Talk:Vicar general

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Catholicism, which collaborates on articles related to the Roman Catholic Church. To participate, edit this article or visit the project page for details.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the Project's importance scale.

[edit] Ordinaries and PMadrid's edits

Wrong, no, incorrect.

VGs and EVs are "ordinaries" only with regard to exercise of their power, not with regard to source. Their jurisdiction is vicarious, which is why they are vicars, eh? That is, the source of their authority is delegated, hence they are delegates, which is why the VG loses jurisdiction with the death of the bishop (Cn. 481). They are, in fact, properly "quasi-ordinaries" in that they exercise functions by the law itself (475, 479), and so are ordinaries in the exercise of their office, but their jurisdiction is derivative (479, in that the bishop may restrict or limit their jurisdiction). "This is vicarial jurisdiction, delegated as to its source, but ordinary as to its exercise, and which would be more accurately termed quasi-ordinary. In this sense vicars-general and diocesan officials are ordinaries." (Boudhinon; cf Sagmuller). In short, as you have it written, VGs are equivalents of diocesan bishops, which is emphatically not the case.HarvardOxon 21:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you are saying, and I realize my error. We are both right in some way, but you are more right than I am. I was wrong in saying that VGs and EVs exercise their own power. They do indeed exercise the executive power of their bishop. My mistake. I will adjust the article accordingly.

I was trying to avoid saying that VGs and EVs are delegates of the bishop, and I came up with the wrong terminology instead. We should still use a different word than delegate because they are not mere delegates of the bishop. A delegate exercises power by virtue of a mandate. An ordinary exercises power by virtue of an office, which is a more stable exercise of power.

The power that the vicars exercise is not their own power; it is the power of the bishop. However, as ordinaries they have the right by virtue of law to exercise the bishop's power, subject to the limits that the bishop has placed on it (a la c. 479) and the limits of law. In essence, their ordinary power is a power of agency. The Catholic Encyclopedia also defines vicar as agent and not a mere delegate. I think defining vicar as "agent of the bishop" is a way to avoid using the term delegate which could be confused with "delegated power", a completely different concept than what these offices entail.

By the way, a few offices with vicarious ordinary power do not fall vacant sede vacante. The judicial vicar, for instance, retains his power. If his were mere delegated power, his mandate should also expire sede vacante. Instead we have a special law in the case of vicars general and episcopal (c. 481) in which they lose their office (not just their jurisdiction), emphasizing again the fact that these guys really are ordinaries and that there has to be a special law depriving them of office in order to extinguish their powers sede vacante.

Thanks for bringing this up though. This should make the articles even more accurate. Pmadrid 04:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)