Vicar General

Disciplinary status: Church discipline
Evidence type: Historical account
GuideThe office and its competence are governed by current ecclesiastical law; origins, former arrangements, and particular holders are historical matters. Canonical discipline must not be confused with dogma.
Contents

A vicar general is the priest who assists a diocesan bishop in governing the whole diocese with ordinary executive power defined by canon law.[1]

A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop or archbishop of a diocese or an archdiocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar general exercises the bishop's ordinary executive power over the entire diocese and, thus, is the highest official in a diocese or other particular church after the diocesan bishop or his equivalent in canon law.

The title normally occurs only in Western Christian churches, such as the Latin Church of the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. Among the Eastern churches, the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, based in Kerala, India, uses this title and remains an exception. The titles for the equivalent officer in the Eastern churches are syncellus and protosyncellus.

The term is used by many religious orders of men similarly, designating the authority in the Order after its superior general.

Nature of the office

Every diocese is normally to have a vicar general. His power is vicarious—exercised in the bishop’s name—and ordinarily extends to administrative acts throughout the diocese except those reserved by the bishop or requiring a special mandate.

Canonical place

The vicar general must ordinarily be a priest at least thirty years old, learned in canon law or theology, and notable for sound doctrine and prudence. His power ceases by expiry, resignation, removal, or vacancy of the see according to the conditions of law.

Ecclesiastical organisation

Catholic Church

In the Catholic Church, a diocesan bishop or archbishop must appoint at least one vicar general for his diocese or archdiocese, but may appoint more than one.[3] The Second Vatican Council referred to the office of vicar general as "the most important office in the diocesan curia".[4]: Sect. 27

The vicar general, by virtue of office, is the bishop's agent in administration, acting as second-in-command for diocesan executive matters. (A priest in a separate office, the judicial vicar, serves a similar role with regard to the exercise of ordinary judicial power of governance in the diocese, which is normally exercised in ecclesiastical courts.) Vicars general must be priests, auxiliary bishops, or coadjutor bishops.[5] If a coadjutor bishop exists for a diocese, the diocesan bishop or archbishop is to appoint him as a vicar general.[6] Other auxiliary bishops are usually appointed vicars general or at least episcopal vicars.[6] A vicar general is a local ordinary and, as such, acquires his powers by virtue of office and not by delegation. He is to possess a doctorate or at least a licentiate in canon law (JCL, JCD) or theology (STL, STD) or be truly expert in these fields. Dioceses whose territory is split into different states usually have one each.

The similarly titled episcopal vicar shares in the bishop's ordinary executive power like the vicar general, except that the episcopal vicar's authority normally extends over only a particular geographic section of a diocese or over certain specific matters.[7] These might include issues concerning religious institutes, education,[8] matrimonial matters,[9] or the faithful of a different rite.[4]: Sect. 23(3) These, too, must be priests or auxiliary bishops.[5]

The equivalent officer in the Eastern Catholic Churches is called the syncellus.

Priests appointed as vicars general or episcopal vicars are freely appointed or removed by the diocesan bishop or archbishop, and are appointed for a fixed duration. They lose their office when the term expires, or when the episcopal see falls vacant (sede vacante).[10] Auxiliary bishops may also be removed from the office of vicar general, but must at least be appointed episcopal vicar. An auxiliary bishop who is an episcopal vicar, or a coadjutor bishop who is vicar general, may only be removed from office for a grave reason.[11] Likewise, while they lose their vicar general or episcopal vicar office title sede vacante, they retain the duties and responsibilities of the office—specifically, they can still be exercised while the see is vacant serving as right-hand to the diocesan or apostolic administrator to establish continuity—until the succeeding bishop is installed or assumes office on a diocese.[12] A coadjutor bishop has the right of succession, so if the see falls vacant, he becomes the diocesan bishop or archbishop immediately. These offices should not be confused with the vicar forane or "dean/archpriest", as such vicars do not have ordinary executive power.

The appointment of a vicar general is also a useful tool for a diocesan bishop or archbishop who has additional functions attached to his episcopate. The most notable example is in the diocese of Rome. The Pope is 'ex officio' the diocesan bishop of Rome, but spends most of his time governing the Latin Church and the global Catholic Church. His vicar general therefore functions as the de facto bishop of the diocese.[13] The Vicar General of Rome also serves the same role for the suburbicarian diocese of Ostia, the traditional see of the Dean of the College of Cardinals, ever since it was merged with the diocese of Rome. The Vicar General of Rome, who is normally a cardinal, known as the Cardinal Vicar, is one of the few church officials in Rome to remain in office sede vacante.[13] The current Vicar General of Rome is Cardinal Baldassare Reina.

