ECCLESIASTICAL BENEFICE. - In the CIC the ecclesiastical benefice is defined as: "a juridical entity constituted or erected in perpetuity by ecclesiastical authority, composed of a sacred office and the right to receive the revenues of the endowment, belonging to the office" (can. 1409). This definition, reaffirming the unitary juridical personality of the ecclesiastical benefice (Innocent IV, Apparatus in 5 libros Decretalium, Venice 1570, ad c. 3, X, 2), has the practical advantage of conferring on it a certain independence from the elements that compose it (office, endowment and revenues): the ecclesiastical benefice is an ecclesiastical institution, a non-collegiate moral person, with its own capacities, rights and duties.
I. HISTORY. - Ecclesiastical property was constituted around the cathedral church; the bishop as head of the clergy was the direct administrator of whatever had to serve charity, the maintenance of the clergy, the needs of the community, and the buildings of worship and of residence. He was assisted in this task by the deacons and the officials (notarii, defensores) who, according to the importance of the see, were necessary for public and private acts. Since it is quite evident that a great city, such as Rome, Milan, Verona, etc., while preserving institutions common to the others, demanded a body of provisions far more complicated than those of a small see lost among the mountains of Samnium or of the Bruttii. Nevertheless, from the very beginning a common prescription was adopted by which the revenues of this collective property were divided into four (elsewhere also into three) parts: for the bishop, for the clergy, for the poor, for the building and maintenance of ecclesiastical edifices.
In places where the urban clergy was organized under a monastic rule, it evidently continued to form a single body with the bishop and to participate in the common revenues of the church and of the bishop himself. The situation became different, however, as soon as the great monastic foundations arose. Each of them formed an organism of its own with its own buildings and possessions, constituted by the founders themselves or by benefactors who gradually enlarged its possessions; these benefactors many times came to create or to form part of the monastic association. The head of the monastery was the true person responsible not only for his monks, but also for the patrimony, the dependents, colonists, and serfs. Personally subject to the bishop, as any of the faithful had to be, as regards his community and the internal administration of his goods he was responsible before the community itself; indeed often, with the passage of time, he became almost its absolute master; and he alone represented it in the disputes that were treated in synods or before the political authority. In this way, from the classical age onward, new patrimonial centers with their own life and interests, clearly distinct and separated from those that were under the direct dependence of the bishop, were formed and organized themselves ever more during the early barbarian age. For the monasteries too were able in many regions to become the center of a complex external activity, establishing foundations for those clerics who provided for the various spiritual needs of the monks, especially when among them very few were invested with the sacred Orders, making themselves a center of assistance for pilgrims and the destitute, and finally erecting chapels for the care of souls for those who formed part of the monastery's personnel as servants, colonists, custodians, etc., or who dwelt in the villas that had come into the monastery's possession or that arose gradually on its lands. There was therefore very soon a clergy in the service of the monastery that many times had quite indirect relations with the local bishop, although it had to receive from him the sacred ordinations and the holy oils.
The monastic institutes, with this progressive development of theirs, thus came almost to be fitted into the diocesan circumscriptions, sometimes occupying territories in different dioceses, thereby in some way disturbing their uniform distribution, and creating de facto conditions that differed according to the character and development of the individual monasteries.
The diocesan circumscriptions, on the other hand, had had a more homogeneous origin with the city as their center; and their territory was, for the most part, that which depended on the city, unless some particular local circumstance had imposed exceptions. But without taking into account the particular geographical and social conditions that occur in Egypt, in Africa, in Asia, and, in the West, in Ireland and in lesser Britain, one particular fact acquires importance: when alongside the urban center, which always remains the most important, with the widening of evangelization and with the growth of the population, Christian communities became organized in small centers where the rural population gathered. Provision therefore had to be made for these secondary centers as well. Unlike the civitates, these were called plebes, although sometimes one word was used for the other. In any case, by plebs was designated not only a population, but also the place where it dwelt. Every plebs thus understood had its well-determined boundaries, for the most part in relation to the geographical conformation of the place. It was therefore possible to establish in it an ecclesiastical sub-center modeled on the episcopal city with the buildings necessary for worship: church and baptistery, cemetery, dwelling places with a clergy capable of performing the ritual functions and which therefore had to live on the spot under the guidance of an archpriest, plebanus, or prior. Hence a particular patrimony too had to be formed, administered by this clergy, inalienable because sacred, proportionate to its needs. During the barbarian invasions such a process was not cut short and interrupted. It is evident, however, that in those regions in which civilized life was wholly or almost wholly suppressed, or in which civilization had not penetrated or had done so very weakly during the Roman age, the process of ecclesiastical organization underwent an entirely different course: it was the monasteries that opened the way to the episcopal and plebanal constitution, and it was the local lords themselves who, once converted, provided that churches should arise on their territory for themselves and for their dependents, and who gave revenues and lands for the use of those churches, of which they claimed to continue to be the owners or at least the guardians. This phenomenon came to occur also in civilized countries, and therefore to align itself too within the ambit of the diocese, for those new localities that came into being when the population, thanks to a relative peace and tranquility, felt sufficiently secure and grew in number and importance. We might say that we are at the first formation of the benefice system, due to various circumstances. Even in this first segmentation of ecclesiastical property the collective possession of goods is preserved, because each of these larger rural centers was governed by a clergy distinct in its various grades like that of the city.
