The Roman Rota, formally the Apostolic Tribunal of the Roman Rota (), and anciently the Apostolic Court of Audience, is the highest appellate court of the Catholic Church, with respect to both Latin Church members[Codex Iuris Canonici CIC canons 1443, 1444.] and the Eastern Catholic members[Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium CCEO canon 1065.] and is the highest ecclesiastical court constituted by the Holy See related to judicial trials conducted in the Catholic Church.[ See John Paul II, ap. con. Pastor Bonus art. 121, 80 Acta Apostolicae Sedis 841 (1988) (noting that the Apostolic Signatura is the supreme tribunal)] An appeal may be had to the pope himself, who is the supreme ecclesiastical judge.[1983 CIC, can. 1442] The Catholic Church has a complete legal system, which is the oldest in the West still in use.
Constitution
The
pope appoints the auditors of the Rota and designates one of them the dean.
[ Pastor Bonus art. 127.] On September 22, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation, for reasons of age, of Bishop Antoni Stankiewicz as dean and appointed in his place Msgr. , who had been serving as a prelate auditor of the Court of First Instance.
On March 29, 2021, Msgr. Pinto retired
and
Pope Francis appointed Msgr. Alejandro Arellano Cedillo as dean.
The Rota issues its decrees and sentences in Latin.[ Pastor Bonus art. 16 (Latin is the official language of the Roman Curia).] The Rota adjudicates cases in a panel (called a turnus) of three auditors, or more, depending on the complexity of the matter, assigned by the dean of the tribunal.[Canon L. Socy. Gr. Brit. & Ir., The Canon Law Letter and Spirit: A Practical Guide to the Code of Canon Law ¶ 2907, at 837 (Gerard Sheehy et al. eds., Liturgical Press 1995).] The auditors of the Rota are selected from among recognized ecclesiastical judges serving various dioceses around the world.
History
Rota's official records begin in 1171.
[Anne O'Hare McCormick, Vatican Journal: 1921-1954 (New York: Farrar, Strause and Cudahy, 1957) pg. 43] Until the
Risorgimento and the loss of the
Papal States in 1870, the Rota was a civil tribunal and its judgements had the status of law in the Papal States.
[Anne O'Hare McCormick, Vatican Journal: 1921-1954 (New York: Farrar, Strause and Cudahy, 1957) pg. 39]
Since at least 1961,
Name
Until the 14th century, the court was formally known as the
Apostolic Court of Audience. The first recorded use of the term
Rota, which referred to the wheel-shaped arrangement of the benches used by the court in the great hall at
Avignon, is in
Thomas Fastolf's
Decisiones rotae, consisting of reports on thirty-six cases heard at the Court of Audience in Avignon between December 1336 and February 1337.
[John Hamilton Baker, Monuments of endlesse labours: English canonists and their work (1998), p. 22] Its first usage in a
papal bull is in 1418.
It is also possible that the term
Rota comes from the porphyry wheel that was centered in the marble floor of
Avignon, or even from the wheel-like cases in which parchment roll records were kept.
[Anne O'Hare McCormick, Vatican Journal: 1921-1954 (New York: Farrar, Strause and Cudahy, 1957) pp. 37-38]
Operations
The Rota's main function is that of an appellate tribunal, ordinarily reviewing decisions of lower courts if the initial court (first instance) and the first appellate court (second instance) do not agree on the outcome of a case;
[ Pastor Bonus art. 128 § 2.] however, any party to an initial decision before a court of the Latin Church (and also some Eastern Churches) has the right to file a second-instance appeal directly to the Rota.
[ Pastor bonus art. 128 § 1.] Dominating its caseload are petitions seeking the issuance of a
annulment of a marriage, although it has jurisdiction to hear any other type of judicial and non-administrative case in any area of canon law. The Rota serves as a tribunal of first instance (in Anglo-American common law what would be termed exclusive original jurisdiction) in certain cases such as any contentious case in which a bishop of the Latin Church is a defendant.
[ See Pastor Bonus art. 129 § 1.] If the case can still be appealed after a Rotal decision, the appeal goes to a different turnus, or panel, of the Rota.
[Art. 18,2 Normae Rotalis]
The Rota is the highest appeals court for all judicial trials in the Catholic Church. A judgment of the Rota can, however with the greatest difficulty, be vacated by the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, which is the highest administrative court in the Catholic Church.
[ See Pastor bonus art. 122 (noting that the Apostolic Signatura, from Rotal sentences, hears plaints of nullity, petitions for total reinstatement, and petitions for new examination of status-of-persons cases and also hears misconduct proceedings against Rotal auditors).] However, the legal procedure or process used by the judges of the Rota, not the merits of the case, are on trial before the Signatura: the Signatura is only able to grant the petitioner a new trial to be held before a new
turnus of the Rota, if the Rota was found to have erred in procedure ("
de procedendo").
[Art. 33 Proper Law of Segnatura Apostolica]
The Roman Rota proceedings are governed by a specific set of rules, the "Normae Romanae Rotae Tribunalis", promulgated in 1994 by Pope John Paul II.[(Acta Apostolicae Sedis, June 6 1994)] Only advocates who are registered in a specific list are allowed to represent the parties before the Tribunal.[art 47, Normae Rotalis]
Since Pope Benedict XVI issued the motu proprio Quaerit semper the Rota has had exclusive competence to dispense from marriages ratum sed non consummatum and is also competent to examine cases concerning the nullity of sacred ordination, in accordance with both universal and proper law.[ Quaerit semper, Vatican.va, accessed 7 July 2014]
Auditors
The active auditors of the Rota, with their dates of appointment by the pope, are:
-
Alejandro Arellano Cedillo (Dean) (25 April 2007; named Dean 30 March 2021)
-
(Pro-Dean) (9 January 1995; named Pro-Dean 12 December 2016)
-
(4 November 1997)
-
Jair Ferreira Pena (8 February 1999)
-
Michael Xavier Leo Arokiaraj (25 April 2007)
-
David Maria A. Jaeger (3 June 2011)
[ Note that the headline errs in stating that Jaeger was appointed "head" of the court; the body of the article does not make this mistake.]
-
Vito Angelo Todisco (4 October 2011)
-
Felipe Heredia Esteban (4 October 2011)
-
Davide Salvatori (30 December 2011)
-
(17 April 2013)
-
Antonio Bartolacci (23 January 2014)
-
Manuel Saturino da Costa Gomes (23 January 2014)
-
Pietro Milite (9 January 2015)
-
Miroslav Konštanc Adam (22 March 2016)
-
José Fernando Mejía Yáñez (22 March 2016)
-
Francesco Viscome (21 November 2016)
-
Hans-Peter Fischer (20 July 2017)
-
Robert Gołębiowski (19 July 2019)
-
Antonios Chouweifaty (25 April 2022)
-
Laurence John Spiteri (25 April 2022)
-
Pierangelo Pietracatella, (23 January 2023)
Officers
-
Tomasz Kubiczek, (Promoter of Justice)
-
Domenico Teti, (Adjunct Promoter of Justice)
-
Jude Barthomieux Frédéric, (Defender of the Bond)
-
Francesco Ibba, (Substitute Defender of the Bond)
-
Alessandro Recchia, (Second Notary)
-
Dr. Daniele Cancilla, (Head of the Chancellory)
Further reading
External links
