Global Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Data Repository

Ecclesiastical jurisdiction is used in this repository as a geographic and administrative term for the territorial and other geographically defined structures through which the Catholic Church’s temporal operations are organized and governed. At the universal level, the Church is governed by the Roman Pontiff and the College of Bishops, with the Pope as its head (CIC, can. 330 - 336). Below this level, the Church is organized geographically through particular Churches and their groupings, including dioceses, ecclesiastical provinces, and episcopal conferences.

In this repository, Administrative 0 represents episcopal conferences, Administrative 1 represents ecclesiastical provinces, and Administrative 2 represents dioceses and equivalent jurisdictions. These administrative levels describe the geographic organization represented in the repository and do not constitute a complete hierarchy of canonical authority. In canon law, the exercise of governance is described as potestas regiminis, also called the power of jurisdiction (potestas iurisdictionis) (CIC, can. 129 §1). The Code of Canon Law identifies dioceses as particular Churches and recognizes related territorial forms, including territorial prelatures, territorial abbeys, apostolic vicariates, apostolic prefectures, and certain apostolic administrations as assimilated to dioceses (CIC, can. 368). Official Vatican documentation also uses the broader term ecclesiastical circumscriptions for these and other geographically defined ecclesiastical entities.

The boundaries represented in this repository are ecclesiastical boundaries, not political boundaries. An ecclesiastical jurisdiction may cross international or subnational political borders, and its geographic extent should not be assumed to correspond to the territory of a country, state, province, or other civil government. The repository provides a geographic representation of these jurisdictions for research, cartography, and analysis; the status and territorial competence of these jurisdictions remain matters of ecclesiastical law and competent ecclesiastical authority.