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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Canonical ActsABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

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Canonical Acts According to the old Roman jurisprudence, acts are the registers

(acta) in which were recorded the official documents, the decisionsand sentences of the judges. Acts designate in law whatever servesto prove or justify a thing. Records, decrees, reports,

certificates, etc. are called acts. Canonical acts derive their name

from connection with ecclesiastical procedure. Acts may be public or

private, civil or ecclesiastical.Public acts are those certified by a public notary or other personholding a public office or position These acts may be judicial, or a

part of court-procedure, or voluntary. In contentious trials tosecure justice, the acts should be judicial; extra judicial acts are

not contentious but voluntary. Both civil and canon law recognize as

public acts those that occur before witnesses, if these acknowledgethem before the court, otherwise they are private. Public actsinclude any action taken by the judge, the authorities he may quote,

the proceedings in the court, documents drawn from the publicarchives. An original document of a community, bishop, or publicofficer, with the official seal, or a copy of these sent by thesepersons with due authentication, is a public act. Public acts aredeterminative against anyone, though at times they may not imposepersonal obligation on those not participating in them. In oldpublic acts, the presumption is in favour of their being rightlydone; to upset their value, the burden of proof is upon him who

attacks them or argues that they were not executed with dueformalities. Ecclesiastically, an exception is made for alienationof Church property, where, for the validity of a deed, a further

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requisite may be exacted, such as a clear proof of the authorisation

of a bishop, or the consent of the chapter. For these presumptiondoes not suffice.Private acts are those of one or more individuals they tell againstthose who executed them, not against absent parties notparticipating in them. While public acts have force from the day of

their date, private acts, whose date is not authenticated, haveforce only from the day of their public registry. Whenauthenticated, fraud alone can upset them. If the authenticatingofficial overstepped his competency, the act would only be a private

act, but yet of private value, unless the law requires for itsvalidity the authentication of an official. Thus, a deedtransferring real estate, even signed by the parties, becomes validfor public purposes when authenticated by the official designated by

law, though the private agreement may be a basis for redress.It is not easy to draw precise limits between civil and

ecclesiastical acts. While civil acts are mainly of the laity, aboutsecular things, and ecclesiastical acts mainly of ecclesiastics, inconnection with spiritual things, yet both easily overlap eachother. Acts are civil or ecclesiastical by their relations with theState or the Church, by their emanation from either, by touchingupon matters belonging to either, or by affecting the dealings ofpersons with either. The same individuals are subject to bothauthorities. Thus ecclesiastics do not cease to be citizens, and all

Christian citizens are subject to the authority of the Church aswell as of the State. Many things, even linked with spiritualaffairs, do not lose their natural character of temporalities. Many

acts passing between ecclesiastics are purely civil. Anecclesiastic, though a minister of the Church, is also a citizen;his actions as a citizen are purely civil; those emanating from himas a clergyman are ecclesiastical. If the acts are such as could beproperly performed by a layman, they would belong to the civilorder; if their performance required the clerical state, they areecclesiastical. Yet a layman's spiritual duties and exercises areecclesiastical, coming under the authority of the Church; anecclesiastic's money matters come under the authority of the Stateas far as those of other citizens. This is the basis of thedistinction between the civil and ecclesiastical forum. The Churchby divine right has inalienable control of strictly spiritualthings; the State of strictly temporal things. By the goodwill ofpeoples and governments the Church obtained many privileges for itsforum, respecting the temporalities of ecclesiastics, and even ofthe laity in matters connected with spiritual things. In othermatters assigned to her by Divine Law she cannot yield herauthority, though for peace sake she may tolerate aggressions uponit. She may yield (and in concordats and in other ways does yield)those privileges which had for centuries become part of her forum.Acts also designate certain general formalities for the validity ofdocuments, often essential requisites, such as the date, thesignature, the qualifications of persons, the accurate names ofwitnesses, and other similar conditions which may be demanded bycivil or ecclesiastical laws or by the custom of a country.

Acts of a council are the definitions of faith, decrees, canons, and

official declarations of the council, whose sphere of action is more

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or less extended according as it is oecumenical, national,provincial, etc.Acts of the Martyrs are the documents, narrations, and testimoniesof the arrest, interrogatories, answers, torments, and heroic deaths

of the Christians who sealed their faith by the shedding of their

blood in the times of persecution. The documents of the Congregation

of Rites connected with the beatification and canonisation of saints

are designated as Acts of the Saints. This is also the title givenby the Bollandists to their monumental account of the lives of thesaints (Acta Sanctorum). Acts-Capitular are the official discussions

of the assembled members of the chapter, the name given to thecanons of the cathedral who form a corporation established to aidthe bishop in the government of the diocese, and to supply his place

when the see is vacant.WAGNER, Dictionnaire de droit eccles., v. Actes (Paris, 1901);SANTI, Pray. iur. can., II, Lib. XXII, De Fide Instrum. (New York);SMITHY Eccles. Law, II, v, Judicial Proofs; D AVINO, Enciclopediadell Ecclesiastico (Turin, 1878) v. Atti; CROW ON, Man. tot. iur.can., IV, iii, art. 3, De Instrum. (Poitiers, 1880) PIHRING, Sac.Can. Doctrines II, Lib. XXII, De Fide Instrum (Rome, Propaganda,1859).R.L. BURTSELLThe Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I

Copyright 1907 by Robert Appleton Company Online Edition Copyright 1999 by Kevin Knight Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

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