Holy Vatican See
12-04-2004, 23:38
This is an OOC post for those interested in RPing with the Holy Vatican See. We don’t want to clutter up our current RP thread with a lot of this information, and it might be useful in the future, so we’ll also link to it in the “All About” thread. But it comes timely just now because it’s becoming clear that there are a variety of different understandings about authority in the Church works, and particularly about Cardinals.
Let’s start with a quote from the bit on Cardinals in the “All About” thread:
Where do Cardinals fit in? The College of Cardinals actually has NO ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY at all, as a body, to do anything other than elect the Pope. However, they fulfill all the "Cabinet" functions of the Church. All Cardinals are also bishops, and most of them are still in active pastoral supervision of a diocese somewhere, usually large, important diocese. They tend to get elected President of their Ecclesiastical Conferences a lot, but it's a chicken/egg thing-- do they get elevated to Cardinal because of their leadership in the Conference, or does the Conference elect them because of their elevation? It differs from place to place.
Technically, the whole College of Cardinals acts as the Pope's "privy council," or Cabinet, but in fact it is usually only the Cardinals appointed to Curial offices in Rome that form his regular Counselors. They wield their authority through their Dicasteries--the curial offices like the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Secretariat of State, the Congregation for Bishops, the Congregation for the Variant (in RL Oriental, but for NS RP purposes we're just saying "variant") Churches, etc.
Here are a couple of other facts about Cardinals:
Cardinals, when they are elevated, take a personal oath of loyalty to the Pope. This means that they are (theoretically) under his personal supervision at all times. He is their “boss,” and when he assigns them a duty it takes precedence over any other duty they are doing.
When they are summoned to Rome to perform certain duties that come with being a Cardinal (attending a Conclave or Consistory, attending the installation of a new Pope, etc.,) they must, under Canon Law, come unless the Pope himself gives them explicit permission not to. (So, in the case of a Conclave, as there is no Pope, there is NO excuse for them not to be there, except if they are in prison for the Faith, on their deathbed, or (perhaps) in quarantine.)
And they cannot leave without permission or dismissal. A Cardinal’s first duty is not to his national leaders, his national Church, or even the diocese of which he is Bishop, but to the Pope, himself. A Cardinal is not an ambassador from a nation to the Vatican, although sometimes the Vatican appoints Cardinals as their ambassadors to a nation.
Now, in practice, of course, the Pope elevates a good many Cardinals whose main duty is to be leaders of the Church in their own countries, and they spend almost all of their time there, and have considerable influence in the Church in their nations. But at any time, under Canon Law, the Pope can tell any Cardinal, “Come to Rome and run this Dicastery for us,” or “I’m appointing you Nuncio to the Republic of New Whatsis,” and so on, and that is their new job from henceforth. (Please note, HVS would never actually do this without discussing it OOC first with that Cardinal’s player and making sure it worked for them. But the point is, to act as if HVS could do so.)
Please keep this in mind when RPing “Cardinals” with the Holy Vatican See.
So what should a nation do if it wants to create a character who is the “leader” of their own nation’s Church and has considerable independence and is (more or less) Top Catholic in the Empire of Thingamajig?
Most nations of any size have their own Council of Bishops, called the Episcopal Conference. See this link for more about the Conferences, and Bishops generally:
http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3029425#3029425
These Conferences elect a President, who is usually a very important Archbishop or (sometimes) a Cardinal, someone with great influence among his peers. This individual character would be your nation’s Top Catholic, as it were. He would be regarded as the “head” of your country’s “branch” of the Catholic Church, regardless of whether he is a Bishop, Archbishop, or Cardinal.
Bishops have a fairly high degree of autonomy in the Church, and most bishops normally come to Rome only once every five years for a formal visit called “ad limina,” in which he (at the very least) prays at the tombs of the Apostles and has a formal audience with the Pope. For bishops of smaller diocese and auxiliary bishops, that may be all that they do. But for bishops who are leaders of their nations’ Episcopal Conferences, they often visit the Secretariat of the Bishops’ Synod and take care of a good deal of business while they are there.
