Particular church
A
particular Church, in Catholic theology and
Canon law, is any of the individual constituent ecclesial communities in full
communion with Rome that are part of the
Catholic Church as a whole. These can be the local Churches mentioned in Canon 368 of the Code of Canon Law: "Particular Churches, in which and from which the one and only Catholic Church exists, are principally
dioceses. Unless the contrary is clear, the following are equivalent to a diocese: a territorial prelature, a territorial abbacy, a
vicariate apostolic, a
prefecture apostolic and a permanently established apostolic administration" [
1]. Or they can be aggregations of such local Churches that share a specific liturgical, theological and canonical tradition, namely, the western
Latin Rite or Latin Church and the various
Eastern Rites or Eastern Churches that the Second Vatican Council's Decree on the Catholic Eastern Churches
Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 2[
2] called "particular Churches or rites" and that are also referred to as autonomous ("sui iuris") particular Churches.
The
Holy See of
Rome is seen as the central local Church, and its bishop, the
Pope, is considered to be the (sole) successor of
Saint Peter, the chief (or "prince") of the
Apostles. The standard form of a particular or local Church is called in the Latin Rite a
diocese and in the Eastern Rites an
eparchy. The 2006 edition of the
Holy See's
Annuario Pontificio reported the total number of all these particular local Churches or sees at the end of the previous year as 2,770.
The importance in Catholic theology of
communion with the Church of Rome is the reason why the Catholic Church as a whole, of which all the particular Churches, eastern and western, autonomous (rites) or local (dioceses or eparchies), in full communion with Rome are considered part, is commonly designated
Roman Catholic, a term also used, though never officially by the Catholic Church itself, to refer only to its
Latin Rite.
Autonomous particular Churches or Rites
The technical term "particular Church" thus has two distinct, though related, meanings.
The higher of these two levels of particular Churches is that of what the Second Vatican Council's Decree on the
Eastern Catholic Churches, calls "particular Churches or rites".
[Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 2[3]]There are 23 such autonomous Churches, one "Western" and 22 "Eastern", a distinction by now more historical than geographical. The term
sui iuris means, literally, "of their own law", or self-governing. Although all of the particular Churches espouse the same beliefs and faith, their distinction lies in their varied expression of that faith through their traditions, disciplines, and
Canon law. All 23 are in communion with the Pope in Rome.
For this kind of "particular Church" the 1983
Code of Canon Law uses the unambiguous phrase "autonomous ritual Church" (in Latin
Ecclesia ritualis sui iuris). The 1990
Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which is instead concerned principally with what the Second Vatican Council called "particular Churches or rites", has shortened this phrase to "autonomous Church" (in Latin,
Ecclesia sui iuris), as in its canon 27: "A group of Christ's faithful hierarchically linked in accordance with law and given express or tacit recognition by the supreme authority of the Church is in this Code called an autonomous Church."
Communion between particular Churches has existed since the
Apostles: "Among these manifold particular expressions of the saving presence of the one Church of Christ, there are to be found, from the times of the Apostles on, those entities which are in themselves
Churches (32: Cf.
Ac 8:1,
Ac 11:22,
1 Cor 1:2,
1 Cor 16:19,
Gal 1:22,
Rev 2,
Rev 1:8, etc.), because, although they are particular, the universal Church becomes present in them with all its essential elements (33: Cf.
PONTIFICAL BIBLICAL COMMISSION, Unité et diversité dans l'Eglise, Lib. Ed. Vaticana 1989, especially, pp. 14-28.)" (
Communionis Notio, 7).
Dioceses or eparchies
In Catholic teaching, each diocese (Latin Rite term) or eparchy (Eastern Rite term) is also a local or particular Church, though it lacks the autonomy of the particular Churches described above: "A diocese is a section of the People of God entrusted to a bishop to be guided by him with the assistance of his clergy so that, loyal to its pastor and formed by him into one community in the Holy Spirit through the Gospel and the Eucharist, it constitutes one particular church in which the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and active."
[Second Vatican Council, Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church Christus Dominus, 11[4]]The 1983
Code of Canon Law, which is concerned with the Latin-Rite Church alone and so with only one
autonomous particular Church, uses the term "particular Church" only in the sense of "local Church", as in its Canon 373: "It is within the competence of the supreme authority alone to establish particular Churches; once they are lawfully established, the law itself gives them juridical personality."[
5]
Theological significance
The particular Churches within the Catholic Church, whether autonomous ritual churches or dioceses, are seen as not simply branches or sections of a larger body. Theologically, each is considered to be the embodiment in a particular place of the whole Catholic Church. "It is in these and formed out of them that the one and unique Catholic Church exists."
[Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Decree on the Church Lumen Gentium, 23[6]]The Catholic Church as a whole is more than just the sum of the particular Churches ("dioceses" or "rites") within it: "The particular Churches, insofar as they are
'part of the one Church of Christ' (Second Vatican Council: Decree
Christus Dominus, 6/c), have a special relationship of
mutual interiority with the whole, that is, with the universal Church, because in every particular Church
'the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and active' (Second Vatican Council: Decree
Christus Dominus, 11/a). For this reason,
the universal Church cannot be conceived as the sum of the particular Churches, or as a federation of particular Churches. It is not the result of the communion of the Churches, but, in its essential mystery, it is a reality
ontologically and
temporally prior to every
individual particular Church" (
Communionis Notio, 9).
*
Communionis Notio (from the Vatican)*
Code of Canon Law (from the Vatican, with IntraText concordance)
