Portion of the People of God is the conciliar and canonical description of a diocese or eparchy as faithful entrusted to a bishop for pastoral care with the cooperation of the presbyterate, in whom the one Church is present and operative.
A people entrusted, not property assigned
The defining subject is a portion of God's people, not merely acreage, buildings, or an administrative office. The faithful are entrusted to episcopal pastoral care so that, adhering to their pastor and gathered by Gospel and Eucharist in the Holy Spirit, they constitute a particular Church. The bishop serves a people Christ already claims.[1][2]
Bishop and presbyterate
The diocesan bishop possesses proper pastoral office, and presbyters form a presbyterate cooperating with him in teaching, sanctifying, and governing. A list of clergy without a bishop and people is not a diocese; neither is a population with Catholic sympathies but no canonically entrusted pastoral structure.
Territory and personal criteria
The portion is ordinarily delimited territorially so all faithful in the territory belong to it according to law. Where useful, the supreme authority can erect particular Churches distinguished by rite or another personal quality. Territory is therefore the norm of delimitation, not the theological essence of the Church.[3]
The whole Church present
Portion must not be read as a fragment containing one share of an otherwise divided saving mystery. In the particular Church the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is truly present and active. The local community receives the whole Eucharistic gift while remaining intrinsically open to every other Church.
Nor does portion mean an ethnic possession. A bishop's care extends to the persons entrusted under law, including migrants, minorities, visitors, and Catholics of other traditions within the applicable norms. Catholicity resists reducing the flock to the dominant culture.
Canonical evidence
For historical and statistical articles, erection, suppression, union, boundary, and status should be drawn from competent ecclesiastical acts. Civil diocesan corporations, cathedral titles, or popular names can support administration but do not independently define the canonical portion of the People of God.
References
- 1.Lumen gentium — Vatican II's dogmatic constitution on ecclesial communion, the episcopal college, hierarchical communion, and canonical mission
- 2.Communionis notio — The CDF letter on communion, mutual interiority, Eucharist, episcopate, primacy, and the relation of universal and particular Churches
- 3.Code of Canon Law, canons 368–374 — Binding Latin law identifying dioceses and juridically equivalent circumscriptions as particular Churches and regulating territorial and personal delimitation