Which source should the motu-proprio characteristic rest on: shelf, heading, or the Acta?

[JohnRDOrazio]

The question

Twelve apostolic letters in the registry are headed by vatican.va itself as "Lettera Apostolica in forma di Motu Proprio" — yet they carry no motu-proprio characteristic, because the rule adopted in PR #24 (issue #10) reads the mode of issuance from the shelf a document is filed on (motu_proprio, or alsoShelvedAs it), and never from the wording of a heading. These twelve sit on apost_letters only.

The AAS join of PR #29 (issue #25) now adds a third witness. For three of the twelve, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis chronological index files the act under Litterae Apostolicae Motu proprio datae:

Registry id	vatican.va heading	AAS
mag:francis-i/apostolic-letter-2015-05-28	Lettera Apostolica in forma di "Motu Proprio" sulla Revisione dello Statuto del Fondo Pensioni Vaticano	AAS 107 (2015) 509, Fondo Pensioni
mag:francis-i/apostolic-letter-2023-11-27	Lettera Apostolica, in forma di Motu Proprio, con la quale vengono modificati e integrati il Motu Proprio "sulla trasparenza…"	AAS 116 (2024) 135, Per meglio armonizzare
mag:francis-i/apostolic-letter-2024-06-29	Lettera Apostolica in forma di Motu Proprio circa l'interpretazione delle norme applicabili alla Fabbrica di San Pietro	AAS 116 (2024) 817

So three sources disagree about the same acts: the shelf says plain apostolic letter; the heading says motu proprio; the Acta — the promulgating instrument — say motu proprio. The join declined to match them, by design: a matcher that loosened its class rule to absorb a disagreement would be hiding exactly the finding that needs a decision.

The other nine (no AAS index exists yet for their years; phase 2 of #25 will reach them):

• Benedict XVI: totius-orbis-2005, antiqua-ordinatione-2008, ecclesiae-unitatem-2009, apostolic-letter-2009-07-07, omnium-in-mentem-2009, ubicumque-et-semper-2010
• Francis: apostolic-letter-2024-01-16-2
• John XXIII: maiora-in-dies-1959, superno-dei-1960

What the decision is

Not whether these acts were issued motu proprio — the Holy See says so twice over — but which source the registry lets a characteristic rest on, since the same rule will govern every future disagreement between shelf, heading and Acta. Three positions, each defensible:

1. Shelf only (the current rule). Deterministic and auditable from the harvest alone; the twelve stay without the characteristic and are listed as a known limitation. Cost: the registry contradicts both the heading and the Acta for acts that are unambiguously motu proprio.
2. Heading, by curated row. A hand-curated table quoting each heading adds the characteristic — the mechanism the repository already uses for incipits, occasion years and exclusions (recovered-incipits.ts, series-curation.ts), and invariant 22 already permits it. Twelve rows, each an editorial act with its evidence beside it. Cost: an editor is reading a heading, which the harvest otherwise refuses to do.
3. Acta take precedence. When a document carries an acta reference, the AAS category governs genre class and characteristics, and the shelf becomes secondary evidence. Principled — AAS is the instrument of promulgation — but it is a rule about the whole model, reaches only the years an index exists for, and would need phase 2 of Record the AAS / ASS reference (volume, year, page) for each document #25 before it applied uniformly.

Two further cases the join surfaced belong to the same question in the other direction: 21 records on the motu_proprio shelf whose headings name a Statuto, Decreto, Regolamento or Rescriptum (PR #24's design note), and the AAS practice of filing the Christmas and Easter Urbi et Orbi under Nuntius et Benedictio — both are disagreements between shelf and instrument that the rule chosen here would settle too.

What is asked

An editorial decision by the committee, not by one maintainer: which of the three positions (or another) the registry adopts, and whether it applies retroactively to the twelve. Whatever is chosen becomes a documented rule in SCHEMA.md beside invariant 22, and the twelve records follow it.

References

• Model motu proprio as a characteristic of Apostolic Letter, not a sibling genre #10, PR Model motu proprio as a characteristic of the apostolic letter, not a genre #24 (the characteristic; the design note lists the twelve and the twenty-one)
• Record the AAS / ASS reference (volume, year, page) for each document #25, PR Record the AAS reference for 2015-2024 from the annual Index generalis (phase 1 of #25) #29 (the AAS join; report §6 lists the three under class mismatch)
• README, On sources: chancery shelves are not a magisterial taxonomy