PALATINE CHURCHES AND CHAPELS. — These are those churches which, having been designated to meet the religious needs of the Head of a State and his household, or merely because of the powers acquired over them by the Head of a State, find themselves in a relationship of particularly close dependence upon him.
I. HISTORY
According to the assertions of Eusebius, Sozomen, and other writers of the life of Constantine, it is to this Emperor that the origin of that private oratory, destined for the religious service of the sovereign, annexed to the royal palace and called *sacellum*, *oratorium*, *capella regia* or *palatina*, must be traced. Among the most notable churches and chapels in the West are mentioned: S. Vitale in Ravenna, S. Cesario on the Palatine, the Duomo of Acquasparta, S. Marco in Venice, the Palatine Chapel of Palermo, the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, the Hofkirche in Dresden, etc., and for the papal court the chapel of S. Lorenzo in the Lateran.From its very inception, although presenting, in its fundamental characteristics, the appearance of a private oratory, the palatine chapel had its own distinct features: it was free and exempt from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction; no interdict could be placed upon it except by special mandate of the Apostolic See; it was served by the so-called royal or palatine clergy who did not depend upon ecclesiastical authority and were not subject to the jurisdiction of the diocesan ordinary; but, appointed by the sovereign, they formed a body of their own, governed, in spiritual matters, by the Grand Chaplain and, in temporal matters, by the sovereign himself. Furthermore, whereas in a private oratory only certain religious practices were carried out, in that of the sovereign any sacred ceremony or function could be celebrated without the need of any special authorization from ecclesiastical authorities, and, most importantly among its privileges, the royal chapel also served as the personal parish of the sovereign, his family, and the court.
Later, alongside the palatine chapels properly so called, others began to emerge with a profoundly different structure. In these cases, as a result of successive donations by the prince, the royal chapel ended up possessing its own patrimony completely detached from that of the sovereign, so that, abandoning its original character as a temporal office and ministry, it came to be transformed into an entity in its own right, with a juridical status not unlike, in most cases, that of a collegiate church, having its own organization and regularly erected in canonical form; its clergy, hitherto considered as stipendiaries of the sovereign’s household, acquired a beneficiary character and, once invested by the sovereign with their prebend, enjoyed canonical inamovibility.
From this transformation there followed: 1) that the sovereign ceased to be the owner of the chapel and its ecclesiastical goods, so that his right was limited to that complex of powers which constitute the right of patronage, with the sole substantial difference that, whereas the patron had only the right to present the candidate to the ecclesiastical authority, the sovereign proceeded to the *plena collatio* of the benefice himself; 2) that the parochial character ceased to be a privilege, since the palatine church was regularly erected as a parish.
Finally, alongside the aforementioned palatine chapels or churches, there are to be recalled those churches (palatine *improprie* or *ad honorem*) which, having arisen as sacred places open to the worship of all the faithful, with rich donations, ordinary cura animarum, and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, were later invested by the sovereign with the character of palatineness, sometimes because they themselves placed themselves under his protection, but more often for political ends, when they became the center of the Ghibelline organization loyal to the prince in opposition to the cathedral, the center of the Guelf party, loyal to the Pope.
II. NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF PALATINENESS
The characteristics of palatineness respond to the essentially political purpose of the institution, consisting in guaranteeing, for the sovereign, the ability to fulfill religious duties without the threat of episcopal interdict.They are, in broad outline, the following: 1) the designation of the chapel or church for the exercise of the private worship of the Head of State; 2) the function of a personal parish for the Head of State and his household; 3) the right of ownership of the chapel by the Head of State, if it has retained its original character as a private oratory; the right of patronage, if it is an autonomous entity; 4) the right of the sovereign to appoint the ecclesiastics in charge of the church or chapel, with the faculty, if it is a private oratory, to revoke them at will; 5) the exemption of the church or chapel and its clergy from episcopal jurisdiction; 6) particular liturgical and ritual privileges in religious ceremonies and functions.
