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 AUXERRE

145

AUXILIARY

Auxentius was an Arian; his patronage of the heretic Aetius (Philostorgius, Hist. Eccl., V, 1,2), points to this conclusion.

Venables in Diet, of Christ. Biogr., I, 233.

Thom.^s J. Shahan.

Auxerre, Councils of. — In 5S5 (or 57S) a Coun- cil of Auxerre held under St. Annacharius formu- lated forty-five canons, closely related in context to canons of the contemporary Councils of Lyons and Macon. They are important as illustrating life and manners among the newly-converted Teutonic tribes and the Gallo-Romans of the time. Many of the decrees are directed against remnants of heathen barbarism and superstitious customs; others bear witness to the persistence in the early Middle Ages in France of certain ancient Christian customs. The canons of the council of 695 or 697 are concerned chiefly with the Di\'ine Office and ecclesiastical ceremonies.

Mansi, Coll. Cone, IX, 911; XII, 107; XIV, 786; Hefele, Conciliengesch., II, 72; Zaccaria, Dissert, star, pccles. (1795), XVII, 95-105: Chevalier, Topo-bibl. (Paris, 1894-99), 275.

Thomas J. Shah.\n.

Auxerre, Diocese .uro School of. See Sens.

Auxiliary Bishop, a bishop deputed to a diocesan who, capable of governing and administering his diocese, is unable to perform the pontifical functions; or whose diocese is so extensive that it requires the labours of more than one; or whose episcopal see has attached to it a royal or imperial office requir- ing protracted presence at court. According to the C resent ecclesiastical discipline no bishop can e consecrated without title to a certain and dis- tinct diocese which he governs either actually or potentially. Actual government requires residence, potential does not. Hence, there are two principal classes of bishops, the residential, or diocesan or, local, or ordinary; and the non-residential, or titular. Diocesan bishops have and exercise (de jure) full power of order and jurisdiction, in and over the diocese committed to their exclusive care by the pope. Titulars, as such, have not, and do not exer- cise, power of order and jurisdiction, in and over their titular sees. All actual jurisdiction in titular sees the pope reserves to himself, and exercises through the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda. The juris- diction of a diocesan is ordinary. Should a titular perform a jurisdictional function, he uses delegated jurisdiction.

Titular bishops are those who have been appointed by the Holy See to a see or diocese which, in former times, had been canonically established and pos- sessed cathedral church, clergy, and laity, but at present, on account of pagan occupation and govern- ment, has neither clergy nor people. It is essential that the titular diocese did once exist, and did cease to exist through death or defection of clergy and faithful, or pagan settlement and government. No vestige of titulars, as defined, appears until the close of the thirteenth century. Evidently the host of wandering bishops without title or see — missionary, regionary, or exiled bishops — of whom historians make mention, cannot be classed with our titulars, who did not come into existence until the greater part of the East had passed under pagan rule, and the destruction or defection of the Christian flock and the death of their shepherds ensued. The episcopal succession in those dioceses was main- tained as long as a hope remained of their rehabilita- tion, and their bishops were hospitably received, and frequently used by the diocesans as auxiliaries or vicars, in pontificals in their respective dioceses. Ecclesiastical authority placed some of them in temporary charge of vacant Western dioceses, on condition of their immediate return to their own sees when possible. Others were given the spiritual care of dioceses by civil princes who, avaricious of 11.— 10

the episcopal revenues, prevented the appointment of a diocesan bishop. In the fourteenth century, the great number of bishops without occupation, and their invasion of the rights and privileges of the diocesans brought about necessary legislation. Clement V (I, iii de elect. V, Clem.) prohibited the election and consecration of any cleric, without papal license, to any of those vacant sees {sine clero populoque).

The first mention of titular bishops occurs in the Lateran decree (sess. 9 de Cardinalibus), wherein Leo X permits the creation of titulars whom the cardinal-bishops may use as suffragans, or auxil- iaries, in their respective dioceses. Afterwards, the privilege was extended ior various reasons, principal among which were (a) to preserve from oblivion the memory of those once venerable and important, but now desolate, sees; (b) that the pope might have at hand efficient and capable assit-tants (without care of dioceses) in the discharge of the numerous and important ecclesiastical duties of the Apostolic ministry in and outside of the Roman Curia; (c) that suffragans might be given to bishops impeded by reason of infirmity, partial or entire, or of the great extent of their dioceses, or legitimate and protracted absence from performing their epis- copal duties. Pius V, after the Council of Trent, decreed that suffragans were not to be given unless to cardinals, and to those bishops to whom it was customary to grant them, and who guaranteed a fi.xed salary to support the dignity of the auxiliary. He also decreed that such auxiliary should not, without papal permission, exercise the pontifical functions in any other diocese, save in that of the diocesan to whom he had been given. Gradually it was extended to other bishops who had solid rea- sons for assistance. The appointment of all titulars belongs exclusively to the Holy See (Clement, ut supra). Present usage requires an auxiliary, suffra- gan, and temporary coadjutor (used indiscriminately to mean almost the same office) to be also a titular bishop, yet the former antedate the latter by many centuries. They come down to us from Apostolic times; thus Linus and Cletus were vicars, or auxil- iaries, to St. Peter at Rome; Ammianus, to St. Mark of Alexandria; Alexander, to Narcissus (aged 116 years) of Jerusalem; St. Gregory, the theologian, auxiliary in pontificals to St. Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzus; St. Augu.stine, coadjutor of Valerius of Hippo; so likewise those of the rural bishops (chorepiscopi), who had received episcopal conse- cration (there were many in the Orient from the thin! to the seventh, and, in the West, from the eighth to the tenth, centuries), and many exiled bishops, then in the West were auxiliaries to diocesan bishops even up to the Clementine law.

Though the terms auxiliary, suffragan, and coad- jutor are ust'd indiscriminately, yet there is a differ- ence. -Auxiliary bishop is as defined at the beginning of this article. Suffragan bishop is the name given to the auxiliaries of the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and \'el- letri and the Cardinal- Bishop of Sabina. Coadjutors are given to diocesans impeded from performance of their episcopal duties by old age, or bodily infirmity, or sickness, protracted and incurable, such as los.s of speech, blindness, paralysis, and insanity. A coad- jutor to an insane bishop has full jurisdiction and can exercise all episcopal duties, with the sole ex- ception of disposing of ecclesiastical properties. There are coadjutors in temporals, or in spirituals, or in both temporals and spirituals. The first kind need not be a bishop; a cleric suffices. Coadjutors are also temporary and perpetual; the first has no succession, the latter has, and is called coadjutor with right of succession. Coadjutors with right of succession rarely are granted, and only when urgent necessity and an evident utility are superadded to