What is a titular see?

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CatholicLife said:
What is a titular see ? What are functions of it?
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Every bishop must have a diocese, to represents the territory of his jurisdiction. Usually bishops are ordained not for an actual diocese, but for a titular see, which is an extincted diocese e.g. from North Africa. This way the bishop has jurisdiction in theory, but no actual, only a titular diocese. When a titular bishop receives an actual diocese, hois former titular diocese goes back to the Apostolic See.
 
Titular see-s also serve the function of letting some priests have the honor of being a “Titular (arch)bishop”. Archbishop was a good example of this. He was never an archbishop of any “real” diocese, but near the end, he was made the “Titular Archbishop of Wales”. There is no diocese in Wales anymore.

This is about what I know about this area.
 
The bishops who receive these titular sees are auxiliary bishops of currently-existing dioceses.
 
TheMc said:
Titular see-s also serve the function of letting some priests have the honor of being a “Titular (arch)bishop”. Archbishop was a good example of this. He was never an archbishop of any “real” diocese, but near the end, he was made the “Titular Archbishop of Wales”. There is no diocese in Wales anymore.

This is about what I know about this area.
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I’m not sure if you mean Fulton J. Sheen, but he was in fact the “real” Bishop of Rochester (New York) for a time. Later he was indeed made an archbishop for the honor and given the titular see of Newport, which is in Wales (as far as I can determine, Roman Catholic dioceses are always cities, not regions).

What has always amazed me is how many of these former Catholic places are available for titular sees. There are hundreds and hundreds of titular bishops, and Rome never seems to run out of places to put them. It rather makes one blanche to think of what the church lost, particularly with the Muslim conquest.
 
Spirithound said:
The bishops who receive these titular sees are auxiliary bishops of currently-existing dioceses.
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Besides that, Titular Sees are given to Archbishops who being appointed as Nuncio (Papal Ambassador…)
 
jbuck919 said:
What has always amazed me is how many of these former Catholic places are available for titular sees. There are hundreds and hundreds of titular bishops, and Rome never seems to run out of places to put them. It rather makes one blanche to think of what the church lost, particularly with the Muslim conquest.
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Not all titular sees are *in partibus infidelium *-- Many were simply coalesced into larger dioceses (probably as it became easier for a single bishop to shepherd a larger geographic region)

tee
 
tee_eff_em said:
Not all titular sees are *in partibus infidelium *-- Many were simply coalesced into larger dioceses (probably as it became easier for a single bishop to shepherd a larger geographic region)
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A couple of examples of titular sees that aren’t *in partibus infidelium * but are rather suppressed or merged dioceses in the United States:

Bardstown, Kentucky
Oregon City, Oregon
Natchez, Alabama
 
laszlo said:
Every bishop must have a diocese, to represents the territory of his jurisdiction. Usually bishops are ordained not for an actual diocese, but for a titular see, which is an extincted diocese e.g. from North Africa. This way the bishop has jurisdiction in theory, but no actual, only a titular diocese. When a titular bishop receives an actual diocese, hois former titular diocese goes back to the Apostolic See.
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Actually, that’s incorrect. Most bishops are ordained for an actual diocese. Residential bishops outnumber titular bishops.
 
There are 789 more diocesan bishops that titular ones. There are 2875 diocesan bishops and 2086 titular bishops.
 
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