[Catholic Caucus] Answering the Doubts: What Are ‘Dubia’?

National Catholic Register ^ | October 2, 2023 | Matthew Bunson

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[Catholic Caucus] Answering the Doubts: What Are ‘Dubia’?

The publication of a new set of questions addressed to Pope Francis by five longtime cardinals has once again turned the focus of Catholics to the place of dubia in the life of the Church.

What are dubia?

The word dubia — plural for a dubium — literally means, from the Latin, “doubts.” But another way of translating it is to see the word meaning “questions that seek clarification.” A dubium, then, is a request for clarity from a dicastery or office of the Roman Curia or even of the Holy Father himself on a matter of Church teaching, a liturgical issue, or a fine point of interpreting canon law. The questions most often arise from the daily issues of Church governance and liturgical and sacramental practice. In fact, dubia are a regular feature of the interaction between the Vatican’s various dicasteries and Catholic dioceses around the globe.

What questions are submitted?

A dubium is most often sent to one of three Vatican offices: the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and especially the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, which is asked to interpret the meaning or applicability of a canon in the Code of Canon Law.

Dubia can cover almost every imaginable topic. A few of the questions asked in recent decades include: “Can the title of minor basilica be granted to a cathedral?”, submitted to the Congregation for Divine Worship; “Are Mormon baptisms valid?”, sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and “Are already-married candidates for the permanent diaconate required with their wives to practice perfect and perpetual continence after ordination?”, submitted to the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.

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Over the decades, there have been several controversial or important dubia and responsa. In 1995, for example, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith answered a significant dubium with a resounding Yes: “Whether the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, which is presented in the apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis to be held definitively, is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith.” Its prefect, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, included a brief explanatory note affirming further that the “teaching requires definitive assent” by the faithful.

Similarly, in early 2021, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made public its negative responsum to a dubium, asking: “Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?”

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Ping

[ClearCase_guy]

Based on his immediate reaction to 9/11 I started to think that George Bush could be a good leader. But shortly thereafter, my mind was filled with Dubia.