Dispensation is a term used in the Canon Law of the Catholic Church referring to the suspension by competent authority of general rules of law in particular cases. Its object is to modify the hardship often arising from the rigorous application of general laws to particular cases, and its essence is to preserve the law by suspending its operation in such cases. Canon Law is the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Catholic Church. ... The name Catholic Church can mean a visible organization that refers to itself as Catholic, or the invisible Christian Church, viz. ...

History

In Canon law theory, the dispensing power is the corollary of the legislative. The dispensing power, like the legislative, was formerly invested in general councils and even in provincial synods. But in the west, with the gradual centralisation of authority in the Roman curia, it became ultimately vested in the pope as the supreme lawgiver of the Catholic Church. Canon Law is the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Catholic Church. ... A legislature is a governmental deliberative body with the power to adopt laws. ... See also General Council (disambiguation). ... A synod (also known as a council) is a council of a church, usually a Christian church, convened to decide an issue of doctrine or administration. ... The Roman Curia - usually (though inaccurately) called the Vatican - is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See, coordinating and providing the necessary organisation for the correct functioning of the Roman Catholic Church and the achievement of its goals. ... The current Pope is Benedict XVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger), who was elected at the age of 78 on 19 April 2005. ... The name Catholic Church can mean a visible organization that refers to itself as Catholic, or the invisible Christian Church, viz. ...

Despite frequent crises in the diplomatic relations between the Holy See and temporal governments in the later Middle Ages, the authority of the papacy as the dispenser of grace and spiritual licences remained largely unchallenged. In the early thirteenth century Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) fostered the extension of papal political power. He emphasised, “as had no pope before him, the pope’s ‘plenitudo potestatis’ (fullness of power) within the Church.” Since the Church comprised the whole of mankind, medieval jurists were accustomed to what we might call shared sovereignty, and freely accepted that the pope had a concurrent jurisdiction with temporal sovereigns. The temporal princes could administer their own laws, but the princes of the Church, and especially the pope, administered the canon law (so far as it was subject to merely human control). The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Look up Grace in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Innocent III, né Lotario de Conti ( 1161–June 16, 1216), was Pope from January 8, 1198 until his death. ... A jurist is a professional who studies, develops, applies or otherwise deals with the law. ...

In the decretal Proposuit, Innocent III proclaimed that the pope could, if circumstances demanded, dispense from Canon law, de jure, with his plenitude of power, on the basis that princeps legibus solutus est (the prince is not bound by the laws). Because the pope was above the law, time or precedent did not limit his power, and he could dispense with any law. Decretals (Epistolae decretales) is the name that is given in Canon Law to those letters of the pope which formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law. ... Innocent III, né Lotario de Conti ( 1161–June 16, 1216), was Pope from January 8, 1198 until his death. ... Canon Law is the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Catholic Church. ...

Such a dispensation was not, strictly speaking, legislative, but rather a judicial, quasi-judicial or executive act. It was also, of course, subject to the proviso that his jurisdiction to dispense with laws was limited to those laws which were within his jurisdiction or competence. “[T]his principle would have been a commonplace to anyone who had studied in Bologna.” The judiciary, also referred to as the judicature, consists of justices, judges and magistrates among other types of adjudicators. ... In law, jurisdiction (from the Latin jus, juris meaning law and dicere meaning to speak) is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area...

By this power of dispensation the pope could release clergy and laity from the obligations of the canon law in all cases that were not contrary to ius divinum and even in a few cases that were. This power was most frequently invoked to enable laity to marry notwithstanding impediments of affinity or kinship, and to enable persons labouring under an irregularity (such as of bastardy, servitude or lack of age) to take orders or become regulars. Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. ... In religious organizations, the laity comprises all lay persons collectively. ... Divine law is any law (or rule) that comes directly from the will of God (or a god), such as from the Bible in Christianity or in Islam the Quran from Allah himself, etcetera. ... A marriage is a relationship between or among individuals, usually recognized by civil authority and/or bound by the religious beliefs of the participants. ... Look up affinity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Kinship is the most basic principle of organizing individuals into social groups, roles, and categories. ... Illegitimacy was a term in common usage for the condition of being born of parents who are not validly married to one another; the legal term is bastardy. ...

