Rome's official statements: how and what? Towards a typology of documents

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan, 1994 by Heiner Grote

The desired overall picture

What official statements does Rome make, and how? The tendency hitherto has always been to try to clarify the particular case in question -- prudently avoiding a comprehensive answer. Where discussion ensues, it quickly becomes apparent that there is more than one unspoken assumption behind the question. The predominant use of Latin in papal and curial statements seems to suggest that this has long -- perhaps indeed always -- been so and that church history has created a fixed procedure for the way in which Roman Catholic official pronouncements are made. It is widely assumed that a scale of importance exists and that it is possible to draw up a simple diagram of the different types and forms of official statements on the basis of archive headings and indexes.

There are certainly statements which are of outstanding importance and others of a lower status. Any attempt to draw up a hierarchia documentorum, however, along the lines of the hierarchia personarum or the hierarchia veritatum is bound to fail.(1) The range of instruments available for making pronouncements, which has of course developed out of long and solid experience, is adapted to the given circumstances and used as seems appropriate to achieve the best possible results. But no expert would deny that even the best of intentions can go wrong; that there are many coincidences and even deliberate inflexibilities; that the curia's traditional mode of expression often first has to be decoded; and that the documents scarcely ever appear in current parlance.

The stated and the unstated

The general term "statement" covers "pronouncements" and "decrees" or "proclamations" and refers therefore to everything in verbal or written form which is intended to teach or instruct or lay down rules of conduct. Why does the Roman Catholic Church make official statements at all? In its own self-understanding it does so for the building-up of the church and the salvation of the world (ecclesiae aedificatio mundique salus).(2)

All established institutions, however, also have mechanisms for conveying things which are not stated directly or openly. Whereas statements clearly can be categorized, not so the latter. Yet in the social context we all know how effectively influence can be exerted by intervening to prevent things or letting them happen, by saying nothing or turning a deaf ear, showing interest or lack of interest, by gestures, facial expressions and signals. What is stated never in itself conveys the whole picture. At least two other aspects have to be borne in mind. Where there are few means available to draw attention to official statements, ways and means of conveying what is left unstated may be absolutely essential in order to transmit or emphasize the printed word. And -- intentionally or unintentionally -- an official pronouncement may have other aims besides those openly avowed.

In what follows the specialist would perhaps want to see certain fine distinctions developed more fully, and would wish to complete some aspects from his or her own knowledge, notably from the historical point of view, and in general find the subject treated in greater depth. That would already be taking us into a typology of documents in the full sense. The present article is simply an outline which has to be both brief and accessible to a wide audience.

The past

Until the nineteenth century all Roman pronouncements were classed as "bulls and constitutions, decretals and briefs". Of these, the first two were prepared on the finest material, often in long scrolls in upright form, in large script, with a solemn salutation or title, preferably bearing the signature of the pope and almost always with certain well-chosen words of introduction. These initial words were written in large lettering and might be taken from the Bible or might already indicate the subject to be treated. These arenga, to give them their specialized name, were intended to provoke thought and aid memory. Briefs and decretals are in the main documents of lesser importance and were generally simpler in presentation and if at all possible contained on one broad-sheet. Admittedly they were often only for the eyes of a few, whereas bulls and constitutions were generally well-publicized. Not infrequently, however, the less well-publicized is the more important and the more effective.

All the elements of content and outward presentation briefly indicated here are also used in different combinations with modern printing techniques, though it is only since the nineteenth century that one and the same arenga may designate two or more documents.

The most recent document to appear under the heading "Bulla Dogmatica" is the constitutio apostolica with the arenga Munificentissmus Deus, which in 1950 served to proclaim the assumption of Mary into heaven. The superlative in the arenga is deliberate. This is a document which establishes dogma prepared with supreme care, solemnly presented and promulgated, signed not only by Pope Pius XII but also by his cardinals and reputedly endorsed by almost all the Roman Catholic bishops of the time. It represents the highest form of a constitutio, that is, it is solemnly both established and promulgated.