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Benedetta Albani
The Research Group investigates the challenging topic of the global governance of the Catholic Church between the Early Modern Period and the Contemporary Era. We enjoy a privileged vantage point in our research, as we focus on a unique institution: the Congregation of the Council, which we affectionately call “the SCC”. Founded immediately after the conclusion of the Council of Trent with the task of authentically interpreting the Council's disciplinary canons and encouraging the implementation of the Council's dictates, this permanent congregation of cardinals was in charge of articulating the administration of justice via the practice of canon law across the world and thus played a central role both within the Roman Curia and in the relations between the Apostolic See and local authorities. Throughout the four centuries of its activity it has also been an inspiring model for different institutions and a fundamental vector in the relations between Rome and the particular Churches, and between global issues and local needs and practices.
On this page you will find some introductory information on the history of the Congregation of the Council, considering also its connections with the history of the Papacy and the Roman Curia as well as Global Legal History. You will also learn about the competences and modus procedendi of the dicastery, the individual and collective actors involved in its activity, the personnel it employed and the places where its jurisdiction was exercised.
If you wish to expand your knowledge of the Congregation of the Council, please consult our SCC References Explorer, an online interactive bibliographic database on the history of the Congregation of the Council, its legal competencies and the existing historiography on this dicastery. The online database consists of more than 2,300 specialised works of legal doctrine and academic literature published between the 16th century and today and is continuously updated. To find out about the scientific production of the research group on the Congregation of the Council you can visit thispage.
For more information on the conceptualisation of the project, our research methodology, and their practical implementation in different areas of Digital Humanities and an overview of our datasets, please refer to the Our Research page . For further details on the technical development of the SCC Explorer Platform see the Documentation page.
In the first half of the 16th century we witnessed a major change in the structure of the Roman Curia, which shaped the characteristics that we still recognise in it today. The previous century was marked by very delicate events for papal power: the Western Schism, the return of Pope Martin V to Rome in 1420 (after no less than 135 years in which the popes had resided elsewhere), and the consequent attempts to consolidate papal power through diplomacy, the restructuring of the government of the Papal States and some broader reform intentions, for example during the pontificate of Pius II (1458-1464). The beginning of the 16th century had also seen the development of numerous reform movements that, in many cases, challenged papal power, and which historiography succinctly describes as the Reformation. In the Catholic sphere, the celebration of the Council of Trent is of great importance and is the expression of these aspirations for reform.
To this we must also add other elements that greatly influenced the worldview of the time: namely the voyages of exploration promoted by the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies in Africa, Asia, and America, which led, from the European point of view, to the need to integrate these 'new worlds' into a known framework. The creation of settlements in territories far from Europe gave impetus to the evolution of communications, economics, transport, technology and scientific knowledge. The relationship - often dramatic - with the local populations, whose existence had in some cases not even been hypothesised by European minds, posed fundamental challenges on a philosophical, political and religious level.
This climate of general and accelerated change also produced effects in Rome. Completely new and unexpected information arrived, challenging and questioning a system of values and beliefs that had existed for thousands of years. Descriptions and images arrived in Rome of plants, animals, objects that had never been seen before; of people whose existence had never been imagined. New behaviours and customs were observed - and new forms of guidance and answers were needed to understand them. With great speed, new settlements were founded - and they had to be somehow included in the hierarchical system that bound ecclesiastical institutions to the Apostolic See: dioceses and ecclesiastical provinces were therefore erected, boundaries were defined, bishops and other authorities were appointed to govern these 'new' territories. Cathedrals, churches, hospitals, and colleges were erected to allow the practice of worship and to guarantee to the inhabitants, of European and local origin, all those functions and 'services' that characterised community life in the early modern age and that were carried out in various ways by religious orders or institutions: the administration of the sacraments, the care of the sick, the assistance to particular social groups such as the poor, orphans, widows, and school education.
