The Jurisdiction of Bishops, Individual and Collegiate,
Concerning the Convocation of a Council
Table of Contents
Introduction
- Divine Origin of the Episcopate and Distinction between the Power of Order and the Power of Jurisdiction
- The Jurisdiction of Bishops Considered Individually
- The Jurisdiction of Bishops as a College
- Participation in the Universal Jurisdiction Received by Episcopal Consecration and the Right and Duty of Bishops to Convene an Imperfect General Council in Case of Vacancy of the See and Failure of the College of Cardinals
- Harmony between Individual Jurisdiction, Collegiate Jurisdiction and Pontifical Primacy
Conclusion
Introduction
In the Holy Catholic Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic, founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ and governed by His Vicar on earth, episcopal jurisdiction constitutes an essential element of the ecclesiastical hierarchy instituted by divine right. In conformity with the constant doctrine taught by the Church before 1962, and always speaking from the sedevacantist standpoint according to which, since the public and manifest heresy of Paul VI in 1964, the Apostolic See is vacant, we here set forth the doctrine on the jurisdiction of bishops, both individual and collegiate. This doctrine, drawn exclusively from magisterial, conciliar and canonical sources prior to 1964, remains immutable and intangible. It rests upon the fundamental distinction between the power of order, conferred by sacramental consecration, and the power of jurisdiction, conferred by canonical mission and exercised under the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff. Any deviation from this doctrine, such as that introduced by the innovations after 1964, must be rejected as contrary to the Catholic Faith.
- Divine Origin of the Episcopate and Distinction between the Power of Order and the Power of Jurisdiction.
The bishops are, by divine institution, the successors of the Apostles. The Codex Iuris Canonici promulgated by Benedict XV in 1917 affirms this clearly:
Canon 329 §1 “§1. Bishops are the successors of the Apostles and of divine institution; they are placed at the head of the particular Churches which they govern by virtue of an ordinary power, under the authority of the Roman Pontiff.”
The bishops are therefore the successors of the Apostles and of divine institution. They are placed at the head of particular Churches, which they govern as true pastors in the name of Christ. This apostolic succession confers upon the bishops the plenitude of the power of order by episcopal consecration, which renders them capable of administering the sacraments and sanctifying the faithful. However, the power of jurisdiction, that is, the authority to govern, to teach and to judge in the external forum, does not flow automatically from consecration. It is conferred by a canonical mission emanating from the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff, successor of Peter.
The Council of Trent, in its twenty-third session of 15 July 1563, defined the ecclesiastical hierarchy of divine institution, composed of bishops, priests and ministers, and recalled that the bishops are successors of the Apostles, established by the Holy Ghost to pasture the flock of the Lord. The Council insists upon the residence of bishops and upon their powers of government in their dioceses, without ever separating these powers from subordination to the Apostolic See. This doctrine is confirmed by the ordinary and universal magisterium prior to 1962.
The Church being a perfect society, it necessarily possesses a full power of jurisdiction, independent of any human power, which comprises the triple legislative, judicial and coercive power. As the Cardinal Louis Billot teaches in his Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, sive continuatio theologiae de Verbo Incarnato, 5th edition, Prati, Giachetti, 1927, volume I: Christ gave to His Church a jurisdiction that is free, independent with regard to any human power. This jurisdiction bears not only upon the internal forum but also upon the external forum and it comprises, in order to attain as its end the Kingdom of Heaven, the triple power that belongs to every perfect society: legislative, judicial and coercive. There cannot be and there is absolutely no society of any condition whatsoever without an authority to govern it, and to urge, with like efficacy, each of its members to act for the common end. If this society is perfect, there must be in it a perfect authority, that is to say at least in its order and enjoying all the rights required by its power. Father Auguste-Alexis Goupil adds that the Church has over its members, with a view to the supernatural end, a full and independent legislative, judicial and coercive power. It is of faith that the Church possesses a power of jurisdiction properly so called.
- The Jurisdiction of Bishops Considered Individually.
The jurisdiction of residential bishops is ordinary, proper and immediate in the diocese entrusted to them. The Codex Iuris Canonici of 1917, in canon 334 paragraph 1, declares expressly:
- 1. Residential bishops are the ordinary and immediate pastors of the dioceses entrusted to them.
