A college, in the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, is a collection (Latin: collegium) of persons united together for a common object so as to form one body.
Some authors maintained that two were sufficient for the purpose, because Pope Innocent, alluding to St. Matthew, xviii, 20, says that no presbyter is to be chosen for a church where two or three form the congregation, except by their canonical election.
On the contrary, the canon law explicitly affirms that one surviving member can conserve the privileges of the corporate body, not for himself personally, but for the college.
The single remaining member can exercise the acts belonging to the college, and although he can not elect himself prelate, yet he can choose or nominate some other proper person to the prelacy.
[1] The ancient canonists, when stating that three constitute a college, give also the numbers requisite for other canonical bodies, thus: five are necessary to form a university, two a congregation, more than two a family, and ten a parish.
[1] Before the Protestant Reformation, and even in the first years of Elizabeth I of England, the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge were always spoken of as ecclesiastical corporations.
The title "Apostolic College" is applied in Rome to those institutions which are immediately subject to and controlled by the Holy See, and are consequently exempt from any other spiritual or temporal authority; the students are declared to be under the direct protection of the pope.