Ecclesiastical Letter - Letters of Bishops

Letters of Bishops

Just as the popes rule the Church largely by means of letters, so also the bishops make use of letters for the administration of their dioceses. The documents issued by a bishop are divided according to their form into pastoral letters, synodal and diocesan statutes, mandates or ordinances or decrees, the classification depending upon whether they have been drawn up more as letters, or have been issued by a synod or the diocesan chancery.

The pastoral letters are addressed either to all the members of the diocese (litterae pastorales) or only to the clergy, in this case generally in Latin (litterae encyclicae). The mandates, decrees or ordinances are issued either by the bishop himself or by one of his officials.

The synodal statutes are ordinances issued by the bishop at the diocesan synod, with the advice, but in no way with the legislative co-operation, of the diocesan clergy. The diocesan statutes, regularly speaking, are those episcopal ordinances which, because they refer to more weighty matters, are prepared with the obligatory or facultative co-operation of the cathedral chapter.

In order to have legal force the episcopal documents must be published in a suitable manner and according to usage. Civil laws by which episcopal and also papal documents have to receive the approval of the State before they can be published are irrational and out of date according to the First Vatican Council (Sess. III, De eccles., c. iii). (See Exequatur.)