III. PALATINE CHURCHES AND CHAPELS IN ITALY BEFORE THE CONCORDAT
In Italy, the institution of palatineness held real importance in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where it found its regulation in the bull of Benedict XIV *Convenit* of 27 July 1741; it then acquired particular value with the expropriation laws of 1866, since, to escape suppression, some churches invoked and obtained the qualification of palatine, overestimating the meaning and content of ancient royal documents and diplomas in their favor.Before the Concordat, a distinction could be made between:
a) churches and chapels annexed to royal palaces: these depended upon the Ministry of the Royal Household, which was competent in ordinary and extraordinary administration and provided for the expenses of the services, maintenance, and repair of the building whenever the entity lacked its own means; the chaplains, appointed by the sovereign not as a private individual but as an organ of the State, depended upon the Ministry of the Royal Household and were considered royal officials;
b) entities dependent upon the Ministry of Grace and Justice: of these, those lacking their own patrimony were burdened, for expenses and fees, upon the budget of the Ministry; those with their own patrimony were administered by the general stewards for vacant benefices as royal delegates, under the tutelage and supervision of the Minister of Grace and Justice, who approved their budgets and acts exceeding ordinary administration;
c) entities dependent upon the National Opera of War Veterans: oratories annexed to royal villas and palaces which, by royal decree-law of 3 Oct. 1919, no. 1792, had passed from the Crown to the State and were thus transferred to the National Opera of War Veterans, which had become their owner with the obligation to provide, for those lacking goods, for the services and maintenance. The appointment of chaplains for these entities also remained within the competence of the Ministry of Justice, which moreover administered the goods of chapels that, although dependent upon the National Opera of War Veterans, possessed their own patrimony;
d) the Apulian palatine churches: for these, although retaining their juridical personality, the administration of the patrimony was centralized in an autonomous entity presided over by a delegate, appointed by the king upon the proposal of the Minister of Grace and Justice, in consultation with the Ministry of the Royal Household; the budgets of the said entity and its acts exceeding ordinary administration had to be approved by the Ministry of Grace and Justice, while the clergy of the churches in question were remunerated with fixed allowances.
IV. AFTER THE CONCORDAT
With the Concordat (art. 29, letter g), the Italian State renounced the privileges of ecclesiastical jurisdictional exemption of the palatine clergy throughout Italy (except for those attached to the churches of the Holy Shroud in Turin, Superga, the Sudarium in Rome, and the chapels annexed to the palaces of residence of the sovereigns and royal princes). The other churches and chapels that, prior to the Concordat, enjoyed a particular regime due to their qualification as palatine, became simple collegiate churches; therefore, the appointments and provisions related to them fell under the general norms established in this regard for all other ecclesiastical entities. With the Concordat, it was also established that a special mixed commission would provide for the assignment to each basilica or palatine church of an adequate endowment according to the criteria indicated for the goods of sanctuaries in art. 27 of the Concordat itself. Such an arrangement was made for the former palatine churches in Apulia, which, with their own endowment and their own fabbriceria, were transferred under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical authority; the Royal Delegation was suppressed, and an autonomous entity, the "Opere Laiche Palatine Pugliesi," was created in Bari.
With a convention between the Italian State and the Holy See, stipulated on 13 June 1939, made executive by law no. 1887 of 30 November 1939, and entering into force on 2 February 1940 upon the exchange of ratifications, it was then determined which chapels, in addition to those expressly indicated by art. 29 of the Concordat, still maintained the characteristics of palatineness; the legal status of the churches of S. Gottardo in Milan, S. Francesco di Paola in Naples, and the chapel of S. Pietro in the Royal Palace of Palermo was established, which, in addition to being annexed to royal palaces, had full parochial function; the procedure for the appointment of the Major Chaplain of the King (palatine ordinary) and of the ecclesiastical officers attached to palatine churches or chapels was specified; finally, the "mensa" of the Major Chaplain and his clergy was constituted.
It should, however, be noted in the end how the republican form recently assumed by the Italian State might lead one to consider the very institution of palatineness as subject to transformation in meaning and content, or at least in function.
V. THE CHURCH OF THE PANTHEON
In addition to the transformation and extinction of some palatine churches, with the Concordat (art. 15) provision was made to create a new one (that of the Pantheon: S. Maria ad Martyres), with a wholly special and sui generis function, as it was destined not only for the private worship of the Head of State but also for the State’s own ceremonial acts of worship. Said article also established that the archbishop ordinary military