PAPATO. — A synonym for Roman Pontificate, denoting the permanent institution willed by Jesus Christ in the person of St Peter and, through him, in those of his legitimate successors until the end of the ages, with the purpose of presiding over and governing the universal Church with full and supreme authority.
Whereas the term “Church” denotes the entirety of all the faithful gathered under the government of their legitimate pastors, p. denotes instead the supreme authority placed over the Church itself by divine mandate. To this authority, that is, to the p., belong indefectibility (v.) infallibility (v.). By virtue of its universality, that is, of the Primacy (v. PAPA), the bishops of the whole world, placed in charge of individual territories and nations, the mission territories and those assimilated to them because the Church of Christ must expand into them, and those religious institutes which, because they are exempt from diocesan authority, have the privilege of depending directly upon pontifical authority, all have recourse to II.
Directly connected with the p. are those organs necessary for the exercise of its mission: at the very centre of Christendom, the Congregations (v.), and on the periphery, the nunciatures, delegations, apostolic vicariates and prefectures.
The history of the P. is entirely bound up Church (v.), while it must always be remembered that, in the exercise of its powers, a greater or lesser centralization manifests itself according to the times and circumstances, and that direct interventions in the internal and external historical affairs of the Church occur with greater or lesser frequency and scope according as the needs and possibilities of good arise, without this having made it possible either to prescribe its fundamental rights or to give juridical validity to the alleged liberties of any particular nation. For the individual pontiffs, see the entries concerning them. Pio Paschini