The Apostolic See was therefore constantly urged to give authoritative answers to serious and pressing problems, to provide instruments of governance and administration that were functional also to the new realities, to imagine and suggest adequate and legitimate ways to reassure souls and preserve orthodoxy even in a new context. From an administrative point of view, there was a need to process, record, and organise an ever-increasing amount of information, as well as to discuss and resolve an ever-increasing amount of cases, pleas and trials. These new needs caused several changes in the structure of the Curia and its way of making decisions and transmitting them to the outside world. We see this in several areas, like the creation of new administrative structures, the selection of the curial personnel, and the crafting of a system of recording and organising documents in the archives of the various curial bodies.
The pontiff began to increasingly feel the need to entrust small groups of cardinals with the study of certain issues or particular cases and to ask them for what today we would call 'advice' on the matter, so that he could then make an informed and circumstantiated decision on the case in question. These groups of cardinals, to whom the pontiff assigned specific consultative assignments, were called 'congregations'. The word initially indicated an assembly, a meeting, but by extension, as was already the custom in the law of the ancient Italian states, it also indicated an assembly of several persons with a unitary function. Originally, these congregations were established by the pope on a case-by-case basis. He chose their members and reserved for himself the authority to decide on the issues they dealt with. Around the middle of the 16th century, however, some of these congregations took on a permanent character. Historiography has called these bodies 'permanent cardinal congregations'. For almost five centuries, these bodies accompanied the pontiff in the government of the Church and, on a more local level, were a central element in the evolution of the Roman Curia as an organic set of governing bodies.
The congregations do not have an identical or constant structure. What they have in common is not so much their organisational chart, but the new way with which they enabled decision making within the Curia. Historiography, often focusing only on this or that congregation, has spoken of systematisation and bureaucratisation of government and centralisation of papal power. Although this is partly true in the long run, we cannot, however, think of a linear evolution aimed at these ends. On the contrary, what we observe is a continuous cross-reference between forms of government prior to the advent of the congregations, and new forms, inspired and influenced also by new technologies and modern knowledge. It is a system of governance in which personal relationships and influences are still central, where membership of social, political, and professional groups has a strong weight that is also legally recognised (e.g. the nationes, families and political alliances, professional colleges, etc.), a system in which there is a wide margin of discretion in decisions. Discretion, however, is not to be considered as a flaw in the system, but rather as an element that guarantees, according to the logic of the time and of canon law, its functionality and offers those who turn to the Curia access to justice.
In the system of governance by congregations we recognise certain recurring offices. Firstly, the prefect whose task was to convene the meetings of his congregation, ensure the legitimacy of decision-making procedures and the authenticity of the documents issued. In most cases the prefect was a cardinal appointed by the pope for this role. In some dicasteries, however, such as the Congregation of the Holy Office, the Consistorial Congregation, the Congregation for the Visitation, and the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, this role was held by the pontiff himself. Finally, in some congregations the office of the prefect coincided with other curial duties. The prefect was assisted by a secretary, sometimes a cardinal but more often a prelate, who was entrusted with organising the work of the congregation, elaborating the preparatory documents of the congregations, drafting acts, decrees and any official documents of the dicastery, maintaining relations with the parties and other institutions, inside and outside the Curia, through letters and other communications, and, in many cases, informing the pontiff of the various matters delegated to the congregation. The members of the congregations always included some cardinals, but also prelates and, on some occasions, consultors (prelates, religious men, theologians, as needed). The decision-making procedures varied over time and depended on the congregation; above all, they depended on the type of power delegated by the pontiff to the congregation (consultative only, decision-making, etc.) and the functions consequently attributed to its various members (consultative vote or 'binding' vote). In several cases, moreover, especially from the 18th century onwards, other minor figures contributed to the functioning of the congregations: minutanti, archivists etc. Parties wishing to address a congregation usually did so in written form and often through lawyers and attorneys. Congregations met with varying frequency and in varying ways, related both to the specific attributions of the dicastery and to the custom of the time. Alongside the permanent cardinal congregations, there always remained the custom of convening ad hoc congregations for the resolution of specific issues. The congregations did not follow the same modus procedendi. In fact, many dicasteries performed their activities without defined procedures until the 19th century. Common to all congregations, however, was that the procedures were free of charge for those who consulted them. Throughout the modern era, and even afterwards, these bodies were subject to numerous reforms that affected both the scope of their competences and that of their personnel, functioning, registration of acts, etc. Some congregations got into the habit of publishing their decisions or, in other cases, collections of decisions were formed by private individuals. This undoubtedly contributed to the circulation of Roman jurisprudence.
