ECCLESIASTICAL SUPERIOR. - He is the superior of autonomous or sui iuris missions, which represent the first stage of ecclesiastical organization in the missions.
Examples of these already existed toward the end of the last century, but only after the CIC did they develop and become established, especially through the work of Cardinal Willem van Rossum (v.), prefect of the S. Congr. de Propaganda Fide from 1918 to 1932, with the aim of enabling new missionaries to begin the apostolate in a given place. Today Propaganda prefers that new missionaries work in an area under the guidance of the local Ordinary within the limits of a diocese or quasi-diocese, and the territory in due course can be divided and erected into a diocese or quasi-diocese.
At the head of autonomous missions is the ecclesiastical superior, who is appointed directly by decree by Propaganda, like apostolic prefects, and, on a par with these, has equal rights and faculties and enjoys the same ordinary jurisdiction, and is therefore a true local Ordinary, although neither can. 198 nor chap. VIII of part 1 of book II of the CIC speaks of him. That chapter, however, up until the final redaction of 1916, did speak of the ecclesiastical superior. According to the instruction of Propaganda dated 7 Nov. 1929 (Sylloge P. F., n. 146, pp. 349-350), to autonomous missions and their ecclesiastical superiors there apply, «servatis servandis», on a general line, the canons that refer to apostolic prefectures and apostolic prefects. Ecclesiastical superiors can therefore appoint for themselves a delegated superior or rather a delegated vicar; they must «ex iustitia» (cf. can. 306) apply the Mass «pro populo» (Sylloge P. F., n. 187, pp. 463-64), but they do not enjoy the honorary privileges of apostolic prefects (cf. can. 308).
The ecclesiastical superior can also designate the local Ordinary in relation to the religious or regular superior of a religious Order or Congregation. These two terms, thus contrasted, are particularly in use in missionary law to determine the rights and duties of the local Ordinary in the missions and of the religious superior of the missionaries who work there (v. TERRITORI DI MISSIONE). In the practice of missionary societies without vows, the superior of the missionaries is called the regional superior.
Bibliography
Severio Paventi