Ecclesiastical Notary

The diocesan chancellor is a notary by office, and the bishop may appoint other notaries for all acts or for a specified class of acts. They put decrees, obligations, dispositions, and proceedings into writing; record place, date, and participants; sign acts with the required parties; and certify copies. Their duly signed instruments possess public credibility in canon law.

A notary authenticates that an act was performed and recorded as stated. The signature does not make an unlawful decision lawful, prove every underlying factual assertion, or confer authority on an official who lacked competence.

The chancellor and notaries must have an unimpaired reputation and be above suspicion. A lay member of the faithful may ordinarily serve, but a notary must be a priest in cases that can call a priest's reputation into question. The diocesan bishop freely appoints and may freely remove curial notaries, who remain bound by duties of fidelity, secrecy, accurate preservation, and lawful access to acts.^[1]

Eastern law is not identical: the eparchial chancellor must be a priest or deacon. Additional notaries may be appointed, but a priest is required when a cleric's reputation can be called into question. The competent code must therefore be identified before qualifications are stated.^[2]

Every canonical process must have a notary; procedural acts are invalid if the notary has not signed them. Special law can impose stricter qualifications. In tribunals handling delicts reserved to the doctrinal dicastery, the 2021 norms require the notary and chancellor to be priests of blameless reputation and above all suspicion, subject to the dicastery's power to dispense from the priesthood requirement in individual cases.^[3][4]