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Aquinquennial visitad limina, or simply anad liminavisit, is the required visit ofCatholic residential diocesanbishops and certainprelates with territorial jurisdiction (such asterritorial abbots) to thethresholds of the [tombs of the]ApostlesPeter andPaul, and to meet thePope to report on the state of theirdioceses orprelatures.
It is a formal trip usually made together by all bishops from a single region (viz., anepiscopal conference) to discuss with the Pope issues specific to their regions. It is separate from other trips a bishop might make to the Vatican, such as to attend asynod. Thead limina visit happens every five years, or quinquennially.
Limina is the accusative plural of theLatin nounlimen, meaning literally "a threshold; the head-piece or foot-piece of a doorway," and in atransferred sense, "a house", "dwelling", or "abode." The Latin prepositionad means "to", "toward", or "at."
In 743 a Roman synod decreed that all bishops subject to themetropolitansee of Rome should meet personally every year in that city to give an account of the state of their dioceses.Pope Gregory VII included in the order all metropolitans of the Western Church.[1]
In 1585Pope Sixtus V[inconsistent] issued the constitutionRomanus Pontifex,[inconsistent] which set forth the norm for visitsad limina.[citation needed] On December 31, 1909,Pope Pius X stated in aDecree for the Consistorial Congregation that a bishop needs to deliver an account of the state of his diocese to the Pope once every five years, starting in 1911.[citation needed]
The current requirements for thead limina visit are the subject of canon 399–400 of the1983 Code of Canon Law and canon 208 of the 1990Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Limina Apostolorum".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 698.
