Congregation for the Clergy

It was first set up as the Sacra Congregatio Cardinalium pro executione et interpretatione concilii Tridentini interpretum by Pope Pius IV in the apostolic constitution Alias Nos of 2 August 1564 to oversee the proper application and observation of the disciplinary decrees of the Council of Trent throughout the Catholic Church. It was commonly known as the Sacred Congregation of the Council. Pope Sixtus V's Apostolic Constitution Immensa aeterni Dei of 22 January 1587 expanded the Congregation's functions, entrusting it with the proper interpretation of the canons of the Council of Trent, resolving controversial questions relating to it, and monitoring provincial councils. It later lost many of its powers, retaining only those relating to disciplining secular clergy, but still held onto its original name prior to Pope Paul VI's apostolic constitution Regimini Ecclesiae Universae of 31 December 1967, which renamed it the "Congregation for the Clergy."

By 2009, Pope Benedict XVI made the Congregation responsible for managing the guidelines concerning clergy who maintained their clerical status after violating their vows of celibacy.[1] On 25 January 2012, Pope Benedict XVI gave it responsibility for regulating Catholic seminaries, which until then was the responsibility of the Congregation for Catholic Education.[2]

In January 2013, the motu proprio Fides per doctrinam transferred the competency on Catechesis from the Congregation for the Clergy to the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation.

In February 2019, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, Prefect of the Congregation, said that the Congregation manages the cases of priests who violate their vows of celibacy for approximately ten years. He said that "In such cases there are, unfortunately, Bishops and Superiors who think that, after having provided economically for the children, or after having transferred the priest, the cleric could continue to exercise the ministry."[1] In February 2020, the Congregation made public its guidelines for managing cases of priests who have fathered children. The guidelines were previously secret, though in 2019 the Congregation offered to provide then to a bishops conference upon request.[3]

On 3 June 2021, Pope Francis tasked Egidio Miragoli, Bishop of Mondovì, with conducting a review of the Congregation in anticipation of the replacement of its prefect in August. He expected it would take at least the month of June to complete.[4][5]

Since 2 August 2021, the Prefect of the Congregation has been Archbishop Lazarus You Heung-sik.[6] The Secretary of the Congregation is the French Archbishop Joël Mercier.[7] The under secretary is Fr. Andrea Ripa, a former professor of matrimonial and canon law for the Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in Rimini and of the “General Norms” at the Lugano Faculty of Theology and the Pontifical Lateran University and licensed canon law and Roman Rota lawyer, and a former judge and vicar of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Flaminio in Bologna.[8][9]

Prefects

No.		Name	From	Until	Appointer
1		Carlo Borromeo	1564	1565	Pius IV
2		Francesco Alciati	1565	1580
3		Filippo Boncompagni	1580	1586	Gregory XIII
4		Antonio Carafa	1586	1591	Sixtus V
5		Girolamo Mattei	1591	1603
6		Paolo Emilio Zacchia	1604	1605	Clement VIII
7		Francesco Maria del Monte	1606	1616	Paul V
8		Orazio Lancellotti	1616	1620	Paul V
9		Roberto Ubaldini	1621	1623
10		Cosimo de Torres	1623	1626
11		Bonifazio Bevilacqua Aldobrandini	1626	1627	Urban VIII
12		Fabrizio Verospi	1627	1639	Urban VIII
13		Giambattista Pamphilj	1639	1644	Urban VIII
14		Francesco Cennini de' Salamandri	1644	1645
15		Pier Luigi Carafa	1645	1655	Innocent X
16		Francesco Paolucci	1657	1661
17		Giulio Cesare Sacchetti	1661	1663	Alexander VII
18		Angelo Celsi	1664	1671	Alexander VII
19		Paluzzo Paluzzi Altieri degli Albertoni	1671	1672	Clement X
20		Vincenzo Maria Orsini, O.P.	1673	1675	Clement X
21		Federico Baldeschi Colonna	1675	1691	Clement X
22		Galeazzo Marescotti	1692	1695	Innocent XII
23		Giuseppe Sacripante	1696	1700	Innocent XII
24		Bandino Panciatichi	1700	1718
25		Pier Marcellino Corradini	1718	1721	Clement XI
26		Curzio Origo	1721	1737
27		Antonio Saverio Gentili	1737	1753	Clement XII
28		Mario Millini	1753	1756	Benedict XIV
29		Giovanni Giacomo Millo	1756	1757	Benedict XIV
30		Clemente Argenvilliers	1757	1758	Benedict XIV
31		Ferdinando Maria de' Rossi	1759	1775	Clement XIII
32		Carlo Vittorio Amedeo delle Lanze	1775	1784
33		Guglielmo Pallotta	1785	1795	Pius VI
34		Tommaso Antici	1795	1798	Pius VI
35		Filippo Carandini	1800	1810
36		Giulio Gabrielli	1814	1820	Pius VII
37		Emmanuele De Gregorio	1820	1834	Pius VII
38		Vincenzo Macchi	1834	1841	Gregory XVI
39		Paolo Polidori	1841	1847	Gregory XVI
40		Pietro Ostini	1847	1849	Pius IX
41		Angelo Mai	1851	1853	Pius IX
42		Antonio Maria Cagiano de Azevedo	1853	1860	Pius IX
43		Prospero Caterini	1860	1881	Pius IX
44		Lorenzo Nina	1881	1885	Leo XIII
45		Luigi Serafini	1885	1893	Leo XIII
46		Angelo Di Pietro	1893	1902	Leo XIII
47		Vincenzo Vannutelli	1902	1908	Leo XIII
48		Casimiro Gennari	1908	1914	Pius X
49		Francesco di Paola Cassetta	1914	1919
50		Donato Raffaele Sbarretti	1919	1930	Benedict XV
51		Giulio Serafini	1930	1938	Pius XI
52		Luigi Maglione	1938	1939	Pius XI
53		Francesco Marmaggi	1939	1949
54		Giuseppe Bruno	1949	1954	Pius XII
55		Pietro Ciriaci	1954	1966	Pius XII
56		Jean-Marie Villot	1967	1969
57		John Joseph Wright	1969	1979	Paul VI
58		Silvio Oddi	1979	1986	John Paul II
59		Antonio Innocenti	1986	1991	John Paul II
60		José Tomás Sánchez	1991	1996	John Paul II
61		Darío Castrillón Hoyos	1996 Pro-Prefect	1998	John Paul II
			1998 Prefect	2006
62		Cláudio Hummes	2006	2010	Benedict XVI
63		Mauro Piacenza	2010	2013	Benedict XVI
64		Beniamino Stella	2013	2021	Francis
65		Lazarus You Heung-sik	2021	present	Francis

• General Directory for Catechesis

• Official website
• "Congregation for the Clergy". The Roman Curia.
• "Pastor Bonus". John Paul II: Apostolic Constitutions.