PRELATE (Prae-Latus, Antistes, Praesul). - A person superior to others in dignity. In current canon law, in the strict sense, it designates members of the secular or regular clergy having jurisdiction in the external forum; in the broad sense, clerics invested with this title by the Holy See honoris causa (can. 110). Prelature is the dignity of a prelate (praesulis dignitas) or the territory in which quasi-episcopal jurisdiction is exercised. A distinction is made between major prelates, that is, cardinals (v.), bishops (v.) and others who, together with the prelatial dignity, have a part in the government of the universal Church (secretaries of Congregations, assessors, etc.); minor prelates are: the nullius prelates, with full episcopal jurisdiction, abbots (v.), having the use of pontifical privileges with jurisdiction, the Superiors general and provincial of the regulars, the vicars general and capitular, and in a certain respect also the Superiors of convents, insofar as they exercise jurisdiction, though quite limited, external and real, over their subjects, whom they can command and punish. In ancient times the heads of collegiate churches and the dignitaries of Chapters were also called prelates; even abbesses (v.), insofar as they presided over the government of the communities entrusted to them (in 813 by the Council of Reims and in 816 by that of Aachen, although women are incapable of true ecclesiastical jurisdiction).
As for the Roman prelatures mentioned here, they followed the fortunes and the evolution of the pontifical family and of the curial offices of which they formed part. Thus there were first of all the palatine prelates, who had office and residence in the Apostolic Palace, and among them were also numbered some members of the Sacred College. They were called prelates of the Apostolic Chamber, of the Sacred Roman Rota, of the Apostolic Signatura, etc., from their belonging to these dicasteries. Several times the pontiffs had to intervene to regulate and limit the privileges and to remove abuses that had crept into the Roman prelature, and to specify the requirements necessary for access to prelatures; and Alexander VII in particular must be remembered, who, in the constitution Inter coeteros of 13 June 1659 (Bullarium Romanum, XVI, Turin 1869, p. 472) lists as necessary requirements legitimacy of birth, good life, a most upright reputation, and the age of 25; for the prelature of justice there was further required the having attended at least 5 years of legal studies at a university, or having obtained the degree in utroque iure, and possessing annual revenues amounting to 1500 scudi (cf. on the same subject the constitution of Pius VII, Post diuturnas, 30 Oct. 1800: Bullarium Romanum, Continuatio, VII, part 1, Prato 1850, p. 59, and the allocation of Leo XII to the Sacred College of 13 March 1826: cf. Moroni, XXVIII, p. 69).
In the old Pontifical State, purely civil offices were often entrusted to prelates, without their ceasing to be ecclesiastical prelatures. So much so that when Pius IX, by the motu proprio of 12 June 1847, instituted the Council of Ministers, he reserved the dispatch of the sovereign appointments of prelates to the Secretariat of State, from which even today the letters and briefs of appointment are dispatched. Among the prelates there were then also the advocate of the poor, the advocate general of the fisc, the fiscal procurator general, the commissioner of the Apostolic Chamber, called prelates of the mantellone, and the consistorial advocates (cf. Moroni, LV, p. 146). There were furthermore in the Pontifical State benefices constituted as prelatures, ordinarily of gentilicial and family patronage, without care of souls, sometimes comparable to a fideicommissum (v.). The Italian law of 15 Sept. 1867, no. 3848, art. 1, no. 9, suppressed them; and this suppression was extended by the law of 15 June 1873, no. 1402, also to those existing in Rome (F. Scaduto, Diritto ecclesiastico vigente in Italia, II, Cortona 1929, p. 103).
The occupation of Rome in 1870 brought confusion into many colleges of the prelature, assigned, in the administration of the pontifical government, to the ordering of justice, of finances and to other attributions concerning the civil government. Pius IX maintained them, although by then rendered inactive. Leo XIII, in order to profit from the elements of the Curia left without purpose, partly restored the attributions of the auditors of the Rota, and distributed the other members (about 40) among the more important cardinalitial congregations.
