Eligibility certificate

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An eligibility certificate , also known as "brevia eligibilitatis", "breve d'eligibilità" or "eligibility certificate", is a special papal document that was used in the imperial church of the Holy Roman Empire from the late 16th century to 1803. It made it possible for a bishop applicant who did not meet the canonical requirements for election and therefore required a majority of more than two-thirds instead of the usual simple majority to get into office with a simple majority in the case of a bishopric . In terms of church law , an eligibility certificate corresponds to a papal indult or dispensary certificate .

Usually a candidate was elected in a bishop's election as well as in an abbot election in the imperial church who could unite the simple majority of the voters. The so-called postulation should remain an exception , in which an applicant required a qualified majority of more than two thirds of all votes. A postulation was necessary for those bishop applicants who lacked the canonical requirements for acquiring a diocese.

Canonical requirements for an episcopal election included: no diocesan membership, minimum age of 30 years of age, conjugal birth, subdiaconate ordination at least six months before the election of a bishop and completion of scientific studies with a doctorate, master's degree or at least licentiate .

The oldest or first eligibility certificate is the certificate for Duke Ernst of Bavaria (1554-1612) on the occasion of his election as Prince-Bishop in Liège on January 30, 1581. The last eligibility certificate issued by a Pope for the German Imperial Church was on the occasion of the last two bishops' elections presented to the old imperial church. It was issued on August 16, 1801 for Archduke Anton Viktor of Austria .

With the instrument of eligibility proofs, the popes resolved the contradiction between the needs of the Catholic royal courts, which for dynastic interests strived to own dioceses even if the intended family member did not meet the canonical requirements, and canon law in individual cases and bound them Bishop candidates closer to Rome. The Holy See thus set aside Tridentine ideals and reform goals out of pragmatism .

An example of eligibility proofs is the rise of Friedrich Karl von Schönborn-Buchheim . He received an eligibility certificate in 1722 because he had been coadjutor with the right to succeed the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg since 1710 . In 1724 he failed, initially for reasons of church politics, in the election of the successor to his brother Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn, who had suddenly died, as Prince-Bishop of Würzburg . In 1729 he became Prince-Bishop of Würzburg. In December 1728, the Pope gave him an eligibility certificate for all German dioceses to overcome the obstacle to the accumulation of dioceses. In 1729 he succeeded his uncle Lothar Franz von Schönborn, who had since died, as Prince-Bishop of Bamberg and was thus able to keep both dioceses in family hands. In 1732, despite the lack of eligibility for political reasons, he failed in the election to Archbishop of Mainz , an office that his uncle Lothar Franz and - before him - Johann Philipp von Schönborn already held.

literature

  • Michael F. Feldkamp , eligibility proof for the bishopric candidates in the Germania Sacra. Comments on a research desideratum . In: Gisela Fleckenstein, Michael Klöcker , Norbert Schloßmacher (Hrsg.): Church history. Old and new ways . Festschrift for Christoph Weber . Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-631-57712-7 , pp. 91-103.
  • Michael F. Feldkamp : Papal Influence on the Bishops' Elections in the Reichskirche - Notes on the electoral proofs from 1581 to 1801 , in: Ders .: Reichskirche and political Catholicism. Essays on church history and church legal history of modern times (= Propylaea of ​​the Christian Occident, Volume 3), Patrimonium-Verlag, Aachen 2019, pp. 39–50 ISBN 978-3-86417-120-8 .