QUINQUENNIAL, RELATION. - The obligation of the periodic report is inherent in the very nature of a subordinate office, for the sake of the necessary coordination and because of the Superior's need to be kept suitably informed about the administration and the particular situations and needs that pertain to that office. With regard to the Holy See, this obligation falls upon the Ordinaries of places and the Superiors of religious families. The fulfillment of this duty is today laid down in the CIC (cann. 340 and 510) with few substantive provisions; in practice it is made easier by special questionnaires which, suitably revised from time to time, are in use at the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia, according to the specific competence of each.
The obligation of local Ordinaries to make the periodic report on the state of the ecclesiastical circumscription entrusted to them is very ancient. It is intimately connected with the obligation of the so-called visit ad limina (v. LIMINA APOSTOLORUM), conceived as an act of obedience and submission to St. Peter and to the Pope. In fact, the CIC establishes that this report to the Holy See must be made by all local Ordinaries every five years (can. 340 § 1), almost on the same occasion as the visit ad limina (can. 341 § 1).
In itself, the obligation would fall only on residential bishops, who must personally or through delegates, at the expiration of each five-year period, go to Rome to visit the tombs of the Apostles and to pay homage to the Pope. Bishops who have taken over the government of a diocese within the two-year period in which the time fixed for the quinquennial report falls due are permitted to abstain from making it on that occasion, on the presumption that they have not yet had the time and means to become thoroughly acquainted with the diocese.
The obligation is likewise imposed on the Ordinaries of missions (vicars and prefects apostolic and ecclesiastical Superiors of missions: can. 300 § 1), as well as on prelates and abbots nullius (can. 323 § 1) and on permanent apostolic administrators (can. 315 § 1).
The first dicastery to have its own formulary was the Sacred Congregation of the Council. Prospero Lambertini, later Benedict XIV, had prepared it when he was secretary of that Congregation. This formulary was successful and came to be customarily used in the Curia until 1909. In that year the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, to whose competence the visit ad limina and the reports of local Ordinaries had passed in the reorganization of the Curia carried out by Blessed Pius X, compiled one, whose observance was imposed, and the schedules for rotation every five years were fixed, beginning from 1 January 1911 for the reports. The CIC perfected the whole institution. The practice of the Sacred Congregation of the Council was imitated by the other dicasteries. Thus the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda had its own formulary as early as 1877 for the reports of the Ordinaries of Missions, and in 1937 it drew up a special formulary for the quinquennial reports of the religious institutes dependent on it. The Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities too, in 1924, imposed on Ordinaries a triennial report on the state of their respective Seminary, to be compiled on a special formulary.
Before 1861 religious were not obliged to make the report. From that year, following the suggestions of the Commissions for the approval of new institutes, the obligation of a triennial report on the personal, disciplinary and economic state of individual institutes began to be inserted into constitutions, preceded by brief historical notes. The first to fall under the new practice were the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres and the Nazarene Sisters of Châlons-sur-Marne; soon the practice became the rule for every category of Sisters. Four years later the obligation was inserted into the Constitutions of the Congregation of the Oratory of Paris; but this insertion remained an exception with respect to male institutes. The Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars in 1906 prescribed, for the sake of uniformity, a special formulary for compiling the reports, the obligation of which, however, still derived only from the constitutions, with the consequence that those religious institutes whose constitutions contained no such impositions remained exempt. The first universal law on the matter was that of can. 510, which imposes the obligation of the quinquennial report, extending it to all religious institutes of pontifical right. Truly universal is the recent decree Cum transactis, of 9 July 1947, prefixed to a new redaction, reworked in three copies, of the questionnaire, which, while excluding no class of religious or persons assimilated to them in the Church, adapts admirably to Orders and Congregations, to Societies of common life and to recent Secular Institutes, to nuns and sisters, including autonomous monasteries and Federations, to whatever jurisdictional order they may belong (pontifical, diocesan, exempt, non-exempt).
The order of rotation in the sending of reports differs according to the different categories of persons concerned. Local Ordinaries, in accordance with can. 340 § 2, follow the geographical order of the position of their respective ecclesiastical circumscription: 1) Italy and the islands (Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta and other lesser ones); 2) Western Europe (Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Holland, England, Scotland, Ireland, with their respective islands); 3) the rest of Europe; 4) America; 5) the other parts of the world. Male religious follow the order of precedence: 1) Canons regular, monks and military Orders. 2) Mendicants and Regulars. 3) Clerical Congregationists. 4) Lay Congregationists. 5) Societies of common life, Secular Institutes and Federations. For women religious one returns to the geographical order: 1) the religious institutes of Italy, Spain and Portugal; 2) the religious institutes of France, Belgium, Holland, England and Ireland; 3) the religious institutes of the rest of Europe; 4) the religious institutes of America; 5) the religious institutes of the rest of the world and all Societies of common life, Secular Institutes and Federations. Note that for religious the exception granted to local Ordinaries does not apply (can. 340 § 3): therefore Superiors are obliged to submit the report at the expiration of the five-year period, without taking into account the date of their taking possession of their office.
The report must be made in the form of answers to the various questions: answers complete, though summary, brief and concise, so as to give an exact idea of the current spiritual, moral, personal, cultural, economic, disciplinary and activistic state of the body to which it refers, with appropriate historical notes. And so that such answers may be objective, the Holy See makes this a grave obligation of conscience; moreover religious Superiors are obliged to present their report to certain bodies (to the Chapters and, if not exempt, to the Ordinaries) for the necessary control. As a complement and addition to the obligation of the quinquennial report, individual religious bodies also have the duty to present each year to the Holy See summary tables with up-to-date statistics of their personnel and their works. A similar annual obligation also falls on the Ordinaries of Missions as regards summary statistical tables of the missionary pastoral activity of the past year (can. 300 § 2).
The new provisions on religious tend to obtain uniformity and juridical parity of the different families with regard to the Holy See.
Bibliography
Agostino Pugliese