INAMOVIBILITY. - It is a quality inherent in certain ecclesiastical benefices, by virtue of which the holder is invested in them in perpetuity and cannot be removed except for causes established by law.
The Catholic Church, in the earliest times, had not established an inamovibility for priests, and in this it followed in the footsteps of the Hebrew laws. St. Paul himself states generically: et constitutus per civitates presbyteros (Tit. 1:5). The reasons subsequently adduced for inamovibility were the indissoluble bond of spiritual marriage that was contracted between the Church and the holder (cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Iunbris: PG 46, 852; St. Jerome, Epist. 69 ad Ocean., PL 92, 658); the danger of ambition and avarice. In the East the first provision on this matter is found in can. 15 of the Council of Nicaea: Propter multam turbationem et seditiones quae finet placuit consuetudinem omnimodis amputari quae praeter regulam in quibusdam partibus videtur admissa, ita ut de civitate ad civitatem non episcopus, non presbyter, non diaconus transferatur. A prohibition that was repeated by can. 6 of the Council of Chalcedon. In the West the first prohibition dates from the time of Pope Damasus in the Synod of 380 (can. 9), which then passed into the Council of Carthage of the year 397 (can. 38) and into the Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua (can. 27: PL 56, 870), and was repeated by Leo I: Si quis episcopus civitatis suae mediocritate despecta administrationem loci celebrioris ambierit et ad maiorem se plebem quaecumque ratione transdutit, a cathedra quidem pellatur aliena, sed carebit et propria: ut nec illis praesidam quos per avaritiam concupivit, nec illis quos per superbiam sprevit (Epist. 14: ibid. 54, 674; Nov. 3, c. 2). This law, moreover, was not absolute, but dispensable, as the various translations permitted in the East attest. St. Gregory I, moved by historical circumstances, made this institution more flexible, and his innovation was fully inherited by the succeeding centuries.
In today's canon law, inamovibility is preserved only for certain offices and in particular for benefices and parishes in which this attribution finds complete application: there is no mention of episcopal sees because these today are almost completely reserved to the Holy See. The holder of these offices, having received the canonical mission, possesses the benefice in perpetuity, and the Ordinary cannot remove him except for well-determined causes
(can. 192 § 2). The causes of removal must be contemplated by law, and the removal must take place by means of a penal process: the sentence, any contrary custom and any contrary privilege having been revoked, must be pronounced by three judges (can. 1576 § 1, no. 1). Against this sentence an appeal with suspensive effect to the higher tribunal is permitted; moreover, when the law establishes the penalty of deprivation of a benefice, judicial correction cannot be used (can. 1948 no. 1). By effect of the sentence the benefice remains fully vacant. The inamovable parish priest must be removed by administrative process (can. 454 § 2, cann. 2147-2156). The CIC favors inamovibility, providing that parishes that will be erected in the future are to be inamovable, unless peculiar causes of place and persons counsel otherwise (can. 456 § 3).