QUINQUENNAL REPORT. — The obligation of a periodic report is inherent in the very nature of a subordinate office, because of the need for necessary coordination and because the Superior must remain suitably informed about the administration and the particular situations and needs pertaining to that office. With regard to the Holy See, this obligation rests upon the Ordinaries of places and the Superiors of religious families. The fulfillment of this duty is now established in the CIC (cann. 340 and 510) with only a few substantive provisions; in practice, it is facilitated by special questionnaires which, suitably revised from time to time, are used by the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia according to the specific competence of each.
The obligation of local Ordinaries to submit a periodic report on the state of the ecclesiastical circumscription entrusted to them is extremely ancient. It is closely connected with the obligation of the so-called visit ad limina (v. LIMINA APOSTOLORUM), conceived as an act of obedience and submission to s. Peter and the Pope. In fact, the CIC establishes that this report to the Holy See must be submitted by all
local Ordinaries every five years (can. 340 § 1), almost on the same occasion as the visit ad limina (can. 341 § 1).
Strictly speaking, the obligation would apply only to residential bishops, who must, personally or through delegates, go to Rome at the end of each quinquennium to visit the tombs of the Apostles and pay homage to the Pope. Bishops who had assumed the government of a diocese during the two-year period in which the time established for the q. r. expired were permitted to refrain from submitting it on that occasion, on the presumption that they had not yet had sufficient time and opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted with the diocese.
The obligation is also imposed upon the Ordinaries of missions (apostolic vicars and prefects and ecclesiastical Superiors of missions: can. 300 § 1), as well as upon prelates and nullus abbots (can. 323 § 1) and permanent apostolic administrators (can. 315 § 1).
The first dicastery to have its own form was the S. Congr. of the Council. It had been prepared by Prospero Lambertini, later Benedict XIV, when he was secretary of that Congregation. This form was successful and was customarily used in the Curia until 1909. In that year the S. Congr. Consistorial, to whose competence, in the reorganization of the Curia carried out by b. Pius X, the visit ad limina and the reports of local Ordinaries had been transferred, drew up one whose observance was made obligatory; it also established the plans for rotation every five years, beginning on 1 January 1911, for the reports. The CIC perfected the entire institution. The practice of the S. Congr. of the Council was imitated by the other dicasteries. Thus the S. Congr. of Propaganda had its own form as early as 1877 for the reports of the Ordinaries of the Missions, and in 1937 it drew up a special form for the q. r. of the religious institutes dependent upon II. The S. Congr. of Seminaries and Universities likewise imposed upon Ordinaries in 1924 a triennial report on the state of their respective Seminary, to be compiled on a special form.
Before 1861 religious were not obliged to submit a report. From that year onward, following the suggestions of the Commissions for the approval of new institutes, constitutions began to include the obligation of a triennial report on the personal, disciplinary, and economic state of the individual institutes, preceded by brief historical information. The first to come under the new practice were the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres and the Nazarene Sisters of Châlons-sur-Marne; the practice soon 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 regard to institutes of men. In 1906 the S. Congr. of Bishops and Regulars prescribed, for the sake of uniformity, a special form for compiling the reports; their obligation, however, still derived only from the constitutions, with the consequence that religious institutes whose constitutions contained no such provision remained exempt. The first universal law in this matter was that of can. 510, which imposed the obligation of the q. r., 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, revised version, prepared in three copies, of the questionnaire. While excluding no class of religious or persons assimilated to them in the Church, it is admirably adapted to Orders and Congregations, Societies of common life and recent Secular Institutes, to nuns and Sisters, and also to autonomous monasteries and Federations, whatever their jurisdictional status (pontifical, diocesan, exempt, or non-exempt).
The order of rotation for the submission of reports differs according to the various categories of persons concerned. The local Ordinaries, in accordance with can. 340 § 2, follow the geographical order of the location of their respective ecclesiastical circumscriptions: 1) Italy and the islands (Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta, and the other smaller islands); 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 this order of precedence: 1) Canons regular, monks, and Military Orders. 2) Mendicants
and Regulars. 3) Clerical Congregations. 4) Lay Congregations. 5) Societies of common life, Secular Institutes, and Federations. For women religious, the geographical order is resumed: 1) religious institutes of Italy, Spain, and Portugal; 2) religious institutes of France, Belgium, Holland, England, and Ireland; 3) religious institutes of the rest of Europe; 4) religious institutes of America; 5) religious institutes of the rest of the world and all Societies of common life, Secular Institutes, and Federations. It should be noted that the exception applicable to local Ordinaries does not apply to religious (can. 340 § 3): consequently, Superiors are obliged to submit the report at the end of the quinquennium, without regard to the date on which they assumed their office.
The report must be made in the form of answers to the various questions: answers that are complete, though necessarily summary, brief and concise, so as to provide an exact idea of the organism’s current spiritual, moral, personnel, cultural, economic, disciplinary, and apostolic state, together with appropriate historical information. In order that these answers may be objective, the Holy See makes their accuracy a grave obligation of conscience; moreover, religious Superiors are obliged to present their report to specified bodies (to Chapters and, if non-exempt, to the Ordinaries) for the necessary review. As a complement and addition to the obligation of the q. r., individual religious organisms also have the duty of presenting each year to the Holy See summary statements containing updated statistics on their personnel and works. A similar annual obligation rests upon the Ordinaries of Missions with regard to summary statistical statements on the missionary pastoral activity of the previous year (can. 300 § 2).
The new provisions concerning religious tend to secure uniformity and juridical equality among the various families in their relations with the Holy See.