The Sacra Rota Romana or Sacred Roman Rota is the supreme court of the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has a complete legal system—it is in fact the oldest and one of the most advanced legal systems still in use today. The supreme court in some countries, provinces, and states, is the highest court in that jurisdiction and functions as a court of last resort whose rulings cannot be appealed. ... Saint Peters Basilica in Rome. ...

The court is named Rota (wheel) because the judges rotate between cases: while twelve judges hear a case, there are more than twelve members of the Rota, who are assigned to each case like a queue. For each new case, one judge is taken off one end of the queue, another one is added at the other end, thus rotating them. The Pope names judges to the Rota, whose decisions are written in Latin. A wheel is a circular object that together with an axle allows low friction motion, e. ... The Pope is the Catholic Bishop and patriarch of Rome, and head of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches. ... Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...

The Church's legal structure is loosely federal, with each diocese being a state. Therefore, as supreme court, the Rota's main function is that of an appellate court, hearing appeals of decisions by apostolic courts. Nowadays it mainly hears marriage annulment cases due to the increased divorce rates, including among Catholics, but it can hear cases in any area of Canon Law, except areas in which other courts of the Roman Curia are competent. The Rota's decision can further be appealled to the Pope himself, whose decision is irreversible, but this is very rarely done. In some Christian churches, the diocese is an administrative territorial unit governed by a bishop, sometimes also referred to as a bishopric or episcopal see, though more often the term episcopal see means the office held by the bishop. ... An appellate court is a court that hears cases in which a lower court -- either a trial court or a lower-level appellate court — has already made a decision, but in which at least one party to the action wants to challenge this ruling based upon some legal grounds that... In the theology of Catholicism, marriage is an inseparable bond between a man and a woman, created by human contract and ratified by divine grace. ... Annulment is a legal procedure for declaring a marriage null and void. ... In Western culture, canon law is the law of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. ... The Roman Curia is the complex of the organs and the authorities that constitute 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 Rota's other function is that of clarification. Any Catholic can ask the Rota to give a clear interpretation of a specific text of Canon Law. Like all supreme courts, the Rota may (and does) later change its interpretation of the texts it is tasked to enforce. In Western culture, canon law is the law of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. ...