CANONICAL MISSION (Missio Canonica). - It is the faculty given to the lower ministers of the hierarchy for preaching and for the exercise of the Catholic magisterium. Sometimes it is called approval and also entails the license, as for religious, to be able to teach religion in any school (cf. C.I.C., can. 1381 § 3).
From the words of Jesus reported in Jn. 17:18; 20:21 and from those of St. Paul in II Cor. 5:20 derives the whole ancient ecclesiastical legislation on the canonical mission, which later became more rigid and determined: with regard to preaching, because of the excesses of the followers of Wycliffe, condemned in the Council of Constance (Denz-U, 687-88), and with regard to the magisterium, when, under the influence of Protestantism, teachers who were little or not at all orthodox began frequently to mount the chair of public ecclesiastical teaching, thus giving rise to the movement, both doctrinal and practical, of the laicization of schools and universities.
In order to safeguard the received deposit of divine Revelation, the Church always intervened to defend, with vigilant constancy, the necessity of the canonical mission not only for its own schools and universities, but also for those erected by the State and by other temporal societies, when what was at issue was teaching in matters of faith and morals. The necessity of this mission is set out as follows, as regards specifically sacred preaching, in can. 1328 of the CIC: «No one is permitted to exercise the ministry of preaching without having obtained the mission from the legitimate superior, either through the concession of a special faculty or through the conferral of an office to which the sacred canons attach the charge of preaching». And as regards teaching, the prescription contained in can. 1381 holds, where the Church's right of supervision over all schools is sanctioned, in relation to the religious education of youth; whence the right and duty of the competent Ordinaries to watch, so that nothing be said, expressed or interpreted against faith or good morals, going so far as to demand the very removal of books and teachers that offended the orthodoxy of Catholic doctrine. The Church has wished, as far as possible, to safeguard this right of hers also in Concordats (cf., for example, that with Italy, at art. 36).
The canonical mission, being a delegation or authorization — with the exception of the Roman Pontiff, who receives it, upon prior acceptance (cf. CIC, can. 219), directly from Jesus Christ, and of the cardinals, who positively have from can. 239 § 1 n. 3 the right to preach verbum Dei ubique — cannot be obtained except from one's own legitimate superior and cannot be conferred except on a suitable person.
It is clear that such a delegation can always be withdrawn or suspended, should the delegate act improperly in the sacred ministry or propound errors in Catholic teaching; without prejudice to the removed person's faculty to appeal according to what can. 1340 § 3 provides.
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Giuseppe Casoria