Auxiliary bishop

An auxiliary bishop is a Catholic or Eastern Orthodox bishop assigned to assist a diocesan bishop in meeting the pastoral and administrative needs of the diocese. Auxiliary bishops can also be titular bishops of sees that no longer exist as territorial jurisdictions.

Roman Catholicism

History

The history of the auxiliary bishop in the Catholic Church starts in the 6th century in Christian North Africa. At that time, the invasion of North Africa by Muslim Arab armies forced the bishops in that region to flee to Rome. The Catholic Church did not want to acknowledge that these dioceses had been permanently lost, so the popes kept reappointing their bishops. Over the centuries, these exiled bishops lived out their tenures in Rome, receiving financial support from the Vatican without exercising any real responsibilities. By the 15th century, the popes started assigning the bishops on a temporary basis to vacant dioceses in Europe.

In the 16th century, Pope Pius V decreed that these auxiliary bishops could only be assigned to dioceses run by cardinals or archbishops. The dioceses were required to provide financial support for these clerics, freeing the Vatican from responsibility for their upkeep.

The Second Vatican Council (1963-65) revived the role of auxiliary bishops, stating that "rightly", auxiliary bishops should be appointed where "the diocesan bishop cannot personally fulfill all his episcopal duties as the good of souls demands, either because of the vast extent of the diocese or the great number of its inhabitants, or because of the special nature of the apostolate or other reasons of a different nature".