Sui Iuris - Catholic Ecclesiastical Use

Catholic Ecclesiastical Use

Church documents such as the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches apply the Latin term sui iuris to the particular Churches that together compose the Catholic Church (i.e., the Roman Catholic Church and those in communion with her). By far the largest of these "sui iuris" or autonomous Churches is that known as the Latin Church or the Latin Rite. Over this particular Church the Pope exercises, as well as his papal authority, the authority that in other particular Churches belongs to a Patriarch. He has therefore been referred to also as Patriarch of the West. The other particular Churches are called Eastern Catholic Churches, each of which, if large enough, has its own patriarch or other chief hierarch, with authority over all the bishops of that particular Church or rite.

The same term is applied also to missions that, though lacking enough clergy to be set up as apostolic prefectures, are for various reasons given autonomy, and thus are not part of any diocese, apostolic vicariate or apostolic prefecture. In 2004, there were eleven such missions: three in the Atlantic, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, and Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha; two in the Pacific, Funafuti (Tuvalu), and Tokelau; and six in central Asia, Afghanistan, Baku (Azerbaijan), Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.