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Show IMPORTANT DECREE. Bishop's Jurisdiction Enlarged Cardinal Moran's Prediction Marriage Dispensations Dispen-sations More Readily Obtained. "Rome."' Vol. vii, No. 2. January 8, 1910, says: "We learn that within a few days the Consis-torial Consis-torial Congregation will publish a very important decree concerning the authority, rights and duties of Bishops, which, like so many other decrees and documents printed in English in 'Borne' during the last twelve months, is destined to form part of the new Code of Canon Law. "The terms of the decree will strongly reflect the characteristic attitude towards the hierarchy of Pius X, who would make of every Bishop a constitutional sovereign in spirituals in his own diocese. For the future bishops will be granted ordinary powers in matters concerning which they have been obliged hitherto to refer to Rome. For example, they will have the faculty of deciding many marriage cases formerly reserved to the jurisdiction jur-isdiction of the Roman, Congregations. Incidentally, Incident-ally, it may be mentioned here that in the definitive text of the Code important changes will be made and the number of canonical impediments to marriage mar-riage will be reduced. "Another change to be inaugurated by this decree de-cree will affect the faculty of Bishops to make 'compositions' for the usurpation of ecclesiastical property. We alluded some months ago to a modification mod-ification in the law regarding the visits ad limina Apostolorum which all Bishops of dioceses are obliged to make. For the future these visits are to be made every five years by Bishops in every part of the world, and the periods are to be calculated not from December 10, as is prescribed in the Constitution Con-stitution of Sixtus V of 15S5, but from the date when the Bishop takes formal possession of his see. "Six years ago, a few months after the election of Pius X, that great ecclesiastical statesman, Cardinal Car-dinal Moran, foretold some such changes as those that are now promised and those that have already been realized. During his stay in Rome after the conclave, for which, of course, it was not possible for him to arrive in time, he had many long conversations con-versations with the Holy Father which left upon him the conviction that the present pontificate would be marked by many great events in the government gov-ernment of the Church, and that the dominant note of them would be that of 'decentralization.' "For the last four centuries many circumstances circum-stances the Reformation, the growth of so many new branches of the Church in America, Asia, Africa, Af-rica, Oceanica, persecution in various parts of Europe, Eu-rope, and so on have fostered the opposite tendency ten-dency to centralize the exercise of ecclesiastical authority in Rome. Cardinal Moran foresaw that the Holy Father would put a period to this tendency. ten-dency. Shortly afterwards we learned of the appointment ap-pointment of a Pontifical Commission for the codification codi-fication of the laws of the Church, the reform of the Roman Curia has followed, and with it the constitution, con-stitution, or re-constitution, of two Tribunals of Appeal to try all contentious matter which has already al-ready been before the local tribunals. "The purpose of these changes is manifold; to modernize and simplify canon law, to make its application as universal as possible, both as to territory ter-ritory and as to the three categories of persons, people, priests and bishops for whom it is destined, to relieve the congestion of the central government govern-ment of the Church, and to grant such ordinary powers to the bishops as to enable them to administer admin-ister the law without too frequent recourse to the Holy See. All this will be admirably realized with the promulgation of the new code, and will at the same time inaugurate that 'decentralization' to which Cardinal Moran referred." |
