Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The first centenary of the re-establishing of the Apostolic Tribunal of the Roman Rota on the part of Saint Pius X, “is an opportune occasion to reflect on a fundamental aspect of the Rota's activity, namely, the value of its jurisprudence in the complex administration of justice in the Church”. With these words Pope Benedict XVI addressed Prelate Auditors, Officers and Lawyers of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota Romana received in audience on 26 January on the occasion of the solemn inauguration of Judiciary Year. Dwelling on the meaning of the service offered by ecclesiastical tribunals, the Holy Father affirmed: “since canonical trials concern juridical aspects of either salvific goods or other temporal goods which serve for the mission of the Church, the demand for unity in essential criteria of justice and the necessity to be able to reasonably foresee the sense of juridical decisions, becomes a public ecclesial good of particular importance for the internal life of the People of God and the latter's institutional testimony in the world … the value of the jurisprudence of the Roman Rota depends on its nature as a superior instance of appeal to the Apostolic See. Legal arrangements which recognise this value declare rather than create it. It stems definitively from the necessity to administer justice according to parameters equal in all that, precisely, in itself is essentially equal… Whatever the case, all verdicts must be founded on principles and norms common to justice. This need, common to any juridical order, has in the Church specific pregnancy, to the extent in which it concerns the demands of communion, which implicate safeguarding all that is common to the universal Church, entrusted in a unique way to the Supreme Authority and those organs which ad normam iuris share its sacred power.”
Dwelling on the important service offered by Rotal jurisprudence in the field of matrimony in these hundred years, the Holy Father highlighted the “arduous task” of the Roman Rota: “to discern the existence or non existence of an intrinsic matrimonial reality, which is anthropological, theological and juridical… The Rotal jurisprudence should be seen as exemplary activity of juridical wisdom, on the part of the authority of the Tribunal permanently constituted by the Successor of Peter for the good of the whole Church. Thanks to this work, in cases of matrimonial nullity the concrete situation is objectively judged in the light of criteria which constantly affirm the reality of indissoluble marriage, open to every man and every women in keeping with the plan of God, Creator and Saviour. This demands continual effort to reach that unity of criteria of justice which is the essential characteristic of the very notion of jurisprudence as well as its fundamental basis … I hope opportune ways will be identified to render Rotal jurisprudence ever more clearly unitary and effectively accessible to all operators of justice so as to reach uniform application in all Church tribunals.”
Lastly the Holy Father highlighted the “value of interventions by the ecclesiastical Magisterium on matrimonial juridical questions, including addresses by the Roman Pontiff to the Rota”: offering “immediate guidance for the activity of all the Church's tribunals since they teach with authority what is essential with regard to the reality of marriage”. At the end of his discourse the Pope urged those present to “pray every day for the Roman Rota and those who work in the sector of the administration of justice in the Church”, because “we should not forget that in the Church everything is powered by prayer which transforms our whole existence and fills us with hope brought by Jesus ”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 28/1/2008; righe 43, parole 598)
