Ordinary

ORDINARY. — He is the subject invested with ordinary power of jurisdiction. According to can. 198 § 1, the following are to be considered Ordinaries, barring express exception, besides the Roman Pontiff and for their respective territory: residential bishops, abbots or prelates nullius and their vicars general, administrators, vicars and apostolic prefects, those who, in the absence of the aforesaid, supply for them, as well as major superiors, with respect to their own subjects, in exempt clerical religious institutes (can. 218 § 1). While the latter — that is, religious superiors — are called simply Ordinaries, the others have the name of Ordinary of the place or places; the former are elected, appointed, designated according to the religious Constitutions (can. 488 § 8), the latter by the Roman Pontiff through the S. Congr. Consistorial (cf. can. 248 § 2), if it is a question of the ordinary hierarchy, and by the competent bishops or their equivalents, for vicarial government; or else through the S. Congr. of Propaganda Fide, if it is a question of mission countries (can. 252 § 1), without prejudice to the specific personal and territorial competence of the S. Congr. Oriental.

Very extensive are the faculties belonging to Ordinaries, especially if they are endowed with the episcopal character. They are the true pastors of the flock entrusted to them; therefore they have the right and the duty (can. 335) to govern the diocese in both spiritual and temporal matters with the corresponding legislative, judicial and coercive power. The Ordinary of the place, in accordance with can. 1572, is the judge of first instance for all causes not expressly excepted by law, and he can exercise this judicial power personally and through others throughout the diocese. He is however bound, unless the smallness of the diocese or the paucity of business counsels entrusting this task to the vicar general, to appoint the Official with ordinary power of judging (can. 1573 § 1) and some synodal or pro-synodal judges with delegated power to resolve disputes (can. 1574 § 1). Ordinaries then exercise coercive power in accordance with cann. 2221 and 2222 and must carefully watch over the observance of ecclesiastical laws, being unable to dispense from those established by common law, except with the clauses sanctioned in can. 81. Can. 336 thus synthetically summarizes the duties of Ordinaries of places: «Let them watch that abuses do not creep into ecclesiastical discipline, especially as regards the administration of the Sacraments and Sacramentals, the worship of God and of the saints, the preaching of the word of God, the sacred indulgences, the fulfillment of pious wills; and let them take care that the purity of faith and morals be safeguarded in the clergy and the people, that the faithful, particularly children and the unlearned, be given the nourishment of Christian doctrine, that the little ones and the young in schools receive a formation according to the principles of the Catholic religion». Ordinaries of places are doctors and must exercise their right to preach the Gospel (cann. 1327 § 1 and 1343 § 1), as well as supervise religious instruction in schools (cann. 1381 § 1, 1382, 497 § 3) and in seminaries (can. 1357 § 2) and the prior censorship of books (cann. 1386 and 1388).

Ordinaries of places have the faculty to dispense from laws, even invalidating and disqualifying ones, when there is a doubt of fact, provided it is a question of laws from which the Roman Pontiff is accustomed to dispense (can. 15); it is they who give the force of law, with their own consent, to ecclesiastical custom in their territory (can. 25); who can grant rescripts, without prejudice to the appropriate and practical provisions of cann. 43 and 44; who are charged with executing the rescripts of the Holy See, when no other executor is indicated and the rescripts themselves are issued in a special commissarial form (can. 51). Very important then is their activity in the administration of the Sacraments: it is the Ordinaries who must give the holy Oils to parish priests who request them (can. 735) and to priests who are not parish priests the permission to confer solemn Baptism (cf. can. 738 § 1); who permit the use of the ceremonies for children also in the Baptism of adults (can. 755 § 2) and ordinarily can and must resolve any practical doubt concerning the necessary qualities required to serve validly or licitly as godparent (can. 767); only Ordinaries can grant, in exceptional cases, the faculty to baptize solemnly in private homes (cf. can. 776 § 1, 2°). To them it belongs to issue commendatory letters to their own priests so that these may be legitimately admitted to the celebration of Holy Mass outside the diocese (can. 804 § 1). Finally, for the full application of what can. 804 prescribes, they can issue special norms, which, in general, must be observed also by exempt religious, unless these celebrate in a church of their own religious institute (can. 804 § 2), and they can permit, in extraordinary cases and per modum actus, the celebration of Holy Mass even outside a Church and oratory, on the bare altar stone and in an honest and fitting place (can. 822 § 4). Among the duties of Ordinaries there is in particular that of establishing, by means of a decree to be issued if possible in the diocesan synod, the manual stipend for Masses in the respective territory (can. 831 § 1) and of watching that in secular churches the obligations of accepted intentions of Masses to be celebrated are satisfied (can. 842). Every Ordinary of the place enjoys ordinary power to hear confessions throughout his territory and can therefore grant delegated jurisdiction to receive the confessions of all, both seculars and religious, to priests both secular and religious, even exempt (can. 874 § 1), within the limits and in accordance with what is laid down in cann. 877 and 878; and can, in accordance with can. 893, reserve certain cases to his own judgment with the safeguards established in cann. 895, 897 and 889. As regards the power to grant indulgences (v.) cann. 912, 914, 916 must be kept in mind.

Furthermore the Ordinary of the place has the faculty to allow, in case of necessity, any priest to administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction, which is customarily reserved to the parish priest (can. 938 § 2). And finally it belongs to the Ordinary of the place to give the so-called dimissorial letters for Holy Ordination (can. 958 and can. 960), to judge whether candidates for Orders have the required qualities (can. 968), to dispense his own subjects from irregularities arising from an occult crime, in accordance with can. 990 § 1, and to subject the promoti to a prior and diligent examination concerning the Order they are about to receive (cann. 996 and 997).

Very important, moreover, is the intervention of the Ordinary in the ecclesiastical discipline of the celebration of the sacrament of Matrimony. It occurs with regard to the examination of the spouses (can. 1020 § 3), the banns (cann. 1023, 1025, 1026, 1027, 1028), the marriage of the homeless (can. 1032) and of minors (can. 1034), the merely temporary prohibition of marriages according to can. 1039 § 1, as well as for everything concerning the faculty of dispensing from the form and from impediments according to both can. 1043, in grave danger of death, and can. 1045, when everything is prepared for the wedding and the celebration of the marriage cannot be deferred, without danger of grave harm, until the eventual granting of the dispensation by the Holy See (can. 1045 § 1), as well as the observance of the due juridical form of the Sacrament (can. 1094 ff.) and the so-called marriage of conscience (cann. 1104-1106). No less relevant is the activity of Ordinaries in relation to sacred places and times. It appears clearly from the canonical prescriptions concerning the consecration (can. 1155) and the blessing (can. 1156) of sacred places, the necessity of the prior consent of the Ordinary to build any church (can. 1162), for the laying and the blessing of the first stone (can. 1163) and for the plans concerning the form and the architectural style (can. 1164), for the blessing of bells and for their transformation, in certain special circumstances, to merely profane uses (can. 1169); and further concerning the right of the Church to have its own cemeteries (can. 1206) and to permit the faithful to construct private tombs (can. 1209), as well as the faculty of the Ordinary to establish the schedule of funeral fees or alms (can. 1234), to decide in a doubtful case concerning the canonical deprivation of ecclesiastical burial (can. 1240); and to publish, per modum tantum actus, in his own diocese and for determined places, special days of feast and of abstinence and of fasting (can. 1244 § 2).

For the cessation of the office and of the powers of the Ordinary, cann. 183, 430, 327 § 1 and 371 must chiefly be kept in mind.

Giuseppe Casoria