User:CanonLawJunkie/Competence (canon law)

{{canon law}} The phrase "competent authority" is frequently used in the 1983 Code of Canon Law but is not usually specified.

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Legislative competence

The pope is competent to legislate on all matters of Church governance at every level of competence in virtue of his universal primacy of jurisdiction. Other legislators and legislative bodies have limited competence, according to their sphere of activity in the Church.

Universal law

Pope and college of bishops

• Pope may delegate legislative competence, or reserve competence of lower hierarchs to himself.

Particular law

• Territorial vs. personal
• Legislative competence of lower legislators may not be delegated.

Proper law

• Personal particular law of religious institute made by general chapter

Executive competence

Dicasteries of the Roman Curia

• General executory decrees and instructions, based upon their grant of competence through Pastor Bonus or other special or universal law, based upon subject matter.
• For example, in the case of the ordination of a bishop, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments is competent to issue an instruction on the rite of ordination itself, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is competent to rule on what constitutes the valid reception of the sacrament, and the Congregation for Bishops is competent to present a ternus of candidates to the pope, who then authorizes the ordination of the bishop. The three dicasteries are only competent within their sphere by subject matter, even though the ordination of a bishop is a single fact event.
• Favors: rescripts, indults, dispensations

Diocesan bishop

• Him alone, not VG & EV. Decrees of eretion of public juridic persons, decrees of appointment to offices. Everything that local ordinaries can do.

Local ordinary

• Diocesan bishop, vicar general, episcopal vicar. Not major superior or clerical religious institute of pontifical right (personal ordinary, not local). Singular administrative acts: precepts, singular executory decrees, dispensations, rescripts

Personal ordinary

• Military ordinary, Anglican ordinary, major superior of clerical religious institute of pontifical right

Religious institutes

Not "executive power of governance" per se unless clerical religious institute of pontifical right; similar principles.

Pastor (parochus)

• dispensation from penitential observances in an individual case to satisfy the scrupulous
• delegation of authority to witness marriages within his territory (habitual or case-by-case)

Confessor

• dispensation from matrimonial impediments in occult case

Judicial competence

Roman Pontiff

The Roman Pontiff is the supreme judge of the entire Catholic Church and so can judge any cause of any Catholic at any grade of the process, can reserve certain causes to himself, and can call certain causes to himself even if they have already been initiated at a lower grade. Since he is competent in all causes, the concept of "competence" doesn't apply to the pope per se. No one is competent to judge the pope, since according to the ancient maxim, "Prima sedes a nemine judicatur", that is "the First See is judged by no one". The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches specifically states that the Roman Pontiff is judged by no one, a technical improvement over the language of both the 1917 and 1983 Codes for the Latin Church, since it is only the person of the pope who is supreme judge and therefore can be judged by no other authority on earth; the Apostolic See as such, since it includes the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia, is subject to judgement, since the acts of such dicasteries, unless they have been approved specifically by the pope (in forma specifica), are subject to hierarchical recourse or appeal.

Competent forum

Below the level of the pope as supreme judge, there are various levels or "grades" of competent fora or tribunals. A cause can be brought before a tribunal based upon a title of competence.

Titles of competence

A title of competence gives the tribunal the authority to judge the cause as introduced.

Incompetence

Absolute incompetence

• rationibus personarum, gradus, aut materiae

Relative incompetence

• personal/territorial. Sanation ipso jure.

Conflict of competence

Extension of competence

• Singular indult
• Stable entrustment

References

Bibliography

• Beal, John P., et al., eds. New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2000).
• Coriden, James et al., eds. The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985) ISBN 0809103451 xviii-xxiii.
• Faris & Abbass, eds. A Practical Commentary to the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (Montréal: Librairie Wilson & Lafleur, 2019) ISBN 9782924974032 xix-xxxiv.

[[Category: Tribunals of the Catholic Church]] [[Category: Procedural canon law]] [[Category: Jurisprudence of canon law]]