The Roman Rota, formally the Apostolic Tribunal of the Roman Rota ( la, Tribunal Apostolicum Rotae Romanae), and anciently the Apostolic Court of Audience, is the highest
appellate tribunal of the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, with respect to both
Latin-rite members and the
Eastern-rite members and is the highest
ecclesiastical court
An ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. In the Middle Ages, these courts had much wider powers in many areas of Europe than be ...
constituted by the
Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome ...
related to judicial trials conducted in the Catholic Church. An appeal may be had to the pope himself, who is the supreme ecclesiastical judge. The
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
has a
complete legal system, which is the oldest in the West still in use. The court is named ''
Rota'' (
wheel
A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle Bearing (mechanical), bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the Simple machine, six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction wi ...
) because the judges, called ''
auditors
An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...
'', originally met in a round room to hear cases.
The Rota was established in the 13th century.
Constitution
The
pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
appoints the auditors of the Rota and designates one of them the
dean
Dean may refer to:
People
* Dean (given name)
* Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin
* Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk
* Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean
Titles
* ...
. On Saturday, September 22, 2012,
Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...
accepted the resignation, for reasons of age, of Bishop
Antoni Stankiewicz
Antoni Stankiewicz JCD (1 October 1935 – 4 January 2021) was a Polish Roman Catholic Bishop and Dean Emeritus of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota.
He was born in Oleszczenice near Wilno, Poland (now Lithuania). He studied for and was ordained t ...
as dean and appointed in his place
Msgr.
Monsignor (; it, monsignore ) is an honorific form of address or title for certain male clergy members, usually members of the Roman Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian ''monsignore'', meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" ca ...
Pio Vito Pinto, who had been serving as a prelate auditor of the
Court of First Instance
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance w ...
. On March 29, 2021, Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto retired
and
Pope Francis
Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...
appointed Msgr.
Alejandro Arellano Cedillo as dean.
The Rota issues its decrees and sentences in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
. 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, though sometimes a larger number of auditors are assigned to a particular case. The auditors of the Rota are selected from among recognized ecclesiastical judges serving various dioceses around the world.
History
![Parione - palazzo Riario o Cancelleria nuova 1628](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Parione_-_palazzo_Riario_o_Cancelleria_nuova_1628.JPG)
The 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
The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...
and the loss of the
Papal States
The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
in 1870, the Rota was a civil tribunal and its judgements had the status of law in the Papal States.
Since at least 1961,
the Rota has been based in the
Palazzo della Cancelleria
The Palazzo della Cancelleria (Palace of the Chancellery, referring to the former Apostolic Chancery of the Pope) is a Renaissance palace in Rome, Italy, situated between the present Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and the Campo de' Fiori, in the rione ...
, along with the other courts of the Holy See: the
Apostolic Penitentiary
The Apostolic Penitentiary (), formerly called the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, is a dicastery of the Roman Curia and is one of the three ordinary tribunals of the Apostolic See. The Apostolic Penitentiary is chiefly a tribu ...
and the
Apostolic Signatura
The Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura () is the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church (apart from the pope himself, who as supreme ecclesiastical judge is the final point of appeal for any ecclesiastical judgment). In additio ...
.
In March 2020, Pope Francis issued a new Vatican law which provides for greater independence of judicial bodies and magistrates dependent on the Pope. It also specifies the requirements for the appointment of judges and it simplifies the judicial system while increasing the staff of the court.
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
Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region of So ...
, is in
Thomas Fastolf
Thomas Fastolf, sometimes spelt Fastolfe (died June 1361), was an English canon lawyer and Bishop of St David's from 1352 until his death.
Probably educated at Cambridge and then overseas, he held the degree of Doctor of Laws and his first care ...
's ''Decisiones rotae'', consisting of reports on thirty-six cases heard at the Court of Audience in Avignon between December 1336 and February 1337. 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
Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region of So ...
, or even from the wheel-like cases in which parchment roll records were kept.
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; 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. Dominating its caseload are petitions seeking the issuance of a
decree of nullity 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
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
what would be termed exclusive
original jurisdiction
In common law legal systems original jurisdiction of a court is the power to hear a case for the first time, as opposed to appellate jurisdiction, when a higher court has the power to review a lower court's decision.
India
In India, the Sup ...
) in certain cases such as any contentious case in which a Bishop of the Latin Church is a defendant. If the case can still be appealed after a Rotal decision, the appeal goes to a different turnus, or panel, of the Rota.
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
The Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura () is the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church (apart from the pope himself, who as supreme ecclesiastical judge is the final point of appeal for any ecclesiastical judgment). In additio ...
, which is the highest administrative court in the Catholic Church. 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''").
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. Only advocates who are registered in a specific list are allowed to represent the parties before the Tribunal.
Since
Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...
issued the ''
motu proprio
In law, ''motu proprio'' (Latin for "on his own impulse") describes an official act taken without a formal request from another party. Some jurisdictions use the term ''sua sponte'' for the same concept.
In Catholic canon law, it refers to a do ...
'' ''Quaerit semper'' the Rota has had exclusive competence to dispense from marriages ''
ratum sed non consummatum
The term ''ratum sed non consummatum'' ( la, ratified but not consummated) or ''ratum et non consummatum'' ( la, ratified and not consummated) refers to a juridical-sacramental category of marriage in Catholic matrimonial canon law. If a matrimoni ...
'' and is also competent to examine cases concerning the nullity of sacred ordination, in accordance with both universal and proper law.
Auditors
The active auditors of the Rota, with their dates of appointment by the pope, are:
*
Alejandro Arellano Cedillo (
Dean
Dean may refer to:
People
* Dean (given name)
* Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin
* Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk
* Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean
Titles
* ...
) (25 April 2007; named Dean 30 March 2021)
*
Maurice Monier (
Pro-Dean) (9 January 1995; named Pro-Dean 12 December 2016)
*
Grzegorz Erlebach (4 November 1997)
*
Jair Ferreira Pena (8 February 1999)
*
Michael Xavier Leo Arokiaraj (25 April 2007)
*
David Maria A. Jaeger (3 June 2011)
*
Vito Angelo Todisco (4 October 2011)
*
Felipe Heredia Esteban
Felipe is the Spanish variant of the name Philip, which derives from the Greek adjective ''Philippos'' "friend of horses". Felipe is also widely used in Portuguese-speaking Brazil alongside Filipe, the form commonly used in Portugal.
Noteworthy ...
(4 October 2011)
*
Davide Salvatori (30 December 2011)
*
Alejandro W. Bunge (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)
Officers
*
Pierangelo Pietracatella, (Chief of Office)
*
Tomasz Kubiczek, (Promoter of Justice)
*
Maria Fratangelo, (Defender of the Bond)
*
Francesco Ibba, (Substitute Defender of the Bond)
*
Alessandro Recchia, (Second Notary)
*
Domenico Teti, (Third Notary)
*
Dr. Daniele Cancilla, (Head of the Chancellory)
References
External links
Tribunal of the Roman RotaPontifical Council for Legislative Texts''Capellani Papae et Apostolicae Sedis auditores causarum Sacri Palatii Apostolici seu Sacra Romana Rota ab origine ad diem usque 20 septembris 1870''
*
{{Authority control
Ecclesiastical courts
Marriage in the Catholic Church
Catholic matrimonial canon law
Sacramental law
Tribunals of the Roman Curia