ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICE. — In general, any stable task performed for a spiritual purpose, such as the spiritual director of seminaries, the confessor of monasteries, the preacher, the organist, the cantor, etc. Properly speaking, it is a task stably constituted, by divine or ecclesiastical ordinance, which grants participation in the power of orders or of jurisdiction (CIC, can. 145; V. GIURISDIZIONE; ORDINE).
Thus the office of cardinal, bishop, vicar general, parish priest, etc., whose holders possess the requisite qualifications of objective stability and participation in the power of orders or of jurisdiction. In the strictest sense, peculiar to canonical doctrine, the expression ecclesiastical office indicates those offices whose holders are prelates in the juridical sense (can. 110). The normal meaning in canon law is that indicated above, in can. 145. Since, however, certain
offices entail benefices (v. BENEFICIO), the canons concerning offices (cann. 147–195) must be supplemented by those concerning benefices (cann. 1409–89).
I. NATURE AND DIVISION OF THE U. E. — Although nearly all modern canonists hold that ecclesiastical offices are, ipso iure, juridical persons, in more recent doctrine consideration of the personal aspect of the office prevails over that of its real aspect; consequently, it is generally held that the organ of the Church is not the office itself, considered as an abstract complex of functions, but rather the person who holds the office, that is, the person through whom the power of order or of jurisdiction is exercised. Besides the distinction between ecclesiastical offices of divine institution (that of the Supreme Pontiff and, as a class, that of residential bishops) and those of human institution (all the others), it is customary to distinguish ecclesiastical offices as: 1) beneficed, if connected with a benefice (can. 1409), and non-beneficed; 2) major, if their holders possess episcopal or quasi-episcopal power, and minor; 3) residential (also called double) and non-residential (9 simple), according to whether or not residence (v.); 4) parochial and non-parochial (that is, with or without the care of souls); 5) secular and religious, according as, by their nature, by the laws of their foundation, or by legitimate custom, they may be conferred only upon secular or religious clerics; 6) irremovable or removable, according as their holders may be removed with less or greater ease (v. AMOVIBILITÀ; INAMOVIBILITÀ); 7) of free or necessary collation; 8) reserved or non-reserved.
II. HISTORICAL NOTES
Although, as already noted, certain offices, such as that of the supreme pontificate and those of bishops in general, are of divine institution, it is nevertheless impossible to form a proper idea of the origin and nature of ecclesiastical offices in particular without going back to the beginning of the Church and following the development of ecclesiastical discipline in its various periods. It is certain, however, that in the primitive Church all positions were purely offices. The goods of the Church were then held in common, and each cleric, in his own rank, exercised an office to which no income was attached. Once, however, the institution of the benefice had been introduced, the ecclesiastical office was lost from view, although canonistic doctrine prior to the ecclesiastical office had associated it with the concept of the benefice.For the erection, modification, or suppression of any ecclesiastical office, the following are required: 1) the competent authority, which will differ according to the ecclesiastical offices; 2) a just cause, ordinarily identified as the necessity or usefulness of the Church; 3) the requisite form, which varies according to the provision of the ecclesiastical office (v. PROVVISTA CANONICA).
III. LOSS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICE
This is a juridical fact by which the ecclesiastical office is lost by the titular cleric and becomes vacant. It occurs: a) through the natural death of the holder; b) through the expiry of the established period, when the ecclesiastical office has been conferred ad tempus (can. 183 § 1); c) through the cessation of the power of the grantor, when the law expressly declares this (can. 183 § 2, 371) and when the ecclesiastical office was granted ad beneplacitum nostrum (can. 183 § 2); d) through resignation by the person appointed; e) through deprivation of the ecclesiastical office by the superior or also through removal; f) through transfer.