CANONICAL MISSION (missio canonica). — It is the faculty granted to lower ministers of the hierarchy for preaching and for the exercise of the Catholic magisterium. It is sometimes called approval and also entails the license, as for religious, to teach religion in any school (cf. CIC, can. 1381 § 3).
From the words of Jesus reported in Jn 17:18; 20:21 and from those of St. Paul in 2 Cor 5:20, the entire ancient ecclesiastical legislation on canonical mission derives, which later became more rigid and determined: with regard to preaching, because of the intemperances of the followers of Wycliffe, condemned at 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 to ascend the pulpit of public ecclesiastical teaching, thus giving rise to the doctrinal and practical movement of the secularization of schools and universities.
To safeguard the received deposit of the divine Revelation, the Church has always intervened to defend, with vigilant constancy, the necessity of canonical mission not only for its own schools and universities, but also for those erected by the State and other temporal societies, when it came to teaching matters of faith and morals. The necessity of this mission is thus explained, specifically with regard to sacred preaching, in can. 1328 of the CIC: «No one may exercise the ministry of preaching without having obtained the mission from the legitimate superior either through the granting of a special faculty or by the conferral of an office to which the sacred canons attach the duty of preaching». And with regard to teaching, the prescription contained in can. 1381 applies, where the right of supervision of the Church over all schools is sanctioned, in order to ensure the religious education of youth; hence the right and duty of the competent Ordinaries to ensure that nothing is said, expressed, or interpreted against the faith or good morals, even to the point of demanding the removal of books and teachers who offend the orthodoxy of Catholic doctrine. The Church has sought, as far as possible, to safeguard this right even in concordats (cf., e.g., that with Italy, at art. 36).
Canonical mission, being a delegation or authorization, with the exception of the Roman Pontiff, who receives it directly from Jesus Christ upon acceptance (cf. CIC, can. 219), and of cardinals, who positively have from can. 239 § 1 n. 3 the right to preach the word of God everywhere, can only be obtained from one’s own legitimate superior and can only be conferred upon a suitable person.
It is clear that such a delegation can always be revoked or suspended if the delegate acts improperly in the sacred ministry or propagates errors in Catholic teaching; the removed person retains the faculty to appeal as provided for in can. 1340 § 3.