§1. By reason of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, any member of the faithful is free to bring or introduce his or her own contentious or penal case to the Holy See for adjudication in any grade of a trial and at any stage of the litigation.
§2. Recourse brought to the Apostolic See, however, does not suspend the exercise of jurisdiction by a judge who has already begun to adjudicate a case except in the case of an appeal. For this reason, the judge can prosecute a trial even to the definitive sentence unless the Apostolic See has informed the judge that it has called the case to itself.
Source: Code of Canon Law (Vatican.va)