As the conclusion of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) approached, discussions and controversies concerning the authority of the pontiff over the confirmation and interpretation of the Council's decrees became more pressing. These contrasts were part of the broader conflict between secular powers, bishops and the papacy over the control and implementation of the reform promoted in Trent, which all three of these authorities claimed. The Roman response to these issues took the form of the establishment of a body, known as the Congregation of the Council, which was responsible for the correct and authentic interpretation of the Council's decrees for the entire Catholic world and whose work, during its more than four hundred years of activity, had a great influence on Church discipline, the administration of ecclesiastical justice and the evolution of canon law. In the concluding phase of the Council, the papacy made various efforts to bind the Council's validity to papal confirmation, but it was only through the intervention of the papal legate in Trent, Cardinal Morone, that it was possible to conclude the assembly and create a consensus around the final decrees that sanctioned the legitimacy of papal intervention in the event of difficulties in receiving the Council's dictates and the need of papal approval. The return of the papal legates to Rome before Christmas 1563 thus opened a decisive phase for the Council's fortune in the centuries to come and an extremely delicate phase as regards the internal balance within the Curia. Informed by various audiences of what had taken place in Trent, Pius IV already expressed his intention to approve the decrees in the consistories of 12 and 30 December and, at the same time, instituted a commission of cardinals to examine the text of the Council, prepare its confirmation and provide whatever was necessary for its implementation. Having received the commission's positive opinion that no changes to the conciliar decrees were necessary, in the consistory of 26 January 1564 Pius IV orally approved the council and ordered the preparation of a bull of confirmation, despite the strong opposition of the Curia, which saw some of the decrees as a strong threat to its privileges. The pope's decision provoked heated discussions concerning, in particular, whether to include in the bull of confirmation a clear reference to the pontiff's exclusive power of interpretation over the conciliary decrees, a position strongly opposed by several authorities, first and foremost the Spanish monarchy. On 30 June, but with the date of oral approval, the apostolic constitution Benedictus Deus was finally issued, declaring that the conciliarydecrees were confirmed and promulgated in their entirety, and that their interpretation was reserved to the pontiff.
The reserving of the interpretation of the Council of Trent to the pontiff created a hitherto unprecedented link between papal authority and the power to authentically interpret a part of canonical legislation, a link that meant an important break with the previous era and had a profound influence on the process of the formation of law and ecclesiastical discipline for the entire period during which the Council of Trent remained in force. The pontiff gave force to this decision very soon. With the Motu proprio Alias Nos of 2 August 1564, the commission of cardinals appointed by Pius IV to examine the text of the Council, prepare its confirmation and provide for its implementation was transformed into a stable dicastery. The members of the new dicastery were the same cardinals who were already members of the precedent commission. Historiography recognises in this document the formal act of foundation of the congregation of cardinals that would later be known as the Congregation of the Council. Yet there is no doubt that the creation of this dicastery was part of a design of Church reform that had much older roots and also involved the structure and functioning of the Roman Curia.
