# Incardination and excardination > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Incardination_and_excardination > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Incardination_and_excardination.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incardination_and_excardination > Source revision: 1295046124 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) Catholic law tying priests to a superior This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Incardination and excardination" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article needs more citations. 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Find sources: "Incardination and excardination" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message) Part of a series on the Canon law of the Catholic Church Ius vigens (current law) 1983 Code of Canon Law Omnium in mentem Magnum principium Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches Ad tuendam fidem Ex corde Ecclesiae Indulgentiarum Doctrina Praedicate evangelium Veritatis gaudium Custom Matrimonial nullity trial reforms of Pope Francis Documents of the Second Vatican Council Christus Dominus Lumen gentium Optatam totius Orientalium ecclesiarum Presbyterorum ordinis Sacrosanctum concilium Precepts of the Church Legal history Jus antiquum (c. 33–1140) Ancient Church Orders Didache The Apostolic Constitutions Canons of the Apostles Collections of ancient canons Collectiones canonum Dionysianae Collectio canonum quadripartita Collectio canonum Quesnelliana Collectio canonum Wigorniensis Gelasian 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Faris Pietro Gasparri Ladislas Orsy Edward N. Peters Law of consecrated life Solemn vow Exclaustration Manifestation of Conscience Canonical erection of a house of religious Pontifical right Diocesan right Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life Institute of consecrated life Religious institute Congregation Order Monasticism Canons regular Mendicant orders Clerics regular Secular institute Cum Sanctissimus Primo Feliciter Provida Mater Ecclesia Society of apostolic life Decretum laudis Catholic Church portal Law portal v t e **Incardination** is the formal term in the [Catholic Church](/source/Catholic_Church) for a [clergyman](/source/Clergyman) being under a [bishop](/source/Bishop) or other [ecclesiastical superior](/source/Superior_(hierarchy)). It is also sometimes used to refer to laity who may transfer to another part of the church. Examples include transfers from the Western [Latin Church](/source/Latin_Church) to an [Eastern Catholic Church](/source/Eastern_Catholic_Church) or from a territorial [diocese](/source/Diocese) to one of the three [personal ordinariates](/source/Personal_ordinariate) for former Anglicans. ## Tied to diocese or superior As one part of the [hierarchy of the Catholic Church](/source/Hierarchy_of_the_Catholic_Church), every [Catholic priest](/source/Catholic_priest) or [deacon](/source/Deacon) must have an [ordinary](/source/Ordinary_(Catholic_Church)) as a superior. Such an ordinary is most often a [diocesan bishop](/source/Diocesan_bishop), but can also be a leader of a religious order, such as the [Jesuits](/source/Jesuits) or [Franciscans](/source/Franciscans), or some other ecclesiastical superior. The purpose of incardination is to ensure that no cleric is "freelance", without a clear [ecclesiastical superior](/source/Hierarchy_of_the_Catholic_Church) to whom the cleric is accountable and who in turn is responsible for the cleric. ## Change of diocese Incardination does not cease until the moment when that cleric is incardinated as a subject of another superior. An excardination from one diocese, for instance, does not become effective until the moment of incardination to another, so there is no gap during which the clergyman is not clearly answerable to a definitely determined superior. A priest or deacon may move from diocese to diocese taking a new position, including moving to a new country, while formally still being incardinated in his original diocese, and therefore still under the supervision of his original diocese's bishops, at least formally, by [canon law](/source/Canon_law). For instance, a Philippine diocesan priest may be assigned to a parish in the United States for decades but still be formally incardinated in his original Philippine diocese. ## Canon law Incardination is dealt with in canons 265–272 of the [1983 Code of Canon Law](/source/1983_Code_of_Canon_Law). There is a similar canonical institution in the law of the [Eastern Catholic Churches](/source/Eastern_Catholic_Churches), which appears in the [Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches](/source/Code_of_Canons_of_the_Eastern_Churches), Title X «Clerics», Chapter II «Ascription of Clerics to an Eparchy», Canons 357–366. ## Civil law Questions of civil jurisdiction can come into conflict with canon law in situations where a priest is on temporary assignment remotely while he remains incardinated to his diocese of origin. This applied in the case of a French priest involved in a car accident which killed two people, while at his temporary post in California. The question arose in a civil suit, whether the Diocese of Fresno (California) where he was working was responsible legally, although the priest remained incardinated in France *(Stevens v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Fresno)*. The civil court ruled that it was.[1] ## Terminology Its [antonym](/source/Antonym), **excardination**, denotes that a member of the clergy has been freed from one jurisdiction and is transferred to another. Both terms are [derived](/source/Root_(linguistics)) from the [Latin](/source/Latin) *cardo* (pivot, socket, or hinge), from which the word *[cardinal](/source/Cardinal_(Catholicism))* is also derived—hence the [Latin verbs](/source/Latin_conjugation) *incardinare* (to hang on a hinge or fix) and *excardinare* (to unhinge or set free). ## Procedures During the [ordination](/source/Ordination) ceremony, prior to the actual sacrament of [Holy Orders](/source/Holy_Orders) itself, the man places himself under a promise of obedience to his bishop or other ordinary of a [particular church](/source/Particular_church), or makes an acknowledgment of a pre-existing [vow of obedience](/source/Vow_of_obedience) to a [prior](/source/Prior_(ecclesiastical)), [abbot](/source/Abbot), or other superior in an [institute of consecrated life](/source/Institute_of_consecrated_life) or society of apostolic life.[2] ## References 1. **[^](#cite_ref-Ndi-2018_1-0)** Ndi, Joseph Clifford N. (28 August 2018). [*Contracts Between Ecclesiastical Entities According to Canon Law*](https://books.google.com/books?id=EVpqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA222). [Berlin](/source/Berlin): Logos Verlag. p. 222. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-3-8325-4748-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-3-8325-4748-6). Retrieved 22 April 2019. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** [Code of Canon Law, canon 266](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__PX.HTM) ## External links - [Code of Canon Law](http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_PW.HTM) Canons 265–272 --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Incardination and excardination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incardination_and_excardination) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incardination_and_excardination?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.