The spiritual good and pastoral welfare of the People of God necessitates that the Diocesan Curia assists the Bishop in the governance of the Diocese. has to make sure and permanently guarantee the discipline and the practice of governance and the administration in the local Church, regardless of who sits in the various offices and how a particular institution evolves.
Confused sometimes with the Curia is the Chancery. The office of the Chancellor is part of the Diocesan Curia, meaning the Chancellor, is one of the personnel of the Diocesan Curia. Specifically, he is the Secretary of the Curia. In order to distinguish from the Diocesan Curia, it is hereby proposed to refer to the CHANCERY as the Office of the Chancellor.
As an officer within the administrative structure of the diocese, the Chancellor, and when circumstance warrants a Vice-Chancellor may be appointed to assist him, is concerned with the orderly and systematic arrangement of the administrative works in the curia. The Chancellor functions as the secretary of the curia; thus he takes care of recording, filing, keeping and processing of documents. Moreover, the Chancellor is also envisioned by Canon Law as the principal Notary, whereby he authenticates documents by his signature, giving meaning and substance to them. As such, the functions of the Chancellor have additional demands on him. Aside from his proficiency in handling documents, he should also have command of language and orderliness in record management. If however, the Chancellor is given additional faculties, as in dispensations and censor of books, a basic knowledge of certain ecclesiastical fields is a must.
The existence of the office of the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and notaries are according to the discretion of the Bishop who appoints them and can freely remove them from office if he so wills it. The present manual for Chancery management in the Philippines aims to describe their various functions and responsibilities, offering a sample system of procedures, organizational set-up and staffing that may prove helpful in the proper management of chanceries in the dioceses in the Philippines.