Apostolic administration

An apostolic administration in the Catholic Church is administrated by a prelate appointed by the pope to serve as the ordinary for a specific area. Either the area is not yet a diocese (a stable 'pre-diocesan', usually missionary apostolic administration), or is a diocese, archdiocese, eparchy or similar permanent ordinariate (such as a territorial prelature or a territorial abbacy) that has no bishop or archbishop (an apostolic administrator sede vacante, as after an episcopal death, resignation or transfer to another diocese) or, in very rare cases, has an incapacitated bishop (apostolic administrator sede plena). The title also applies to an outgoing bishop while awaiting for the date of assuming his new position.

Apostolic administrators of stable administrations are equivalent in canon law with diocesan bishops and archbishops and so they have essentially the same authority as a diocesan bishop and archbishop. This type of apostolic administrator is usually the bishop or archbishop of a titular see.

Administrators sede vacante or sede plena serve in their role only until a newly-chosen diocesan bishop or archbishop takes possession of the diocese. They are restricted by canon law in what they may do to the diocese that they temporarily administer. For example, such an administrator may not sell real estate owned by the diocese or archdiocese. That type of administrator is commonly an auxiliary bishop and a priest serving as the vicar general of the diocese or the ordinary of a neighboring diocese.

Normally, when a diocese or archdiocese falls vacant, the previously-appointed coadjutor bishop takes possession of the see, or (a successor is not yet installed or assumed office) a vicar capitular or diocesan administrator is chosen locally. However, the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, may decide to name an administrator himself instead, of waiting for the college of consultors of a particular diocese or archdiocese to appoint a diocesan or archdiocesan administrator, and it is then called an apostolic administrator. Sometimes, a retiring, promoted or transferred bishop is designated to be apostolic administrator until his successor is installed, or the metropolitan or a fellow suffragan is appointed.

In March 2021, there were the following stable apostolic administrations, most of which were administered by a (titular or external) bishop, are of the Roman Rite and are in former or current communist countries:

The following apostolic administration has jurisdiction only over Catholics of the Byzantine Rite, which does not have its own jurisdiction in the countries concerned:

The following apostolic administration has jurisdiction over Catholics of the Latin Rite and those of other rites, which do not have their own jurisdictions in the area concerned:

The Diocese of Pyongyang, North Korea: its last bishop, Francis Hong Yong-ho, was imprisoned by the communist government of Kim Il Sung in 1949 and later disappeared. The Metropolitan Archbishop of Seoul, in South Korea, acts as the apostolic administrator for Pyongyang, as religion is suppressed in North Korea.