This jurisdiction extends to all the faithful of their territory, clerics and laity, with the exception of those who are exempt and subject directly to the Holy See in reserved matters. It comprises the diocesan legislative power, the judicial power in ecclesiastical causes, the administrative power for the pastoral visitation, the appointment of pastors, the supervision of seminaries and the correction of abuses.
This jurisdiction is called ordinary because it is attached to the episcopal office by the law itself, and not delegated by a superior. It is proper because it is exercised in one’s own name, not in the name of another. It is immediate because it applies directly to the subjects without obligatory intermediary. However, it is not absolute nor independent. The Sovereign Pontiff, who possesses the full, supreme, ordinary and immediate primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church, communicates this power to the bishops.
Pius XII, in the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi of 29 June 1943, teaches with precision: Yet, in their government, they are not fully independent, but they are subject to the legitimate authority of the Pontiff of Rome, and if they enjoy the ordinary power of jurisdiction, this power is communicated to them immediately by the Sovereign Pontiff. The bishops must therefore be honoured as successors of the Apostles by divine institution, consecrated by the chrism of the Holy Ghost, but they exercise their charge in full hierarchical subordination to the Vicar of Christ.
Likewise, in the encyclical Ad Sinarum Gentem of 7 October 1954, Pius XII recalls that the sacred hierarchy comprises two orders, that of orders and that of jurisdiction. The power of jurisdiction, conferred upon the Sovereign Pontiff directly by divine right, passes to the bishops by the same right, but only through the intermediary of the successor of Saint Peter, to whom not only the simple faithful, but also all the bishops must be constantly subject by the bond of obedience and unity.
The dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus of the First Vatican Council, promulgated on 18 July 1870, affirms in chapter III: This power of the Sovereign Pontiff in no way impedes the ordinary and immediate power of episcopal jurisdiction, by which the bishops, established by the Holy Ghost as successors of the Apostles, pasture and govern as true pastors each the flock entrusted to him. On the contrary, this power is affirmed, supported and defended by the supreme and universal Pastor. Thus, pontifical primacy does not destroy episcopal jurisdiction, but protects and strengthens it, while demanding a true hierarchical obedience in matters of faith, morals, discipline and government.
The bishop loses his jurisdiction by accepted renunciation, by translation, by canonical privation or by death. In case of vacancy of the diocesan see, the government passes to the cathedral chapter or to the vicar capitular according to the rules of the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1917, canons 429 and following.
- The Jurisdiction of Bishops as a College.
The bishops, considered collectively, form the episcopal college succeeding the apostolic college. However, this college exercises no supreme, ordinary or immediate jurisdiction in an independent or separate manner from the head of the college, who is the Roman Pontiff. The traditional doctrine, prior to 1962, does not recognise to the episcopal college any autonomous collegiate power. The college acts juridically only in close union and under the dependence of the Sovereign Pontiff.
The Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council teach that the bishops, as successors of the Apostles, participate in the solicitude for all the Churches, but this solicitude is always exercised under the primacy of Peter. In Pastor Aeternus, the First Vatican Council defines that the primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff is full, supreme, ordinary and immediate over the whole Church, and that all pastors and faithful, individually or collectively, owe him hierarchical obedience and true submission. The episcopal college is therefore not a distinct subject of supreme jurisdiction apart from or against the Pope.
The collegiate exercise of jurisdiction manifests itself principally in ecumenical councils, convoked and confirmed by the Roman Pontiff, where the bishops, gathered with their head, exercise the extraordinary magisterium and the supreme jurisdiction over the universal Church. The conciliar decrees have obligatory force only after confirmation and promulgation by the Pope. Likewise, provincial and plenary councils, governed by canons 281 to 292 of the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1917, allow the bishops of a province or a region to exercise a limited collective jurisdiction, but always with the approval of the Holy See and subject to its control. These assemblies do not possess universal legislative power nor permanent ordinary jurisdiction.
In the dispersed state, the bishops exercise their ordinary universal magisterium when they teach unanimously, in communion with the Pope, a truth of faith or morals. But this unanimity does not constitute a separate collegiate jurisdiction. Pius XII, in Mystici Corporis Christi, emphasises that the bishops, although eminent members of the universal Church, govern each his own flock in the name of Christ, always subject to the Roman Pontiff. There exists no pre-1962 doctrine that attributes to the episcopal college a supreme jurisdiction exercised independently of the visible head of the Church.
