Pope receives participants in Signatura Plenary

Pope Benedict XVI received the officials and staff of the Apostolic Signatura – the Supreme Court of the Catholic Church on Friday. Next to the Pope himself, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura is the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church, and is responsible for overseeing the administration of justice in whole Church.

The Signatura has final ordinary appellate jurisdiction in cases that involve conflicts between two or more Dicasteries, as well as appeals of administrative decisions. With the oversight responsibility comes the power to extend the jurisdiction of local tribunals and to create inter-diocesan tribunals, as well as to grant dispensations from procedural laws, and discipline canon lawyers.

The Signatura is currently holding its Plenary Assembly, a new development that stems from a reform of the tribunal’s statutes, which Pope Benedict XVI signed in 2008.

During the course of the audience this Friday in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican, the current Prefect of the Signatura, the American Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke – the first non-European Prefect in the history of the Signatura – greeted the Holy Father in the name of all the participants in the Plenary.

In his remarks to the Signatura, the Holy Father spoke of the administration of justice as difficult, often delicate and demanding work that requires particular intellectual and spiritual discipline that is an integral part of the Church’s mission in the world.

“The Pilgrim People of God on Earth,” said Pope Benedict, “will not ever be able to realize its identity as a community of love, if it does not have regard within itself for the exigencies of justice.”

Listen to Chris Altieri's report: