Appointments: Boston priest new CDF Promoter of Justice
(Vatican Radio) On Saturday Pope Benedict XVI appointed Boston native Rev. Robert
W. Oliver, B.H., Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
(CDF).
He takes over from Mons. Charles J. Scicluna, who was recently appointed
Auxiliary bishop of Malta.
Rev. Oliver (centre in photo) is a Professor of
Canon Law & Systematic Theology at St. John’s Seminary in the Archdiocese of Boston
and formerly Promoter of Justice at the Boston Archdiocese Tribunal.
The
Promoter of Justice is in short the CDF’s Chief Prosecutor. According to Canon 1430
of Canon Law, “A promoter of justice is to be appointed . . . for contentious cases
which can endanger the public good and for penal cases; the promoter of justice is
bound by office to provide for the public good."