Collegiate power, far from being parallel or concurrent with the primacy, is subordinated to it. As the traditional magisterium teaches, the Roman Pontiff can exercise alone the supreme jurisdiction over the whole Church, whereas the college can exercise it only with him and under his authority. Any attempt to oppose the college to the Pope or to confer upon it an autonomous authority contradicts the divine constitution of the Church.
- Participation in the Universal Jurisdiction Received by Episcopal Consecration and the Right and Duty of Bishops to Convoke an Imperfect General Council in Case of Vacancy of the See and Failure of the College of Cardinals.
Episcopal consecration confers not only the plenitude of the power of order, but also an aptitude or title to participate in the universal jurisdiction of the episcopal body when it acts as a body, which makes the bishop a member of the episcopal body and gives him the right to govern and to teach the whole Church when he is united with the other bishops. As the theologian Giovanni Vincenzo Bolgeni explains in his work L’Episcopato ossia della potestà di governare la Chiesa di Gesù Cristo, Rome, 1789, volume I, that each Bishop, by the very act and by virtue of his ordination, becomes a member of the episcopal body, and consequently acquires the right to govern and to teach the whole Church, when he shall be united with all the others and shall form a body with them.
Dom Maur Cappellari O.S.B. Cam., future Pope Gregory XVI, confirms this doctrine in his writings: “Il trionfo della Santa Sede e della Chiesa contro gli assalti dei novatori”, first edition, Venice, 1799. In the French translation of the 19th century, one finds the following passage:
“each bishop, by the very act and by virtue of his ordination, becomes a member of the episcopal body, and consequently acquires the right to govern and to teach the whole Church when he shall be united with all the other bishops and shall form a body with them.”
Mgr Maupied, in his treatise on the apostolic college and the episcopal body, teaches that the college of bishops, whose necessary head is the pope, holds immediately from Jesus Christ all the divine powers of sacramental ministry, of magisterium or teaching, and of empire or government; moreover, it has received from Jesus Christ and possesses the immediately divine mission over the universal Church. The legitimately ordained bishops, whether they have or do not have a diocese to govern, therefore participate in the jurisdiction of the episcopal college, of which they are members.
This universal jurisdiction is not the supreme primacy, which belongs to the Roman Pontiff alone, but it constitutes the basis of the solidary authority of the bishops for the government of the whole Church, particularly in case of vacancy of the Apostolic See. The joint declaration of the bishops of Germany, approved by Pius IX on 2 March 1875, affirms with force that the episcopate is established by virtue of the same divine institution as the papacy. It too has its rights and duties by virtue of this institution, given by God Himself, which the pope has neither the right nor the power to change. It is therefore a complete error to believe that by the decisions of the Vatican Council the papal jurisdiction absorbs the episcopal jurisdiction, that the pope has in principle individually replaced each bishop, that the bishops are no more than the instruments of the pope, and his functionaries without their own responsibility. According to the constant doctrine of the Church, as the Vatican Council moreover expressly declared it, the bishops are not simple instruments of the pope and are not pontifical functionaries without personal responsibility, but, instituted by the Holy Ghost and placed in the place of the apostles, they pasture and rule, in their quality as true pastors, the flocks entrusted to them.
In case of vacancy of the Apostolic See and of failure or corruption of the college of cardinals, who are the ordinary electors designated by human right, the power to elect the Sovereign Pontiff returns, by devolution, to the universal Church represented by the Catholic bishops gathered in an Imperfect General Council, according to the classical theologians such as Cardinal Cajetan. Cardinal Cajetan (Thomas de Vio) teaches expressly in his treatise “De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii cum Apologia eiusdem tractatus”, ed. Vincentius M. J. Pollet O.P., Scripta Theologica 1, Rome, Institutum Angelicum, 1936, chapter XIII, n. 204: It is impossible that the Church should be left without a Pope or the power to elect him. […] in case of necessity the power of conferring the papacy upon such a person would be found in the universal Church by way of devolution […] if all the cardinals are dead, it is the Church of Rome which succeeds immediately, for it is she who elected Linus before human right was known to us. However, the part is contained in the whole and the Church of Rome is contained in the universal Church; and therefore if in such a case and with the agreement of the Church of Rome the general council elected the pope, he who would thus be elected would be truly pope. Cajetan adds that this power is found in the Church, under the required conditions, for otherwise the Church would be bound to the impossible.
