scope of such jurisdiction; eventually, it also came to signify the jurisdiction itself (cf. Paolo Diacono [ed. C.O. Müller, Leipzig 1890], p. 84, 9). To preserve, however, a proper and distinct sense for the word forum apart from jurisdiction, it is fitting to say that the forum is the sphere or ambit within which jurisdiction is contained and exercised, or rather the place, seat, or competent authority for settling a particular kind of controversy or regulating a particular kind of affair. In this way, the forum is distinguished from competence: the former, as has been said, is the place, not only materially but also formally, of jurisdiction; the latter is instead the portion of jurisdiction assigned to a particular organ or person.
Both the Church and the State are invested with the power of jurisdiction or governance; yet this power is contained within a determinate sphere, to which the name forum is given. Thus, there is the ecclesiastical forum and the civil forum.
It belongs exclusively to the ecclesiastical forum to judge: 1) causes concerning spiritual matters or those annexed to spiritual matters; 2) the violation of ecclesiastical laws and the determination of the sinful character of an act, in relation to the definition of guilt and the imposition of ecclesiastical penalties; 3) all contentious or criminal causes concerning persons who enjoy the privilege of the forum according to canon law (can. 1553 § 1). In so-called mixed forum causes, that is, those falling under the joint competence of Church and State, the criterion of prevention applies, meaning that the authority—whether ecclesiastical or civil—that is first seized of the matter shall judge it (can. 1553 § 2).
In Italy, through the Lateran Pacts, full juridical efficacy—including all civil effects—has been accorded to sentences and measures issued by ecclesiastical authorities and officially communicated to civil authorities, provided they concern ecclesiastical or religious persons and pertain to spiritual or disciplinary matters (Treaty, art. 23; Concordat, arts. 5 and 29). It is likewise recognized that causes concerning the nullity of marriage and the dispensation from a ratified but unconsummated marriage are reserved to the competence of ecclesiastical tribunals and dicasteries. With regard to causes of personal separation, the Holy See consents that they be judged by civil tribunals (Concordat, art. 34; law of 27 May 1920, no. 847).
Whereas in civil law the term forum commonly denotes the tribunal or judicial function, in canon law the word retains its broader sense as explained above. Thus, according to the diversity of ends pursued, the sphere in which it operates, and the manner in which it is exercised, there is a jurisdiction of the external forum and a jurisdiction of the internal forum (the external forum is also called forum fori, because within it actions are considered from the public or social aspect; the internal or conscience forum is also called forum poli because it concerns the eternal salvation of individual faithful, and eternal salvation is as it were the pole of souls). The jurisdiction of the external forum is directed immediately to promoting and defending the public good, that is, the good of the community of the faithful, and to regulating their social activity; the jurisdiction of the internal forum, by contrast, aims directly at the spiritual good of individuals and thus concerns their private actions insofar as these relate to conscience and eternal life.
This distinction does not exist in civil law, because civil authority always exercises its power for the good of society and only indirectly for private good. In the Church, however, this dual power follows from her very nature. She is, in fact, a spiritual and supernatural society constituted for the salvation of men, and men, in order to attain salvation, need not only an authority that directs them collectively and socially but also a direction of individuals according to their particular conditions and circumstances. Civil society finds already constituted by nature the family, which directly, in the natural order, provides for the good of individuals; the Church, as a supernatural society, finds in this order no society or organ already constituted to care for individuals, and consequently it falls to her to exercise direct care even over them.
The jurisdiction of the external forum is exercised publicly and has juridical effects, whereas the jurisdiction of the internal forum is exercised privately and, of itself, has no public effect.