Dispensations awarded might be classified into three categories.

• The first two categories, rules concerning the procedure of taking holy orders, and dispensations concerning tenure of Benefices, applied only to clergy.
• The third category, matrimonial dispensations, i.e. regarding marriage, concerned only the laity since the clergy is celibate.
• Beside the three main classes of dispensation, the papal curia was ready to grant miscellaneous positive concessions to applicants who could afford the necessary fees. This host of dispensations, faculties and indults included permission to eat flesh during Lent, the celebration of offices in chapels of ease and private oratories, and the granting of degrees. Those dispensations relating to academic degrees were mostly issued under the sanction of the canon law as stated in the constitution of Boniface VIII beginning “Cum ex eo.”

Roman Catholic deacon candidates prostrate before the altar of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles during a 2004 diaconate ordination liturgy Holy Orders in the modern Roman Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Assyrian, Old Catholic, and Independent Catholic Churches, includes... Originally a benefice was a gift of land for life as a reward (Latin beneficium, means to do well) for services rendered. ... A marriage is a relationship between or among individuals, usually recognized by civil authority and/or bound by the religious beliefs of the participants. ... In the Roman Catholic Church, every diocese has a curia, consisting of the chief officials of the diocese. ... A faculty is an instrument or warrant in canon law, especially a judicial or quasi-judicial warrant from an ecclesiastical court or tribunal. ... A pardon is the forgiveness of a crime and the penalty associated with it. ... In Western Christianity, Lent is the period from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday. ... A chapel of ease is a church building other than the main church of a parish which is more accessible to some parishoners than the main church. ... Public speaking is speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner. ... A degree is any of a wide range of awards made by institutions of higher education, such as universities, normally as the result of successfully completing a program of study. ... Boniface VIII, né Benedict Gaetano ( 1235 - October 11, 1303) was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. ...

Present use

There are several levels of authority in the Church which are competent to dispense the various demands of Canon Law. Local ordinaries, for example, are competent to dispense the various canonical impediments to the sacrament of marriage. Some dispensations are reserved to the Holy See, for example from the impediment to ordination of apostacy. Pope Pius XI, depicted in this window at Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, Honolulu, was ordinary of the universal Roman Catholic Church and local ordinary of Rome. ... Canonical impediment is a term used in the Canon Law of the Catholic Church and refers to a legal obstacle which prevents a sacrament from being performed validly and/or licitly. ... Apostasy (Greek απο, apo, away, apart, στασις, stasis, standing) is the formal renunciation of ones religion. ...

See also

• Derogation

Derogation is the partial revocation of a law, as opposed to abrogation or the total abolition of a law. ...

Sources

• David Chamber, Faculty Office Registers, 1534-1549: A Calendar of the First Two Registers of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Faculty Office (Clarendon Press 1966)
• Sir Edward Coke, 4th Institutes of the Laws of England 337 (Garland Publg. 1979)
• Wilfrid Hooper, "The Court of Faculties", 25 English Historical Rev. 670 (1910)
• Noel Cox, Dispensations, "Privileges, and the Conferment of Graduate Status: With Special Reference to Lambeth Degrees". Journal of Law and Religion, 18(1), 249-274 (2002-2003)
• Gabriel Le Bras, Charles Lefebvre & Jacqueline Rambaud, "L’âge classique, 1140-1378: sources et théorie du droit" vol. 7, 487-532 (Sirey 1965)
• Francis Oakley, "Jacobean Political Theology: The Absolute and Ordinary Powers of the King", 29 J. of History of Ideas 323 (1968)
• Kenneth Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 1200-1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition (U. Cal. Press 1993)