Singular Administrative Act is an exercise of executive power directed to a particular case, taking the canonical form of a decree, precept, or rescript and governed by competence, interpretation, notification, and execution rules.[1]
Canonical family of acts
Canon 35 identifies the main forms: Singular Decree, Singular Precept, and Rescript. The author must possess executive power within the limits of competence, subject to the special rule for granting a Privilege. The classification focuses on a concrete matter or beneficiary rather than common prescriptions for an entire community.[2]
A singular act can make an appointment, decide a petition, impose an obligation, grant a Dispensation, erect or suppress an entity, execute law, or settle another administrative matter. Its effect may be important and enduring, but singular does not mean secret, informal, or legally minor.
Decree, precept, and rescript
A Singular Decree decides or provides for a particular case; a Singular Precept directly enjoins a person to do or omit something; a Rescript ordinarily grants a favor in writing at request. Exact form determines procedural rules, interpretive presumptions, notification, execution, and recourse, so the labels should not be treated as stylistic synonyms.
Validity, interpretation, and execution
The act must remain within the issuer's competence. Certain acts that harm acquired rights or contradict law or approved custom lack effect without an express derogating clause from competent authority. Acts restricting rights, threatening penalties, or opposing a law favorable to private persons receive strict interpretation; other singular acts are broadly interpreted.[3]
An executor must carry out the act according to its mandate and may need to verify authenticity, conditions, or facts. The separate article Execution of a Singular Administrative Act explains discretionary and necessary execution. A favorable text that was never validly issued or whose essential conditions fail cannot be cured by administrative enthusiasm.
Notification and recourse
A decree must be made known by a legitimate document to be enforced, and Canon Law supplies procedures and time limits for Hierarchical Recourse. Pastoral conversation or a press report should not be substituted for formal notification where rights and deadlines depend on the act. The record should preserve date, reasons, author, recipient, and proof of communication.
Authority and article method
A Singular Administrative Act is Church Discipline or governance, not by that fact an act of the Magisterium. Its reasons may invoke doctrine, and the person may owe canonical obedience, but document species cannot turn a prudential appointment or permit into Dogma.
An encyclopedia entry should state issuer, competence, recipient or case, formal species, petition if any, operative words, conditions, notification, execution, recourse, and present force. The surrounding controversy should not obscure the controlling document or the rights of persons affected.
References
- 1.Code of Canon Law, canons 35–93 — Binding Latin law on singular administrative acts, singular decrees and precepts, rescripts, privileges, dispensations, competence, interpretation, execution, notification, and cessation
- 2.Praedicate Evangelium, articles 29–31 — Binding norms for documents of the Roman Curia, papal approval, special faculties, general decrees, derogations from universal law, and approval in forma specifica
- 3.Code of Canon Law, canons 7–22 — Binding Latin law on promulgation, vacatio legis, authentic interpretation, strict interpretation, legal gaps, and the relation of later laws to earlier laws