Bishops who have been elected to a leadership position on the Synod Secretariat, or asked to take up some office in Rome (such as appointment to a Dicastery or as an administrator or faculty member of one of the Universities) can spend longer terms in Rome but usually go home to their “own” diocese upon completion of these tasks.
So if you want to position a character with considerable autonomy as “Top Catholic” in your NS Nation, we recommend that you make him the President of your Episcopal Conference. Be aware that if you choose to make him a Cardinal, he will be expected to come and go to/from Rome at the Pope’s discretion, not his own. However, the tradeoff is that he will have much greater influence in Rome, of course.
We will regard all Cardinals as having taken that personal loyalty oath and being under the Pope’s personal supervision. Of course we will consult with you before demanding that your character do anything major, and will respect your wishes in the matter!
If you choose to make the President of your Episcopal Conference a Bishop or Archbishop, we will assume that we will see a lot of him, but that he will pretty much dictate his own time & travels unless we pre-agree on something for the purposes of a particular RP.
We hope no one finds this excessively meddling or dictatorial, and we’re certainly not trying to throw a cramp in anyone’s RP style. It’s just become clear from the current thread that not everyone understands the nature of the Cardinalate. Cardinals would NOT be popping in and out of Rome at their own discretion during a Conclave and the installation of a new Pope. Bishops and Archbishops who are head of their nations’ Episcopal Conference might be doing so, if grave matters were underfoot at home, although most likely they would be attending the installation, regardless.
It’s easy to be deceived by all the panoply and tradition and ritual surrounding the Cardinalate, into believing that Cardinals are way more important in the Church than they actually are. They certainly are important, in the same way that senior Ministers are important in a government, but they do not have the kind of authority that a provincial governor or even the speaker of an assembly or parliament would have.
Their importance derives from the fact that they are more or less personal representatives of the Pope, and he selects men for this elevation who are outstanding for their service to the Church in any of a number of ways. They wield great influence without having great power.
Hope this is helpful in making things a little clearer!
Let’s start with a quote from the bit on Cardinals in the “All About” thread:
Where do Cardinals fit in? The College of Cardinals actually has NO ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY at all, as a body, to do anything other than elect the Pope. However, they fulfill all the "Cabinet" functions of the Church. All Cardinals are also bishops, and most of them are still in active pastoral supervision of a diocese somewhere, usually large, important diocese. They tend to get elected President of their Ecclesiastical Conferences a lot, but it's a chicken/egg thing-- do they get elevated to Cardinal because of their leadership in the Conference, or does the Conference elect them because of their elevation? It differs from place to place.
Technically, the whole College of Cardinals acts as the Pope's "privy council," or Cabinet, but in fact it is usually only the Cardinals appointed to Curial offices in Rome that form his regular Counselors. They wield their authority through their Dicasteries--the curial offices like the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Secretariat of State, the Congregation for Bishops, the Congregation for the Variant (in RL Oriental, but for NS RP purposes we're just saying "variant") Churches, etc.
Here are a couple of other facts about Cardinals:
Cardinals, when they are elevated, take a personal oath of loyalty to the Pope. This means that they are (theoretically) under his personal supervision at all times. He is their “boss,” and when he assigns them a duty it takes precedence over any other duty they are doing.
When they are summoned to Rome to perform certain duties that come with being a Cardinal (attending a Conclave or Consistory, attending the installation of a new Pope, etc.,) they must, under Canon Law, come unless the Pope himself gives them explicit permission not to. (So, in the case of a Conclave, as there is no Pope, there is NO excuse for them not to be there, except if they are in prison for the Faith, on their deathbed, or (perhaps) in quarantine.)
