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Metropolitan
In ecclesiastical language, refers to
whatever relates to the metropolis, the principal city, or see, of
an ecclesiastical province; thus we speak of a metropolitan
church, a metropolitan chapter, a metropolitan official, etc. The
word metropolitan, used without any qualificative, means
the bishop of the metropolitan see, now usually styled archbishop.
The term metropolite (Metropolites, Metropolita) is also
employed, especially in the Eastern Churches (see ARCHBISHOP). The
entire body of rights and duties which canon law attributes to the
metropolitan, or archbishop as such, i.e., not for his own
diocese, but for those suffragan to him and forming his
ecclesiastical province, is called the metropoliticum.
The effective authority of
metropolitans over their provinces has gradually diminished in the
course of centuries, and they do not now exercise even so much as
was accorded them by the Council of Trent; every bishop being more
strongly and more directly bound to Rome is so much the less bound
to his province and its metropolitan. The jurisdiction of the
latter over his suffragan dioceses is in a sense ordinary, being
established by law; but it is mediate and restricted to the
objects provided for by the canons. Since the Council of Trent the
rights of the metropolitan have been reduced to the following:
He convokes and presides at the
provincial council, at which all his suffragans must appear,
saving legitimate excuse, and which must be held every three
years (Conc. Trid., Sess. XXIV, c. ii, De ref.). The same holds
for other provincial meetings of bishops.
He retains, in theory, the right
of canonical visitation of his suffragan dioceses, but on two
conditions which make the right practically inoperative: he must
first finish the visitation of his own diocese, and the
visitation must be authorized by the provincial council. In the
course of this visitation, the metropolitan, like the bishop, has
the right of "procuration ", i.e., he and his retinue
must be received and entertained at the expense of the churches
visited. Moreover, he can absolve "in foro conscientiae"
(ibid., iii).
He is charged with special
vigilance over his suffragans in the matter of residence; he must
denounce to the pope those who have been twice absent for six
months each time, without due cause or permission (Conc. Trid.
Sess., vi, c. i). And similarly for the prescriptions relating to
seminaries (Sess. XXIII, c. xviii).
The metropolitan has no judicial
authority over his suffragans, major criminal causes of bishops
being reserved to the Holy See, and minor ones to the provincial
council (Sess. XXIV, c. v.); but he is still the judge of second
instance for causes, civil or criminal, adjudicated in the first
instance by the officials of his suffragans and appealed to his
tribunal. Hence results a certain inequality for matters
adjudicated in the first instance in the archdiocese, and to
remedy this various concessions have now been provided. But the
nomination of two officials by the archbishop, one diocesan, the
other metropolitan, with appeal from the one to the other, is not
admissible. This practice was used in France under the old
regime, but was not general, and even the Gallicans held it to be
at variance with canon law (Héricourt, "Les Lois
ecclésiastiques de France", E.V, 13). On this
principle the nullity of Napoleon's marriage was decided by the
diocesan and the metropolitan officials of Paris, 1810
(Schnitzer, "Kathol. Eherecht", Freiburg, 1898, 660).
The metropolitan tribunal may also try as at first instance
causes not terminated within two years by a bishop's tribunal
(Sess. XXIV, c. xx).
In regard to devolution, the
metropolitan may nominate the vicar capitular of a vacant
diocese, if the chapter has failed to nominate within eight days
(Sess. xxiv, c. xvi). In like manner he has the right to fill
open benefices (i.e., those of free collation) which his
suffragans have left unfilled after six months; also to
canonically institute candidates presented by patrons if the
bishop allows two months to pass without instituting.
Lastly, in the matter of
honorific rights and privileges the metropolitan has the pallium
as the ensign of his jurisdiction; he takes precedence of all
bishops; he may have the archiepiscopal cross (crux gestatoria)
borne before him anywhere within his province, except in the
presence of a papal legate; he may celebrate pontifically (saving
such acts as constitute an exercise of jurisdiction, e.g.,
ordination), may wear his rochet and mozetta uncovered (not
hidden under the mantelletta, like a bishop of another diocese);
may bless publicly, and may grant an indulgence of 100 days (S.C.
Indulg., 8. Aug., 1903). He ensigns his arms with the double
archiepiscopal cross and the hat with ten tassels on either side.
FERRARIS, Prompta
Bibliotheca, s. v. Archiepiscopus; SAGMULLER Lehrbuck des kathol.
Kirchenrechts (Freiburg, 1909), 391; BOUIX, De Episcopo, I (Paris,
1859), 441.
A. BOUDINHON
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