VICAR GENERAL. - He is the priest legitimately appointed to represent the person of the bishop in the exercise of his jurisdiction throughout the diocese.
In the 4th century, as their ministry intensified, bishops needed collaboration in order to attend to the government of the diocese; and for this purpose the one who enjoyed a pre-eminent position among the clergy was charged with it, namely the archdeacon (v.), who presented himself as the bishop's vicar in the government of the diocese. Already in the 7th century his position became so consolidated in authority as to give cause for concern over the danger of possible abuses. In the 13th century the archdeacon had reached his greatest prominence, so much so that his dignity was considered inferior to that of the bishop only because he lacked the fullness of the power of order. His prominence was also favored by the division of the diocese into districts, at the head of each of which there was an archdeacon, so that even if within the diocese this dignity was now held by several persons, nevertheless these enjoyed an ordinary, personal jurisdiction, which they exercised autonomously within the district entrusted to them.
In the face of the preponderant jurisdictional faculties of the archdeacons, the bishops, however, came to manifest an opposition aimed at limiting their powers, which by then were for the most part concurrent with their own. They indeed opposed the predominance of the archdeacons by creating true subordinates, that is, vicars general, for the ordinary government of the diocese, and officials for the administration of justice. As regards the former, the bishops delegated their own jurisdiction to ecclesiastics removable ad nutum, distinguished into vicarius principalis sive urbicus and vicarius forensis, according to whether they were assigned to assist the bishop in the city or in the countryside. This innovation, whose establishment took place gradually, consequently shook the position of the archdeacons, so much so that in the 2nd half of the 16th century the title of archdeacon meant a simple capitular dignity.
Thus arose the office of vicar general, whose origin must be traced back to the 13th century and of which there are already hints in the Decretals of Gregory IX (cap. 14, X, de off. iud., I, 31), an office subsequently frequently recalled and regulated in the Sextus of Boniface VIII (cap. 2, 3, de off. vic., I, 13; cap. 1, de off. ordin., I, 16; cap. 2, de consuetud., I, 4) and in the Clementines (cap. 3, de rescr., I, 2). The Council of Trent, then, by depriving the archdeacon of every power of jurisdiction, to the point of reducing him to an honorary dignity in the chapters (sess. XXIV, cap. 20, de reform., sess. XXV, cap. 3, de reform.), came to strengthen the powers that legislation and practice had already recognized in the vicar general.
The CIC today regulates the office of vicar general, besides with various provisions relating to matters connected with this institution, in Book II, under the title "De potestate episcopali deque iis qui de eadem participant", where it treats it fully in cann. 366-71. Residential bishops, abbots and prelates nullius have the right to choose their vicar general, whose appointment is nevertheless not obligatory but only optional, inasmuch as they must provide for it only if they consider it necessary for the good government of the diocese. Contrary to a custom that had become established in the past, particularly in France, the CIC in can. 366 § 3 expressly excludes the possibility for the bishop of appointing more than one vicar general, unless the diversity of rite of the faithful or the vastness of the diocese requires it, while nevertheless allowing him the faculty of appointing a substitute called vicegerent or pro-vicar.
The vicar general is an ecclesiastic freely appointed by the bishop and removable by him ad nutum. The requirements necessary to hold this office are: to have the priestly order and to belong to the secular clergy, except in the case in which a religious Order or Congregation has the care of a diocese; then the vicar general belongs to that Order or Congregation; to be not less than thirty years old; to be a doctor or licentiate in theology and canon law or at least to have full knowledge of these disciplines; to have probity, prudence and experience. The office of vicar general cannot be held by the canon penitentiary, in order to avoid the situation in which jurisdiction of the internal forum and of the external forum might be exercised at the same time with regard to the same persons, and likewise it cannot be held by the blood relatives of the bishop, especially in the first degree or in the second degree mixed with the first and, except in case of necessity, by clerics who have the care of souls.
The vicar general is the general representative and collaborator of the bishop in the exercise of the potestas iurisdictionis, and precisely for the administrative and disciplinary affairs of the diocese (and not in the exercise of the power of order, with respect to which the bishop is assisted and represented, if necessity requires it, by the auxiliary bishop); he exercises, by virtue of his office, the same powers of jurisdiction in spiritualibus ac temporalibus attributed by ordinary law to the bishop, and therefore he also administers the ecclesiastical patrimony except, according to some writers, the episcopal mensa. The powers of the vicar general are not unlimited, since there are certain transactions whose handling the bishop reserves to himself, and others for which the law requires that the vicar general have a special mandate from the bishop, as, among the many, the granting of excardination and incardination (can. 113), the granting of dimissory letters (can. 958 § 1, n. 2), the institution of offices (can. 1414 § 3). However, it is always possible that the bishop, in the very letters of appointment, has generically conferred on the vicar general the powers relating to the matters for which the law requires a special mandate.
The vicar general has an ordinary vicarious power, since, although he exercises it by virtue of his office, in the sense that it is the law itself that attributes it to him, he carries it out in substitution for others, that is, in the name of the bishop. As representative of the bishop for the potestas iurisdictionis, the vicar general has precedence over all the other ecclesiastics of the diocese, with the exception of those who have the episcopal dignity, unless he himself is invested with it.
The office of vicar general ceases, besides with the death of the person who is its holder, through his resignation, through revocation intimated by the bishop, provided it is founded on just motives, and through vacancy of the episcopal see.
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Lorenzo Spinelli