Curia (Roman Catholic Church)

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For the Ancient Roman usage, see Curia.

In the Roman Catholic Church, every diocese has a curia, consisting of the chief officials of the diocese. These officials assist the diocesan bishop in governing the particular church.

Patriarchates and Major Archiepiscopates of the Eastern Catholic Churches have an assembly called the Patriarchal Curia, which assists the patriarch or major archbishop in administering the sui juris church.

The Holy See retains an assembly called the Roman Curia, which assists the Pope in governing the Latin patriarchate and the entire Roman Catholic Church.

The Legion of Mary has a rank called the Curia. It stands above the Praesidium but below the Regia. The Curia is responsible for several Praesidium.

All of these have now very different functions from the Curia in Roman times, but they keep the name since they are historically descended from it. In other words, when the Roman Empire collapsed, many of the administrative functions previously done by the state where subsumed by the only solid institution left, which was the church. The Bishop and its clergy basically took the place of the officials that the government used to send, to the point of actually sitting at the same chair in the same building. So the Curia passed in religious hands, and afterwards changed functions many times but always keeping its traditional name, at least in those Christian denominations that still keep a strong continuity with the Apostolic tradition.