Limina Apostolorum

LIMINA APOSTOLORUM. - All residential bishops are required to go at determined periodic times to venerate the tombs (limina) of the Apostles and to present themselves to the successor of Peter.

This custom is of very remote origin, going back to the first Christian centuries; in it there was at first manifested devotion toward the relics of the Apostles, then, with the progressive defining and intensifying of the exercise of pontifical authority, there prevailed the duty of reporting to the Supreme Pastor on the conditions of one's own flock and of receiving from him the appropriate directives. Sixtus V, with the bull Romania Pontifex of 20 Dec. 1585, established this periodic visit as a juridical obligation.

The visits ad limina, beginning on 1 Jan. 1911, are quinquennial and fall in the years in which the bishop is required to send back to the Holy See (S. Congr. Concistoriale) the reports on the state of the diocese. The first year of each five-year period is assigned to the reports, and therefore to the visits, of the bishops of Italy; the second to the bishops of Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Holland, England, Sweden and Ireland; the third to the remaining bishops of Europe; the fourth to the reports of the bishops of America; the fifth to those of Africa, Asia, Australia and the adjacent islands. For non-European bishops the obligation of the visit is limited to every decade. All are required, barring grave impediment, to fulfill it personally or through their coadjutor (cann. 341-42), except the apostolic vicars, who, as missionaries and ordinarily impeded, may delegate a procurator in Rome (can. 299).

Vittorio Bartoccetti