The constitution Ad incrementum of Pius XI of 15 Aug. 1934 (AAS, 26 [1934], p. 497 ff.), which reorganized the Roman prelature, distinguishes two great categories of prelates: those who belong to a prelatial college and are designated by the title of the college to which they belong; those who belong to no college and are simply domestic prelates.
1. Prelates belonging to a prelatial college
a) that of the archbishops and bishops assistants at the throne (v. assistants at the throne); b) the prelates, called of the fiocchetto (vice-chamberlain, auditor and treasurer of the Apostolic Chamber, majordomo: v. PONTIFICAL FAMILY), who however do not constitute a prelatial college in the proper sense; c) the College of the apostolic protonotaries of number participating (v. APOSTOLIC PROTONOTARIES); d) that of the prelates auditors of the Sacred Roman Rota (v. ROTA, SACRED ROMAN); e) that of the prelates clerics of the Reverend Apostolic Chamber (v.); f) that of the prelates voters of the Signatura, to whom are added the prelates referendaries. The said Pian constitution also establishes the precedence that must be observed among the various prelatial colleges; the prelates of the fiocchetto have the first place, followed immediately by the assessors and secretaries of the Roman Sacred Congregations (v.). Then comes the prelatial College of the apostolic protonotaries of number participating, that of the auditors of the Sacred Roman Rota, that of the clerics of the Reverend Apostolic Chamber, that of the voters of the Signatura with the referendaries. Such precedence belongs not only to the prelatial College, but also to each of its members, who precedes all those of the lower College. In each individual College the first place belongs to the dean, who is primus inter pares.
The ordinary title of prelates, established already some time ago, is, in almost all cases, that of "most illustrious and most reverend monsignor." In the 19th century the title of "most reverend excellency" had been insensibly introduced, for prelates of princely birth and for some who exercised the principal magistratures. The aforementioned constitution Ad incrementum establishes that, besides the prelates of the fiocchetto, those who enjoy the title of "most reverend excellency" are the assessors and secretaries of the Roman Sacred Congregations, the dean of the Sacred Roman Rota, the master of the Chamber and the substitute of the Secretariat of State, while all the other prelates will have only the customary title of "most illustrious and most reverend monsignor." Pius XI in his aforementioned constitution (ch. I, nos. VII to X) minutely describes the formal dress, which must be used in sacred functions, while plain dress is proper to civil ceremonies. In collegiate functions, moreover, and in the papal chapels, the prelates assume over the rochet the cotta or the woolen cape with or without ermine furs, according to the season. During the vacant See, the dress will be the customary one, but of black color and simple rochet, without lace.
For the privileges that prelates enjoy in the celebration of Mass, both low and sung, v. P. Martinucci, Manuale sacrarum caeremoniarum (VIII, Rome 1879-80, p. 173); for privileges of another kind, v. the constitution Ad incrementum, nos. XLI ff., LXXI ff., CV ff., CXXVII ff., CXLII ff.
2. Prelates not belonging to any prelatial College, or domestic prelates properly so called
Appointed by the Secretariat of State from among ecclesiastics particularly deserving of Rome and of the various Christian countries, they have the right to wear the prelatial dress; at sung and low Mass they may use the bugia. Their place in solemn papal functions is standing next to the altar, on the cornu epistolae.
They are designated by the name antistites urbani or antistites domus pontificis maximi; they are also called domestic prelates, because the violet mantelletta is their distinguishing mark. They are familiars of the pope with all the prerogatives granted to this dignity. By virtue of the office itself that they hold, the archbishops and bishops assisting the Throne, the participating apostolic protonotaries, the supernumerary apostolic protonotaries and the ad instar protonotaries who before their appointment as protonotaries were named domestic prelates by brief, are domestic prelates; so too the prelates belonging to the colleges of the prelature, and the archbishops and bishops who obtained the concession before their promotion; the canons of the Primatial Church of Pisa, the dignitaries of the metropolitan Chapter of Catania, the senior among the canons of the most distinguished basilica of St. Lawrence in Damaso in Rome, the archpriest of the Chapter of Sts. Celsus and Julian in Rome, and the auditors of the Tribunal of the Rota of the apostolic nunciature of Spain are domestic prelates ad instar, durante munere.