Since the jurisdiction of the external forum concerns the external relations of subjects with society and has as its end the common good, it may be said—and truly is—even in the Church a power that is properly human; the power of the internal forum, however, which concerns the relations of souls with God and has as its end the salvation and sanctification of souls—a work that is divine—is a power essentially divine. It follows that the former is a power proper to the Church, of which she is the principal agent; the latter, by contrast, is exercised by the Church as God’s vicar: the principal agent in its exercise is indeed God Himself, in whose stead the Church or her ministers act, and only when it concerns positive ecclesiastical law is the power of the internal forum also proper to the Church. Both powers are of divine institution. The power of jurisdiction in the external forum does not formally regard divine law as such, but everything directed to the social end of the Church; yet, insofar as for this end it may be useful to command or forbid even what is already imposed or prohibited by divine law, what was previously obligatory only before God may be rendered obligatory also in the external forum before ecclesiastical society. It follows that the jurisdiction of the external forum is chiefly directed to extending, within the ecclesiastical forum, precepts or prohibitions that were previously only of divine forum, or to promulgating laws or issuing orders by virtue of the power entrusted to ecclesiastical authority. Since, however, ecclesiastical laws bind even in conscience, what binds in the forum of the Church also binds before God. The power of the internal forum, by contrast, formally regards divine law, understood not only as norms directly established by God but also as the obligations produced in conscience by human positive laws. The power of the internal forum is therefore chiefly ordered not to divine law itself but to the obligation that, through human action, has been contracted before God: through sin, an oath, a vow, etc., or the obligation that arises from ecclesiastical law before God (cf. L. Billot, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, 3rd ed., I, Rome 1869, pp. 456–66). Even the same precepts that may be imposed in the internal forum, such as, for example, sacramental Penance or the work by which a vow is commuted, are directed to the dissolution of the bond contracted in the divine forum.
The jurisdiction of the external forum differs, as has been said, from that of the
Public welfare cannot be conceived apart from the good of individuals, nor can individual welfare disregard the common good; yet it is not always easy to distinguish what pertains to one or the other. The difficulty is even greater in the Church, where it often happens that the welfare of a single soul concerns the whole society. It may nevertheless be said that the following belong to the internal forum:
a) all actions insofar as they are considered under the aspect of sin, hence also crimes, not insofar as they disturb society, but insofar as they disturb conscience;
b) all occult actions, so long as they remain occult (when they become public they pass to the external forum if their nature so requires);
c) faculties directed to the welfare of individual souls: thus the faculty of preaching tends directly to persuade each individual of Catholic truth; the faculty of absolving tends to the forgiveness of the sins of individuals.
The following belong to the external forum:
a) legislative, judicial, and executive power;
b) the power to grant the faculty of preaching and of absolving, etc., because it is directly for public utility that ministers be designated who will preach, absolve, etc.
As the object differs, so too does the manner of proceeding in the one and the other forum differ: in the internal forum one proceeds secretly and *commune Dei*, in the external forum publicly and *commune Ecclesiae*.
Given the distinction between public and private utility and between the one and the other forum, there may be subjects invested with power in the internal forum without jurisdiction in the external forum, as, for example, the parish priests; and conversely there may be subjects invested with jurisdiction in the external forum without power in the internal forum. According to canon 202 §3, however, unless it is otherwise evident, jurisdiction is understood to be granted for both forums. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction, in fact, by its very nature extends to both forums, but the will of the grantor or the very nature of the concession may restrict its scope to one alone: thus, for example, the power of absolving may be limited to the internal forum; the power of judging may limit jurisdiction to the external forum.
An act performed by virtue of the power of jurisdiction (whether ordinary or delegated) in the external forum has full effect also for the internal forum (canon 202 §1); whereas an act of jurisdiction granted solely for the internal forum has effect only for the latter. If therefore a matter defined in the internal forum alone passes to the external forum, an act of jurisdiction is required to define it also in this forum, unless the law itself provides otherwise (cf., e.g., canon 1047).
Although the external forum and the internal forum are generally in accord, there may nevertheless be cases of conflict when proof in the external forum is impossible (e.g., a marriage may be null by reason of lack of consent, but such lack may be incapable of proof; cf. also canon 2251). In case of conflict, the external forum prevails, provided that observance of it is possible without fault before God; otherwise the internal forum prevails, because divine law takes precedence over human law.
The external forum may be distinguished into judicial and extrajudicial, according as jurisdiction is exercised in the form of a judgment or not. The judicial forum may in turn be subdivided into contentious or criminal: the contentious forum concerns the definition of disputed rights or the declaration of juridical facts of physical or moral persons, while the criminal forum has as its object delicts in relation to punishment (canon 1552 §2). The procedural norms are for the most part common to both kinds of judgment, and ecclesiastical judicial organs have civil and penal competence.
The power of the internal forum in turn is subdivided into sacramental (formerly also called penitential) and extrasacramental: the former can be exercised only in the sacrament of Penance or on the occasion thereof; thus it happens, by divine right, in the remission of sins, and by ecclesiastical right in those cases in which confessors are delegated to dispense or to absolve from punishment in the act of confession (cf. canons 1044, 2250 §3, 2254, 2290); the latter extends to all acts which, while remaining within the scope of the internal forum, may be performed outside the sacrament of Penance: such as dispensations from vows, from irregularities, and from occult censures, etc.