At 02:24 PM 2/5/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>My understanding, which I cannot document at the moment, is that St.
>Peter's is in fact not a cathedral, if one is asking about its canonical
>status, because Vatican City is not a diocese. It is a basilica
>(canonically, I mean), an honor which the current Pope has awarded to a
>great number of churches of varyi8ng canonical status (from parish church,
>to conventual church, to cathedral).
St Peter's begins to edge out the Lateran, the cathedral of the Roman
diocese, after the return from Avignon.
>This does not, however, answer the question of what the canonical status of
>St. Peter's IS, nor whether this precision is a post-Tridentine development
>(assuming that I'm even right . . . ).
>
>It is my understanding that, at least in the post-Tridentine church, no
>diocese may have more than one cathedral unless it is a double
>diocese--really, two dioceses the ordinaries of which are, as a matter of
>habit, the same person. IN my own state, South Bend and Fort Wayne,
>Indiana, constitute a double-diocese with (if I recall properly) two
>cathedrals. In other dioceses, there is sometimes a proto- or pro-
>Cathedral, then the Real Thing.
Altoona-Johnstown in Pennsylvania too.
Tom Izbicki
>Again, forgive me for being modern. More information from canon law
>specialists on this stuff would be interesting.
>
>
>
>Patrick Nugent.
>
>
>
>
>>Forgive me for 'an intelligent(?????) guess', without checking in a
>>reference book, but mightn't Rome be a case, if indeed St John Lateran (seat
>>of Bishop of Rome) and St Peter's are considered?
>>
>>George
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