And they cannot leave without permission or dismissal. A Cardinal’s first duty is not to his national leaders, his national Church, or even the diocese of which he is Bishop, but to the Pope, himself. A Cardinal is not an ambassador from a nation to the Vatican, although sometimes the Vatican appoints Cardinals as their ambassadors to a nation.
Now, in practice, of course, the Pope elevates a good many Cardinals whose main duty is to be leaders of the Church in their own countries, and they spend almost all of their time there, and have considerable influence in the Church in their nations. But at any time, under Canon Law, the Pope can tell any Cardinal, “Come to Rome and run this Dicastery for us,” or “I’m appointing you Nuncio to the Republic of New Whatsis,” and so on, and that is their new job from henceforth. (Please note, HVS would never actually do this without discussing it OOC first with that Cardinal’s player and making sure it worked for them. But the point is, to act as if HVS could do so.)
Please keep this in mind when RPing “Cardinals” with the Holy Vatican See.
So what should a nation do if it wants to create a character who is the “leader” of their own nation’s Church and has considerable independence and is (more or less) Top Catholic in the Empire of Thingamajig?
Most nations of any size have their own Council of Bishops, called the Episcopal Conference. See this link for more about the Conferences, and Bishops generally:
http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3029425#3029425
These Conferences elect a President, who is usually a very important Archbishop or (sometimes) a Cardinal, someone with great influence among his peers. This individual character would be your nation’s Top Catholic, as it were. He would be regarded as the “head” of your country’s “branch” of the Catholic Church, regardless of whether he is a Bishop, Archbishop, or Cardinal.
Bishops have a fairly high degree of autonomy in the Church, and most bishops normally come to Rome only once every five years for a formal visit called “ad limina,” in which he (at the very least) prays at the tombs of the Apostles and has a formal audience with the Pope. For bishops of smaller diocese and auxiliary bishops, that may be all that they do. But for bishops who are leaders of their nations’ Episcopal Conferences, they often visit the Secretariat of the Bishops’ Synod and take care of a good deal of business while they are there.
Bishops who have been elected to a leadership position on the Synod Secretariat, or asked to take up some office in Rome (such as appointment to a Dicastery or as an administrator or faculty member of one of the Universities) can spend longer terms in Rome but usually go home to their “own” diocese upon completion of these tasks.
So if you want to position a character with considerable autonomy as “Top Catholic” in your NS Nation, we recommend that you make him the President of your Episcopal Conference. Be aware that if you choose to make him a Cardinal, he will be expected to come and go to/from Rome at the Pope’s discretion, not his own. However, the tradeoff is that he will have much greater influence in Rome, of course.
We will regard all Cardinals as having taken that personal loyalty oath and being under the Pope’s personal supervision. Of course we will consult with you before demanding that your character do anything major, and will respect your wishes in the matter!
If you choose to make the President of your Episcopal Conference a Bishop or Archbishop, we will assume that we will see a lot of him, but that he will pretty much dictate his own time & travels unless we pre-agree on something for the purposes of a particular RP.
We hope no one finds this excessively meddling or dictatorial, and we’re certainly not trying to throw a cramp in anyone’s RP style. It’s just become clear from the current thread that not everyone understands the nature of the Cardinalate. Cardinals would NOT be popping in and out of Rome at their own discretion during a Conclave and the installation of a new Pope. Bishops and Archbishops who are head of their nations’ Episcopal Conference might be doing so, if grave matters were underfoot at home, although most likely they would be attending the installation, regardless.
It’s easy to be deceived by all the panoply and tradition and ritual surrounding the Cardinalate, into believing that Cardinals are way more important in the Church than they actually are. They certainly are important, in the same way that senior Ministers are important in a government, but they do not have the kind of authority that a provincial governor or even the speaker of an assembly or parliament would have.
Their importance derives from the fact that they are more or less personal representatives of the Pope, and he selects men for this elevation who are outstanding for their service to the Church in any of a number of ways. They wield great influence without having great power.
Hope this is helpful in making things a little clearer!