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The competence of the institutions of the Roman Curia can be examined from a material point of view to evaluate the legitimacy and impact of the functions assigned to them by the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium of Pope Francis. The contribution focuses on the “external” limits of material competence, which involve the relationships between the Church and temporal realities as well as on the “internal” limits which derive from the need to safeguard specific ecclesial juridical assets (such as the unitas fidei and the rights of the faithful), proposing a remedy to encourage the revision of the norms in the synodal Church that define the attributions and prerogatives of the apical structures of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the teaching of Pope Francis, the Church must become the protagonist of an effort of “synodal conversion” that values the co-responsibility and participation of all faithful. This process also involves ecclesiastical institutions that support the exercise of primacy, such as the Cardinals’ College. The contribution illustrates and examines the synodal foundation and function of Cardinals especilly in the pontificate of Francis and formulates some proposals that could revive the collegial action of Cardinals as a qualified consultative body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the decrees issued by the President of the Council of Ministers to combat and contain the spread of Covid-19, the Catholic Church in Italy worked with the civil authorities to ensure that gatherings in church settings would not increase the risk of infection. The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth analysis and assessment of the measures taken by ecclesiastical authorities – the Holy See, Italian Episcopal Conference, Regional Episcopal Conferences, Diocesan Bishops – within the intrinsically flexible framework of ius Ecclesiae, enabling solutions that would avoid gatherings while also ensuring full freedom to enact the salvific mission of the Church, which is expressed above all in the liturgy and the sacraments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is known that there are some jurisprudential precedents capable of conditioning the future solution of similar cases. The unpublished decisions (a sentence and two decrees of execution) of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura concerning the iurium case examined by us undoubtedly present this feature. The case history, in fact, has as its object the restitutio in integrum proposed against a decree adopted by the Roman Rota videntibus omnibus, that is, in the presence of all rotal judges. An extraordinary remedy of contestation that, once admitted, allowed the Apostolic Signatura to deal with some questions of particular relevance, such as, for example, the legitimate solution of the quaestio de iure appellandi and the overcoming of the "obstacles" that stand in the way of execution of the sentence no longer appealable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines various aspects of a quaestio iuris of current pressing concern among canonists, regarding whether the major superiors of clerical religious institutes of pontifical right may set up autonomous pious foundations of a public or private canonical, legal nature. The purpose of this paper is to offer a solution to this matter, on the basis of the universal and particular laws in force, the general criteria that shape their interpretation and the practice of canon law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution illustrates some examples of authentic interpretations that have reconfirmed in various ways in the 1983 Code provisions foreseen in the 1917 Code. A series of interventions promoted in the name of 'hermeneutic of continuity', that informs the ius conditum and does not allow 'breaks'with the previous juridical experience of the Church, even in the eventuality deemed necessary or appropriate to resolve a doubt of law through the promulgation of an authentic response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution examines a particular aspect of the juridical act of resignation of ecclesiastical office by its holder, namely its receptivity. The juridically significant event of accepting a resignation, which may require either the actual knowledge of the resignation or simply its knowability, could affect its perfection, validity or efficacy. Based on the distinction between resignation requiring acceptance or not as stipulated in can. 189 of the Code of Canon Law, the study aims to illustrate the different kinds of "impact" of the reception of the act manifesting the voluntas renunciandi by a defined third party or by an unspecified group of recipients, focusing on the renunciation of the primatial office by the Roman Pontiff mentioned in can. 332 § 2 CIC. The ad validitatem requirement of a proper manifestation of the act of resignation («rite manifestetur») implies the need that this grave decision by the Pope has to be a juridical act that is potentially knowable by the Church in order for it to create the vacancy of the Apostolic See, setting off the process of electing a successor to the office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]