§ 121. General Survey

The chief support of the fixed diocesan constitution, and indeed of the proper development of church life in general, is composed by the parish clergy. It is the chief assistant and representative of the bishop in the exercise of his teaching and pontifical, and in some measure also his archpastoral, office.[1]

The parish clergy came into being little by little in the Church, in proportion as the number of the faithful multiplied. In the first three centuries of the Christian Church there were no parishes in today’s sense, for all divine worship was performed only in the city episcopal church. But as soon as the faithful multiplied greatly, both in the cities and in the villages, the one episcopal church was less and less able to satisfy all the religious needs of the faithful, so that in the middle of the 3rd century we find in the more important cities of the Roman state, besides the chief episcopal church, other churches as well, around which gathered the faithful who lived near those churches, and at every such church its own particular presbyter, who performed the pastoral office in the bishop’s name. A little time afterward, namely in the 4th century, we find this same thing also with regard to the churches that existed in the villages;[2] and in the 5th century, at the time of the Council of Chalcedon, we already find a fully developed institution of separate lesser churches with their own particular presbyters, who, independently, but according to the authorization received from the bishops concerned, conducted the pastoral office for the respective members of those churches.[3] The multiplication of these churches was contributed to especially by this circumstance, that the converted people in the towns and villages could not all come to the city church, so that in the place itself they needed their own particular pastors, and that almost all the pagan places of worship were converted into Christian churches. In the organization of such lesser churches, and of church communities in general, what served above all as the basis was the local position of the churches: many of these churches were located on the lands of private landowners, so that these landowners, together with the people who lived on those lands, composed a particular church community;[4] further, what served as a basis for this was the right of church property, which was composed of a defined extent of land and other immovable goods which someone had dedicated to the church and to the priest concerned, and which goods the church, by the established laws, could increase;[5] further, permission to private persons to build churches at their own expense and to see to the maintenance of a particular priest for that church;[6] finally, the custom of building churches in places that were held in special honor by Christians, for example because of martyrdom that some had suffered for the faith in those places, and these churches too had their own particular priests and were maintained by particular popular contributions.[7] It was free to build private places of worship in houses as well; but at these places of worship it was in general forbidden to appoint particular priests, and if this was sometimes permitted, it happened only owing to extraordinary circumstances.[8] In all these various churches (except the private ones) general divine worship was performed, and the holy mysteries were administered for the faithful of one established area, which we today call a parish, and the priest who performs the pastoral office within the bounds of that area we call a parish priest.[9]

The office of the parish priest extends to one defined church community, and the parish priest performs that office in dependence on the diocesan bishop in a permanent manner. We call the office of the parish priest permanent, because it exists by itself and is not merely something to which the bishop temporarily authorizes someone, but is regular in the church constitution and self-standing, notwithstanding the fact that it proceeds from episcopal authority and is subordinate to that authority. The bishop, of course, always is and remains the first and supreme pastor of his whole diocese, with the right to perform the pastoral office everywhere; but the canons do not at all permit bishops to disturb parish priests at their own pleasure, when they exercise their regular and established rights, nor to suspend them from their office without important and lawful causes, nor to transfer them or deprive them of office without justified reason and formal trial. In the office of the parish priest, as a self-standing office within the bounds of a defined area, consists the fullness of spiritual authority, that is, the parish priest, according to the rights that the diocesan bishop gives him, possesses full spiritual authority within the bounds of his parish, so that without his knowledge no outside priest may perform any church service in the parish concerned, nor may any parishioner receive spiritual grace outside his own parish, for example, be married. The duties of the parish priest toward his parishioners are exactly designated, both by church and by civil legislation, and these duties he alone is called to perform, so that accordingly only with his permission may another priest perform one of these duties in his parish, and, on the other hand, he himself has the right to permit some regular pastoral duty for one of his parishioners to be performed in another parish. According to this fullness and exclusiveness of his authority, a parish priest will permit an outside priest to officiate in his parish only when that priest presents to him the relevant letter from the bishop concerned, and in the contrary case he has the right to forbid this entirely; and, according to the same principle, every person who resides in the parish concerned is subject to the spiritual authority of the parish priest, that is, every permanent member of the church community, as well as those who reside in the parish only temporarily, for example, students, servants, and so on.

The establishment of parishes belongs to the church authority, which, in view of the political significance of the parish institution itself, always acts in this jointly with the political authority. The determination of the boundaries and extent of parishes is likewise a matter for the church and the state authority jointly.[10] A dispute over the boundaries of a parish can arise only in the case where there are no relevant written documents, and where thirty years have not elapsed.[11] A parish cannot be established unless there is enough people who could contribute what is necessary for the maintenance of the church and the parish priest.[12] A parish once established can be abolished only by the authority which was competent to establish it.[13] No parish can be without its own particular church, which as such is called the parish church, and at which the principal divine worship is performed; if there are other churches in one parish, they are only subordinate to the principal one.[14]