The Apostolic Datary (Latin: Dataria Apostolica) was one of the five Ufficii di Curia ("Offices of the Curia") in the
Roman Catholic Church. It was instituted no later than the 14th AD. Pope Paul VI
abolished it in 1967.
Origin
According to the De officio et jurisdictione datarii necnon de stylo Datariae of Amydenus and other authorities, the Dataria Apostolica was of very ancient origin, but the previous transaction by other offices of the business that was gradually assigned to it contradicts these authorities. The Dataria was principally entrusted with concession of
Apostolic Penitentiaria. Regarding the authority of collation of reserved benefices, it could not have been granted in ancient times because the institution of those reservations is comparatively recent: although some vestige of the reservations is found prior to the twelfth century, the custom was not frequent before Pope Innocent II, and the reservation of benefices was instituted as a general rule (De pract. et dignit., 3, 4, c. 2 (6°)) only from the pontificate of Pope Clement IV
. While the office certainly existed in the fourteenth century, and as an independent one, the date of its institution is unknown.
Constitution
The Dataria consisted of a
Supreme Pontiff. It is certain that, on account of these faculties, the Datary enjoyed great prestige during the flourishing of the office, when he was denominated the "Oculus Papae" ("Eye of the Pope"). After the Cardinal Datary came the "Subdatary" ("Subdatarius"), a prelate of the Roman Curia who assisted the Datary and assumed almost all of the faculties of the Datary as his substitute on occasion. After the Subdatary came a number of subordinate officials who, as De Luca stated, had enigmatical and sibyllic
titles, e. g. the "Prefect of the Per Obitum", "Prefect of the Concessum", "Cashier of the Componenda", and "Officer of the Missis".
Reform
Apostolic Dispatchers, for which there was no rationale in the re-organization of the Roman Curia: formerly these officials were necessary because private persons could not refer directly to the Dataria, which dealt only with persons of whom it approved, but later any person could deal directly with it and any other departments of the Roman Curia
.
To the Dataria, which was commissioned to grant many Papal
Apostolic See
; to write and dispatch the Apostolic Letters for the collation of those benefices; to dispense from the conditions of those benefices; and to provide for the pensions or for the execution of the charges imposed by the Pope in the collation of those benefices.
The procedures of the Dataria were complex and primarily regulated by customs, which the officials of the Dataria zealously guarded, being generally
Apostolic See as it was personally profitable to them. Thus it happened that its offices often descended from father to son, while the ecclesiastical superiors of such officials were to a great extent blindly dependent upon them. Pope Leo XIII initiated the reform of this condition of things before Pope Pius X
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Roman Curia". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Roman Curia". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.