PONENTE (ponens). — A designation applied particularly to prelates entrusted with reporting on causes or affairs dealt with before the tribunals or Congregations of the Roman Curia, and now also, more generally, to judges exercising the functions of relators in proceedings before ecclesiastical tribunals.
The origin of the term, in its first meaning, is associated by the older authors with the functions that belonged to the prelates in the Congregations or dicasteries responsible for the temporal affairs of the territories subject to the sovereignty of the Holy See, whose various provinces or districts were called ponenze. “Since among these prelates they distributed the provinces of the Papal States under the name and designation of ponentia, so each p. was called such as reported or proposed the affairs and causes of his ponenza” (Moroni). In its present meaning, current in the judicial organization of the Church, p. is the reporting magistrate who forms part of the judicial panel. It is a general rule that, in every collegiate tribunal, the president shall designate one of the judges as p. or relator, with the task of reporting the cause to the other members
of the panel and of drafting the judgment in writing. The p. has the duty of first presenting his conclusions in chambers during the discussion for the decision of the cause; the various duties connected with the investigation of the cause itself are also naturally attached to his functions. The president of the panel may himself assume the functions of p., but in matrimonial causes only if the tribunal permits it; moreover, for a just cause he may replace another p. in place of the one already appointed.
Particular powers and faculties are attributed to the p. in causes before the Tribunal of the S. Rota, both because the presidency of the turn to which the cause is entrusted is devolved upon them, and because they are granted the broadest faculties for the rapid and complete resolution of causes, including that of supplying proofs and exceptions without further formality when the public good or the salvation of souls is at issue.
In causes of beatification and canonization before the S. Congr. of Rites, the p. must be one of the cardinals belonging to the Congregation itself, appointed
by the Pontiff. It is his task to study the cause entrusted to him with particular care and to report to the Congregation everything that may be in favor of or against the cause itself.