The Imperfect General Council is therefore the traditional and legitimate way provided by the theologians to remedy the absence of a pope and the failure of the ordinary electors. It is called imperfect because it is not convoked by a pope, but it is fully general because it unites the ensemble of the Catholic bishops of the whole world with a view to electing a pope. It respects the juridical axiom of Pope Boniface VIII: quod omnes tangit debet ab omnibus approbari, what concerns all must be approved by all. The Catholic bishops, by virtue of the universal jurisdiction received at their consecration, have not only the right but the grave duty to gather in this Imperfect General Council to regulate the affairs of the universal Church, notably to elect a legitimate successor of Saint Peter, according to the classical doctrine. Pius XII, in the apostolic Constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis of 8 December 1945, qualifies the election of the pope as a grave duty commanded to the Church by divine right. Saint Pius X, in the Constitution Vacante Apostolica Sede of 25 December 1904, recalls that the most grave and most holy duty is to elect, as head and sovereign Pastor of the flock of the Lord, him who succeeds in this state to blessed Peter.
In the present situation of vacancy of the Apostolic See since 1964 and of manifest corruption of the college of cardinals by heresy and apostasy, only the Catholic bishops faithful to the integral Faith, legitimately consecrated in the line of Tradition, possess this solidary authority and this right of suffrage. Any pretended jurisdiction issuing from post-conciliar structures is null and invalid. The Imperfect General Council is not a particular assembly, but the supreme act of the universal Church in supléance, transitory and ordered to the restoration of pontifical primacy. It does not create a new hierarchy, but re-establishes the order willed by Christ.
- Harmony between Individual Jurisdiction, Collegiate Jurisdiction and Pontifical Primacy.
The traditional Catholic doctrine maintains a perfect harmony between these elements. The individual jurisdiction of bishops in their dioceses is the foundation of local ecclesiastical life, while the collegiate aspect expresses the unity of the episcopate in communion with Peter. Pontifical primacy assures the unity and catholicity of the Church, preventing any particularism or schism. As Pastor Aeternus affirms, the power of the Sovereign Pontiff affirms, supports and defends the ordinary episcopal power.
The power of order and the power of jurisdiction, although distinct, form one united and interdependent whole. Cardinal Billot teaches in his Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, 5th edition, Prati, Giachetti, 1927: there are not properly speaking two hierarchies, one of order and the other of jurisdiction, but one absolutely undivided, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which is provided with a double power, the power to govern and the power to realise and to administer the sacraments. Father Charles-Vincent Héris specifies that the priesthood is subject to the jurisdiction of the Church. Cardinal Billot adds again: the power of order depends upon the power of jurisdiction in order to be able to exercise itself legitimately and that reciprocally, the power of jurisdiction depends upon the power of order as upon a necessary condition, in order to be able to be found in its subject in a legitimate and connatural way.
In the present situation of vacancy of the Apostolic See since 1964, the inevitable consequence of the public heresy of Paul VI and of his successors, the episcopal college cannot exercise validly any collegiate jurisdiction outside communion with the integral Catholic Faith, and the individual bishops named or consecrated outside the legitimate succession have no jurisdiction. Only the bishops legitimately named by the Popes prior to 1958, or their legitimate successors in the line of Tradition, conserve a valid jurisdiction, namely: their ordinary, proper and immediate jurisdiction in the diocese entrusted to them (or in the territory of their legitimate apostolate), when they act in communion with the integral Catholic Faith; and their participation in the collegiate or universal jurisdiction of the episcopal body, notably the right and the duty to gather in an Imperfect General Council to provide for the election of a legitimate Pope, when they act together as a college in the line of Tradition.
Conclusion.
The exhaustive doctrine on the jurisdiction of bishops, individual and collegiate, as taught by the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1917, by the Council of Trent, by the First Vatican Council, by the magisterium of Pius XII and by the theologians such as Billot, Bolgeni, Cappellari and Maupied, remains the only authentic Catholic doctrine. It demands total submission to pontifical primacy, hierarchical obedience and fidelity to the divine constitution of the Church. In times of crisis when the See of Peter is vacant and the college of cardinals is corrupted, the Catholic bishops have the right and the imperious duty to convoke an Imperfect General Council to elect a legitimate Pope. The faithful and the clerics must attach themselves still more firmly to this doctrine, rejecting every innovation and praying for the return of a legitimate Pope who will re-establish the hierarchical order according to the will of Christ.
May the Most Holy Virgin, Mother of the Church, guard and defend this truth until the final triumph of Her Immaculate Heart.