Ministerium Iustitiae, Vol. III

The supreme legislator of the Church has endowed the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura with a complex and unique range of juridical competencies, placing it at the apex of the ecclesiastical judiciary. As has been most recently expressed in the form of legislation—namely, in Pope Francis’s apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium dated 19 March 2022—it acts as “a Tribunal of ordinary jurisdiction” (art. 196, incipit), as “the administrative Tribunal of the Roman Curia” (art. 197, § 1), and as “an administrative institution of justice in disciplinary matters” (art. 198, incipit). Because its decisions address a broad scope of matters within the life of the Church, its jurisprudence and praxis have widespread value for those who govern the Church, those who advise them, and those who are governed within the Church.

This third volume of collected decisions of the Apostolic Signatura entitled Ministerium Iustitiae complements the first two published in 2011 and 2021 in the Gratianus Series. Volume III presents more recently issued decisions and other acts pertaining to all general areas of its competence, in the original Latin with an English translation reviewed and published with the Apostolic Signatura’s permission. The book significantly adds to the number of translated decisions from causes relating to the Roman Rota than has been seen in the past. It contains several recent decisions pertaining to the exercise of priestly ministry as well as some variety of other unique administrative controversies. And it includes several relatively novel acts, including decrees resulting from hierarchical recourse to the Apostolic Signatura as an administrative organ and its provision for judicial structures in various countries.