Primate (bishop)

[1] The office is generally found only in older Catholic countries, and is now purely honorific, enjoying no effective powers under canon law—except for the archbishop of Esztergom (Gran) in Hungary.

Other former functions of primates, such as hearing appeals from metropolitan tribunals, were reserved to the Holy See by the early 20th century.

With the papal decree Sollicitae Romanis Pontificibus of 24 January 1956 it granted the title of Primate of Canada to the Archbishop of Quebec.

The pre-reformation metropolitan Archbishop of Nidaros was sometimes referred to as Primate of Norway,[10] even though it is unlikely that this title ever was officially granted to him by the Holy See.

The heads of certain sees have at times been referred to, at least by themselves,[11] as primates: Source[1] In the modern confederation of the Benedictine Order, all the Black Monks of St. Benedict were united under the presidency of an Abbot Primate (Leo XIII, Summum semper, 12 July 1893); but the unification, fraternal in its nature, brought no modification to the abbatial dignity, and the various congregations preserved their autonomy intact.

The powers of the Abbot Primate are specified, and his position defined, in a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars dated 16 September 1893.

The Primatial powers are only vested in the Abbot Primate to act by virtue of the proper law of its autonomous Benedictine congregation, which at the present is minimal to none.

Fr Jean-Michel Girard, CRB, Abbot General of the Canons Regular of the Grand St Bernard.

The archbishop of Canterbury, who is considered primus inter pares of all the participants, convokes the meetings and issues the invitations.