As Cardinal Blase Cupich defends the award as a kind of “dialogue,” with Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki leading an episcopal pushback, the debate has quietly included a curious canonical dispute between the bishops: Just who is the proper ecclesiastical authority over Sen. Durbin?
That question boils down to the canonical concept of domicile. What’s that? The Pillar explains.
What is a “domicile” in canon law?
Canonically, the concept of domicile refers to the legally recognized place of residence for a particular person, and the legal relationships and obligations which flow from that.
Most especially, a person’s domicile usually establishes a relationship to a territorial parish, thus giving them a proper pastor, and a relationship to the diocese, thus making domicile (or quasi-domicile) the basis by which one becomes subject to a diocesan bishop.
So how do you get a domicile?
Well, there are a few ways. If you live somewhere and you intend to keep living there permanently unless you’re called away, you’ve got a domicile.
If you go somewhere with no intention of staying, but you end up staying for five complete years, you’ve also got a new domicile.
Historically, canonists have regarded domicile as the place where a person spends most of his nights, but contemporary canonical commentators tend to recognize that a person might have two basically permanent residences, and thus might have two domiciles.
Some commentators mention the idea of families who maintain both a country and city home, as examples of those with two domiciles.
There is a related concept in canon law called a quasi-domicile, which can be acquired by actually residing in a place for three months, or by going there with the intention of staying there for at least three months, even if you intend to go home eventually.
College students who keep a room at home, and intend to return there, but who live at college in another diocese, might be said to have a domicile at home, and a quasi-domicile in their dorms.
For most people, and almost all cases, the legal effect of a quasi-domicile and a domicile are the same: they establish you as part of a parish and diocesan community, and make you the subject of some rights and obligations — the right to pastoral and spiritual care from a proper pastor, and the obligation of obedience to the particular laws and jurisdiction of a diocesan bishop.
Canon 12 of the Code of Canon Law explains that by virtue of a domicile or a quasi-domicile, Catholics are bound to the particular law — or local regulations — of a particular diocese when they are actually in residence there, while people just traveling through are usually not bound by diocesan particular law.
I’ve read the reports about the Durbin controversy. But what is the domicile element?
Controversy over the matter picked up steam last week, when Bishop Paprocki released a statement saying he was shocked by the Chicago decision to give Durbin an award, and adding that he hoped Cardinal Cupich would reconsider.
In a subsequent interview with The Pillar, Paprocki explained that Durbin “has a domicile here [in Springfield], and that still gives me jurisdiction over him.”
That, Paprocki said, was the reason he had spoken out.
“If he lived somewhere else … I might not have said anything public about this,” the bishop said.
But when he released a statement Sept. 22, Cupich asserted his own jurisdictional authority over the senator.
“Senator Durbin informed me some years ago that he has taken up residence in Chicago, registered in a parish of the archdiocese and considers me to be his bishop,” Cupich said, in a move which seemed to dispute Paprocki’s claim of interest in the matter.
So who’s right?
Senator Dick Durbin has been a resident of the Diocese of Springfield for decades. He owns a home there, is registered to vote there, and publicly identifies it as his home.
It seems obvious that he is domiciled in the Diocese of Springfield, making him subject to the governance and laws of the Springfield diocese when he is present there.
Given his long career in the Senate, Durbin also likely has either a domicile or a quasi-domicile in the Archdiocese of Washington, making him likely a subject of Cardinal Robert McElroy when he’s in the territory.
But Durbin also apparently has a condo in Chicago, and according to Cupich has registered in a parish there. While parish registration is a canonically complicated concept, it does seem like some evidence of a domicile or quasi-domicile in Chicago as well, making him subject to the particular law of that territory when he is resident there as well.
Ok, but then, who is Durbin’s bishop?
When he’s in Springfield, given his domicile there, it’s Bishop Paprocki.
When he’s in Chicago, given his condo there, it’s Cardinal Cupich.
When he’s in Washington, if we assume he’s got at least a quasi-domicile there, it’s Cardinal McElroy.
In that sense, each of those bishops has jurisdictional claim of authority over Durbin, and he has some obligation of obedience to each one, though qualified by the question of where he actually happens to be — which is true for the relationship between every Catholic and his bishop, in one way or another.
Durbin is prohibited from receiving the Eucharist in Springfield. Does that apply to other places?
No, it does not.
The canonical prohibition of the Eucharist established in canon 915 is actually an instruction from a diocesan bishop to the ministers of Holy Communion in his diocese — “this person is not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
The limits of the diocesan bishop’s authority for that instruction is his own territory — he can’t give the same prohibiting instruction to ministers of the Eucharist in other dioceses.
Things would be different for a person who is formally excommunicated, through the declaration of a bishop or at the end of a canonical trial — and in both cases, after some formal process.
Excommunication prohibits a person from receiving the Eucharist wherever he is in the world, until repentance leads to a formal remission of the penalty.
But since Durbin is not excommunicated, other bishops are free to decide whether they will apply the Springfield prohibition in their own territories.
Interestingly, Cardinal Cupich addressed that question in 2018, when he celebrated a Mass in Springfield. The cardinal told reporters then that he “respect[s] any bishop who needs to take action within their own diocese, and ... I also believe that that conversation should remain between those two” — namely, Paprocki and Durbin.
According to The State Journal-Register, Cupich also deferred to Paprocki on the question of whether Durbin should receive the Eucharist when at Mass in Chicago.
“[Paprocki] is his bishop on that issue,” Cupich told the State Journal Register.
This seems a bit incoherent.
Is it really the case that a person can be banned from the Eucharist in one diocese where they live, and given an honor in another?
It is. Or at least it seems to be.
For his part, Paprocki says that the Chicago award violates an agreement made by the U.S. bishops’ conference in 2004, that “Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
Paprocki has also noted that Chicago’s own particular law prohibits the conferral of awards to “individuals or organizations whose public position is in opposition to the fundamental moral principles of the Catholic Church.”
Cupich, being the legislator of the Chicago archdiocese, is free to flout the local particular law, even if Paprocki’s suggests that he shouldn’t. And the force of the USCCB statement is that of a moral agreement — the bishops made an agreement about awards or honors when they passed a statement on Catholics in political life, but since it is not particular law for the United States, it doesn’t juridically bind any of them.
While several bishops have said in recent days they disagree with Cupich’s decision, the cardinal has not indicated that he intends to reconsider.
Ok, just coming back to this, you mentioned that domicile gives someone a proper pastor, in a territorial parish. But I don’t even know what my territorial parish is. I didn’t even know about that concept! So is my pastor my pastor?
Yes. Don’t worry. In canon law, a parish is (usually) a territorially-defined community of Christians — the Catholics who live within defined boundaries, and whose pastor is the priest appointed to be their shepherd.
But most U.S. Catholics don’t think about parishes that way, and most consider their parish to be the one they attend, and the one where they’re registered. Many U.S. dioceses allow parish registration within their particular law as a means of acquiring the rights and obligations of a parishioner — which means that while you can’t shed your territorial pastor, you can pick up another one in most places by registration. And in places where registration is a practice common but unmentioned in law, most canon lawyers think it has — by the force of custom — become a legal and legitimate way to acquire rights and obligations, and the pastor who comes with them.