A similar example is found in the United States, where the archbishop of New York also functioned as ordinary of the military services from World War I until the 1980s: in addition to being responsible for the archdiocese of New York, the same archbishop was also responsible for the Military Ordinariate. This had the status of an apostolic vicariate, and functioned as the equivalent of a diocese defined by quality (that is, all Catholic members of the U.S. military and their dependents) rather than by geography. The archbishop had two separate administrations, therefore, and two sets of vicars general to manage each. This arrangement ended with the establishment of the wholly separate Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.

Anglican Communion

Vicars-General retain important administrative and judicial functions in the Church of England.

Following the Act of Supremacy of 1534, Henry VIII appointed Thomas Cromwell as his vicar general, a delegation of the powers with which Henry was invested by the Act as a result of becoming supreme head of the Church of England.[14]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Church of England licensed bishop-designates as episcopal vicars until they were permitted to hold consecration services. For example, Gavin Collins was licensed as an episcopal vicar in the Diocese of Oxford from his earlier-planned consecration date (28 January 2021)[15] until his consecration as Bishop of Dorchester (14 April 2021).[16]

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

The highest official of a diocese after the ordinary. He is a cleric legitimately deputed to exercise generally the episcopal jurisdiction in the name of the bishop, so that his acts are reputed the acts of the bishop himself.[2]

The wide powers of administration now enjoyed by the vicar-general belonged formerly to the archdeacon. The latter official was the first among the seven deacons, a number long retained in many churches, and he held office, not by reason of priority of ordination, but by free appointment of the bishop. To him was generally committed the external administration of the diocese, including the control of the inferior clergy and the right of visiting and correcting all the clerics by judicial procedure.

In the sixth century, there were both urban and rural archdeacons, and the dioceses were divided into districts ruled by these officials. This custom began in France and later spread all over Europe. By the eleventh century, the jurisdiction of archdeacons had become ordinary and stable. They had courts of first instance, and, besides their contentious jurisdiction, they had wide administrative powers, so much so indeed that they became obnoxious to the legitimate exercise of the bishop's authority. In consequence, from the twelfth century onwards, we find new diocesan assistants of the bishop, later called vicars-general, or officials, removable at the will of the ordinary. Vicars-general are not named in the Decretals of Gregory IX, but they are frequently referred to in the Sixth Book of Decretals (e.g., cap. ii, iii, "De off. Vic.", I. 13 in 6) and in the Clementines (cap. ii, "De reser.", 1.2. in Clem). In large dioceses in England and some other countries, a distinction was made between the vicar-general, who had voluntary jurisdiction or administration, and the official, who had contentious jurisdiction, but this distinction was never received into the common law, and the titles vicar-general and official are used indiscriminately for the same person in the Decretals and the Tridentine decrees. The institution of vicars-general greatly limited the powers of the archdeacons, and finally the latter officials were reduced by the Council of Trent (Sess, XXIUV, c. xii, "De ref.") to mere honorary dignitaries in cathedral chapters.

According to the present discipline, the vicar-general is deputed by the bishop to exercise the latter's jurisdiction with a certain universality of power. Bishops could not of themselves be competent to establish officials with the same ordinary faculties which they themselves have, and consequently the office of vicar-general rests on powers communicated by the pope and common law. The bishop, therefore, cannot concede to the vicar-general any jurisdiction except within the bounds allowed by the law or legitimate custom, or express Apostolic indults. The jurisdiction of the vicar-general is necessarily universal in the whole diocese, both for persons and causes, with a universality, however, not absolute, but moral, and therefore, though the bishop can restrict it both as to places and causes, he cannot so limit it that it ceases to be general, at least morally. It is in the discretion of the bishop to constitute a vicar-general for his diocese, but he cannot suppress an office instituted by common law.

The office of vicar-general is unique, and therefore there should not be several of them in one diocese, either acting in concert or governing a special part of the diocese (S.C.C., 21 Feb., 1614). However, separate vicars-general may be appointed for the faithful of a different rite or language (C. 14, X, 1, 31). The cleric appointed as vicar-general should be of legitimate birth, tonsured, and celibate. He should have attained his twenty-fifth year and be commendable for the probity of his life, his prudence, and his knowledge of canon law, in which he should be a doctor or licentiate, or at least equivalently qualified. Statutes of particular councils and rescripts of Roman Congregations declare that the vicar-general should not have the cure of souls, but this is nowhere prescribed in common law, and though an urban parish, or a capitular office, or the rectorship of a seminary are hindrances to the liberty of a vicar-general, yet they are not strictly incompatible with it. Regulars cannot be appointed vicars-general without the permission of their religious superiors, and they need, in addition, the license of the Holy See to live outside their monasteries. It is expedient that the vicar-general should not be a blood relation of the bishop or a cleric of the diocese, but there is no general law to this effect, though the schema of the Vatican Council contains one (Jus. Pont. de Prop. Fid., VI, append.).