It is not possible here to describe in detail the complex development of the dicastery over the centuries, but it is important to recall at least briefly the evolution of its activity in the field of interpretation and to make a brief mention of its other numerous competences. At first, the congregation had an exclusively consultative and executive function, as can also be seen from its original name: Sacra Congregatio super executione et observantia Sacri Concilii Tridentini. However, it soon consolidated the practice, later confirmed by the popes, of an interpretative activity of its own, autonomous or in collaboration with the pontiff, as is also shown by the evolution of the name of the dicastery into Sacra Congregatio cardinalium Concilii Tridentini interpretum. In 1588, in the context of the Sistine reform of the Roman Curia, the congregation was confirmed with the name Congregatio pro executione et interpretatione Concilii Tridentini and it was clearly recognised as having the authority to interpret the disciplinary decrees of the Council, while doctrinal matters remained within the pontifical competence. This competence remained entrusted to the congregation for more than 300 years, until the reform of the curia ordered by Pius X in 1908, which significantly limited its interpretative power. From the power to authentically interpret conciliary decrees, the congregation also derived judicial and gracious power in matters related to the Council of Trent. Over time, various other tasks and competences were entrusted to the Congregation of the Council. The best known and most studied ones concern: the recognitio of provincial councils and diocesan synods, the reception and examination of the relationes dioecesium sent to Rome by ordinaries on the occasion of the ad Liminavisits, the supervision of the correct fulfilment of ad Limina visits, and the supervision of the obligation of residence. New competences were added in the 18th century, in particular those regarding matrimonial nullity (shared with the Roman Rota) and nullity of religious profession (shared with the Congregations for Bishops and Regulars). In more recent times, the congregation was also given competences in the field of catechetical activity and the administrative management of ecclesiastical property.
Since its foundation, the institutional history of the dicastery has been intertwined with the development of the other dicasteries of the Curia, in particular with the other permanent cardinal congregations. Over time, in fact, there have been various modifications - extensions or limitations - of the competences attributed to the dicastery, which sometimes generate overlaps with other bodies. For an in-depth look at this aspect, you can visit the SCC Timeline Explorer in which the history of the SCC is presented in parallel with the history of the Papacy and the Roman Curia, and with Global Legal History.
Composed initially of just eight cardinals, the organisational chart of the congregation became more complex over time due to the expansion of its competences and the increase in the volume of cases entrusted to it. By the middle of the 19th century, the congregation had more than 40 cardinal members to which were added the secretary, some consultors, and several officials.
When we started studying the Congregation of the Council, the organisational chart of the dicastery was still largely unknown. Now, thanks to the systematic research carried out by the Research Group, we are able to offer a more complete picture of the functioning of the Congregation and the personnel active in it between the 16th and 20th centuries. A section of our SCC Timeline Explorer is in fact dedicated to the prefects and secretaries of the Congregation and the cardinals who were members of it.
The archives of the Congregation of the Council, preserved today in the Vatican Apostolic Archive, is clear evidence of the richness and variety of the dicastery's activity over the centuries. Consisting of 19 series and 39 archival subseries, it measures more than one and a half kilometres of shelving. Despite the undoubted interest of the dicastery's activity for research by historians and jurists, as well as specialists from other disciplines, the Congregation of the Council has not been studied as much as other Roman congregations have been until now. One of the reasons for the lack of studies can be found in the events that have affected the archives of the dicastery, in the complex articulation of the sections and series that compose it, and in some peculiarities in the criteria for sorting the documents. We will dwell briefly on this last point. Some archival series are now organised according to a geographical criterion that allows scholars only apparently easy access to the documents they are interested in. Other series are organised according to a chronological criterion. Still others, such as the Positiones, are characterised by the coexistence and overlapping of different sorting criteria that can make research very complex for scholars. This work is dedicated to the oldest core of the archives of the Congregation of the Council and in particular to the first 271 volumes of the Positiones series that the congregation organised according to a particular archival criterion, namely the juridical, textual and thematic structure of the Council of Trent. This summary inventory is therefore intended to offer scholars a new and agile consultation tool to help them find their way more easily through the rich and complex world of the positiones of the Congregation of the Council.
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