Incardination

At the first times of the Church

In the first times of the Church, the clerks are ordered only for the service of a Church, and more precisely of a parish, to which they are naturally incardinés. A vestige of this practice remains in the assignment of one évêché, a cure or a diaconie to the cardinal .

The first Concile S stress the need for a bond between the clerk and his Church. In 314, the council of Arles orders that the changing clerk of diocese without reason is deposited; in 339, the Concile of Alexandria describes as “adultery” a bishop seeking to change diocese. The Council of Nicée, in 325, still reiterates these prohibitions. In 451, the Concile of Chalcédoine prohibits ordinations known as “absolute” or “without title”, i.e. without church in sight.

In the Catholic church

The 12th century in practice sees a reversal then in right, to undoubtedly attach to the creation of the system of the benefit: the clerk sees himself ensuring personally of the means of subsistence, which are not attached any more to a church. Two tituli make their appearance:

the titulus patrimonii (title of the inheritance): the clerk can change diocese even without the assent of his bishop;
the titulus beneficii (title of the benefit): the clerk is titular of a benefit in a given diocese, but without obligation of residence.

The Concile of Thirty partly reconsiders these innovations while prohibiting that in the future “nobody not to be ordered who is not attached to the Church for the service of which it was accepted, so that there is no more clerk with variable and dubious residence” (session XXIII, course. 16, Of reformatione ). However, the new provision is applied very gradually, and in an unequal way.

At the 19th century, the rarefaction of the benefit poses problem. In answer, the Congregation of the Propaganda Fide thus creates the titulus missionis (title of mission). Also the titulus mensæ or the titulus administrationis appears, which reinforce the bond between the clerk and his diocese. From now on, the bishop can prohibit a priest from leaving his diosèse.

In the Code of right canonical of 1917, the incardination is concretized by the Tonsure, which attaches the clerk to a diocese or a Prélature. A change of diocese can take place only by obtaining initially letters of excardination (or exeat , in Latin: “that it from goes away”) then from letters of incardination on behalf of the respective bishops. Accordingly, the incardination loses any aspect of pastoral service, to preserve only one disciplinary aspect: it is a question of making it possible the bishop to control the clerks of his diocese.

In the pastoral Years 1950, needs (better distribution of the priests on the territory, requirements into pastoral specific) and geopolitical realities (taken refuge) call into question the mode of the incardination. The Concile Vatican II returns to him its primitive pastoral aspect by the decrees Christus Domini and Presbytorum ordinis : the incardiné clerk puts himself at the service of a particular Church, i.e. of a community the faithful ones (cf Lumen gentium ); it does not act more than one simple hierarchical bond with the bishop. Thus, in its apostolic exhortation of the March 25th 1992, Pastores dabo vobis , Jean-Paul II explains:

“It is necessary to regard as a spiritual value of the priest his membership and its devotion to the particular Church. These realities are not only justified by reasons of organization and discipline. (…) The incardination is not reduced to a legal bond, but it supposes also a series of attitudes and spiritual choices pastoral, contributing to give its aspect suitable for the vocation of the priest. ”

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