The power of the vicar-general, by reason of his office and deputation, extends to all causes in the ordinary episcopal jurisdiction, except those which common law or the bishop may have reserved or made dependent on a special mandate. The tribunal of the vicar-general is one with the bishops, and therefore there is no appeal from one to the other. The vicar-general cannot substitute another cleric in his place to exercise his whole jurisdiction, but he may appoint delegates for special causes. Owing to the dependence of the jurisdiction of the vicar on that of the bishop, it ceases or is impeded with the latter. When, however, the vicar is acting in a special case as a strict delegate, he may even then finish the cause he had begun. The jurisdiction of a vicar-general, according to most canonists, is of a class by itself between ordinary and delegated, and it may be called quasi-ordinary, because, on the one hand, it is connected with a certain office by legal enactment and, on the other, it is exercised not in his own, but another's name. As ordinary jurisdiction, however, is always exercised by him as a matter of fact, there is no reason why his power should not be called ordinary. By virtue of a general mandate, the vicar-general exercises ordinary jurisdiction in the name of the bishop, but for some causes he needs a special mandate. These are: to make a visitation of the diocese, to confer benefices of free collation, to punish the excesses of clerics or remove them from their benefices or offices, to use the bishop's Tridentine faculties of dispensation and suspension, to concede dimissorial letters for receiving orders. All of the above require a special mandate by explicit law, but others of a similar nature, according to canonists, also require this mandate. They are: to suppress, unite, or divide benefices, to admit resignations for the purpose of exchanging benefices, to convoke a diocesan synod, to erect monasteries and confraternities. The office of a vicar-general expires with his death or resignation; with the cessation of the bishop's jurisdiction; with the revocation of his vicarial mandate, which must, however, be justified by a grave cause and against which, if his honour be impugned, he has recourse to the Holy See.

TAUNTON, The Law of the Church (London, 1906), s.v.; SMITH, Elements of Ecclesiastical Law, I (New York, 1895); WERNZ, Jus decretalium, II (Rome, 1899); THOMASSIN, Vetus et nova disciplina (Paris, 1688); LAURENTIUS, Institutiones juris ecclesiastici (Fribourg, 1903); FERRARIS, Bibliotheca canonica, VII (Rome, 1891), s.v.

WILLIAM H.W. FANNING

References

  1. 1.Code of Canon Law, canons 475–481 — Universal or special law governing the office and its competence
  2. 2.1913 Catholic Encyclopedia: Vicar-General
  3. 3."Canon 475". Code of Canon Law. The Holy See. 1983. Retrieved 2007-06-21.
  4. 4.[4.2]Second Vatican Council, Christus dominus, published on 28 October 1965, accessed on 15 August 2026
  5. 5.[5.2]"Canon 478". Code of Canon Law. The Holy See. 1983. Retrieved 2007-06-21.
  6. 6.[6.2]"Canon 406". Code of Canon Law. The Holy See. 1983. Retrieved 2007-06-21.
  7. 7."Canon 476". Code of Canon Law. The Holy See. 1983. Retrieved 2007-06-21.
  8. 8.Diocese of Leeds, Education and Schools, accessed on 2 February 2026
  9. 9.Diocese of Clifton, Matrimonial Tribunal, accessed on 2 February 2026
  10. 10."Canon 481". Code of Canon Law. The Holy See. 1983. Retrieved 2007-06-21.
  11. 11."Canon 193". Code of Canon Law. The Holy See. 1983. Retrieved 2007-06-21.
  12. 12."Canon 409". Code of Canon Law. The Holy See. 1983. Retrieved 2007-06-21.
  13. 13.[13.2]Pope John Paul II (1998). "Ecclesia in Urbe (in Italian)".
  14. 14.Grell, Ole Peter; O'Day, Rosemary (2007). The European Reformation. Milton Keynes: The Open University. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-7492-1683-2.
  15. 15."Bishop of Dorchester update". Diocese of Oxford. 22 January 2021. Retrieved 16 April 2021.
  16. 16."Consecration service for Bishop of Dorchester". Diocese of Oxford. 13 April 2021. Retrieved 16 April 2021.