VACANCY OF AN ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICE. — This occurs when an ecclesiastical office is without an incumbent. It may be *de iure*, when there is no legitimate incumbent of the office, even if in fact someone has taken possession of it or exercises its functions abusively, and *de facto*, when no one exercises the functions of the office or has taken possession of it, regardless of whether the incumbent has been appointed or not.
The vacancy (*v.*) of an office may also be both *de iure* and *de facto* at the same time, if both circumstances occur, meaning that the office which is vacant *de iure* is not abusively occupied by anyone. As a rule, in canon law, when reference is made to *v.* in a technical sense, it refers to *V. de iure*, and it is this type that is treated here.
The causes that determine the vacancy are: a) the death of the incumbent (cc. 430 §1 and 1438); b) a voluntary act, such as renunciation, and for benefice-holding offices, resignation and *permutatio*, as well as free *translatio* and accepted *amotio*; c) the law or the pronouncement of a legitimate superior in certain cases: tacit renunciation or forfeiture, privation (cc. 192 and 2298), *amotio* (cc. 2147-61), forced *translatio* (cc. 193 §2, 2163). In the case of appointment to a temporary ecclesiastical office, the vacancy will occur upon the lapse of the pre-fixed time, or upon the termination of the grantor’s power, or further, upon revocation by the grantor (c. 183).
The absence of the physical person who holds an ecclesiastical office creates a particular juridical condition for that office, in the sense that, while it continues to exist, it assumes another aspect which is juridically relevant, so much so that canon law regulates its status with special provisions. The peculiarity of the state of vacancy is given by the fact that an office is without its incumbent: the *munus* remains unchanged, but the recipient who, as the center of energy and force for the efficiency of the office, puts it into operation and makes it alive and operative, is lacking. By defining it as vacant, one wishes to highlight a particular, abnormal phase in the existence of the office, a phase characterized by the application of the principle laid down in c. 436, “sede vacante nihil innovetur,” and consequently, normally distinguished, according to the circumstances, by the limited or very limited exercise of powers to be performed. The *munus* of the ecclesiastical office which is vacant is temporarily entrusted by law to a different subject, indicated by the law not with the juridical qualification of incumbent, but with another designation, so much so that his activity is distinguished from that carried out in a full see.
The exercise of the power of jurisdiction, attributed to an ecclesiastical office, as a rule, does not cease altogether during the vacancy, with the exception of the case of the vacancy of the Apostolic See, which is easily explained if one bears in mind the characteristics of the pontifical power, namely, that it is primatial, infallible, and an expression of an absolute regime. The exercise of such power must be considered an exclusive attribute of the person of the Pope, so that in a vacant see it must necessarily remain inactive: the College of Cardinals — in accordance with the current constitution *Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis* of Pius XII (8 Dec. 1945), and likewise the previous constitutions which it abrogated — will provide only for the election of the successor and for the governance of the Church in respect of urgent matters and those of ordinary administration whose treatment is not reserved by law to the competence of the pontifical office. As a rule, however, among the other major offices, that is, those whose incumbents have ordinary power of jurisdiction in the external forum, namely, episcopal or quasi-episcopal power, such as the offices of metropolitan, residential bishop, and major superior of an exempt clerical religious institute, the exercise of the powers of an office does not remain altogether inactive in a vacant see. Indeed, if one considers, for example, the typical ecclesiastical office, the diocese, in it every activity referable to the episcopal degree in the hierarchy of order remains suspended, while, on the basis of c. 435 §1, the powers inherent to the ordinary “episcopi iurisdictio in spiritualibus et temporalibus” belong first to the Chapter and then to the vicar capitular, with the exception of those acts expressly forbidden by law which would bring about a change in the status and patrimony of the diocese.
Among the lesser ecclesiastical offices, such as, for example, the parish, the aforementioned principle does not find analogous application, and in fact the *vicarius oeconomus* who governs the parish in case of vacancy (cc. 471-78) has the *plena potestas paroecialis*, that is, the integral care of souls (c. 451 §2, n. 2), so much so that, having identical functions to those of the parish priest, he is equated to him in all rights and duties and included by the legislator in the denomination of parish priest.
The state of vacancy of an ecclesiastical office makes it necessary to establish to whom the fruits of the related benefice, accrued during this period, belong. C. 1480, which provides for the case in which the benefice has been held during the year by more than one incumbent, establishes how the revenues, after having been computed with the emoluments and burdens of the current year, must be divided proportionally according to the service rendered between the successor in the benefice-holding office and the predecessor, represented, if deceased, by his heirs. Other criteria of distribution, however, are admitted as being in use or by legitimate custom (as in the case of crops whose fruits