A pontifical university is a Catholic University established by and directly under the authority of the Holy See. It is licensed to grant academic degrees in sacred faculties, the most important of which are Sacred Theology, Canon Law, Sacred Scripture and Philosophy. Pontifical universities follow a European system of degrees in the sacred faculties, granting the baccalaureate, the licentiate, and the doctorate.
Independent institutions or individual faculties at non-pontifical universities may also be given charters by the Holy See to grant ecclesiastical degrees, usually in one or two specific fields. These are referred to as a "pontifical faculty" or "pontifical institute" to distinguish it from an entire "pontifical university."
These ecclesiastical degrees are prerequisites to certain offices in the Roman Catholic Church, especially considering that bishop candidates are selected mainly from priests who are doctors of sacred theology (S.T.D.) or canon law (J.C.D.) and that ecclesiastical judges and attorneys must at least be licentiates of canon law (J.C.L.)
No comments:
Post a Comment