A second important step toward the constitution of benefices is marked, within the common patrimony of the Church, by the division of that part which was to remain for the exclusive enjoyment of the bishop from that which was attributed to the clergy of the cathedral. An analogous fact occurred in the abbeys, and particularly in the great abbeys, when a special abbatial mensa was severed from the monastery's patrimony and constituted as a separate portion. Where the bishopric was constituted within the monastery, at a certain moment it too had to detach itself from the original monastery in order to constitute itself independently with its own patrimony and secular clergy (Salzburg, for example); in some places, as in England, this complete detachment did not occur until very late. Such changes of constitution took place at different times and under reciprocal influences from place to place; but in any case bishop and cathedral clergy, abbot and monastery had distinct interests and administration, with their own juridical personality and their own regulations.
A further advance came about when, from portions detached from the episcopal mensae, special foundations were established for the worship and the upkeep of particular sanctuaries in honor of the Virgin, of local martyrs or saints, or of saints whose cult it was desired to spread. In these too (as in the original parish churches) it was required that the clergy attached to them be organized collegially, like that of the cathedral. Elsewhere other determined portions of property were permanently devoted to lasting works of charity, such as hospitals, of which the clergy had the supervision and administration, drawing from them at the same time their own sustenance. Many times it was private benefactors who did this, entrusting their foundations to the direct supervision of the bishop or of the clergy of the cathedral. The same thing also happened at great monasteries; and in this way there arose a whole new and complicated hierarchy of institutions dependent on bishops, chapters, abbots, when indeed direct dependence on the Holy See was not desired, in order to obtain greater stability and surer protection.
To maintain discipline among the clergy attached to the service of the cathedral church, renewed attempts were made, from the 8th century onward, to bring them back to a common life, in the same cloister, dormitory and refectory, under the rule of St. Augustine and with particular statutes. But it was not possible to prevent the common revenues from being distributed to the individual members in different proportions in relation to their different ranks, with full freedom to dispose of them as they pleased; thus only the administration still remained common. In many places matters went no further; in others, on the other hand, the revenues were no longer distributed to each man for him to enjoy at his own pleasure, but the goods themselves were distributed outright, forming as many separate patrimonies (prebends) with separate administration, keeping in common only certain particular revenues (anniversaries and the like) and reserving a part of them for the fabric of the church. What was done in the cathedral church was also done in the other churches and even in the parish churches that still kept a collegial clergy.
It is difficult, not to say impossible, to trace step by step these changes, which differ according to places and times and which were sometimes traversed by attempts at reform. Every country, one may say, has its own particular vicissitudes, but it is certain in any case that that segmentation of patrimonies which had already begun in the pre-barbarian age was no longer halted. During the feudal age (and therefore not only because of the invasions) many of them were lost or had to be alienated, even in the form of fief or emphyteusis; but such losses were constantly compensated by a new influx of goods on the part of laymen, bishops and clerics who, with their personal patrimonies, contributed to increasing the endowments of already existing ecclesiastical institutions, to establishing new ones, to erecting new parish churches or parishes or other supplementary institutions in aid of the populations, to endowing altars for the celebration of Masses, to providing for the sustenance of clerics, often with particularistic intentions, as was characteristic of the feudal age. There gradually came into being a state of affairs which, by our way of seeing, was confused and arbitrary; thanks indeed to these personal initiatives, the foundation of ecclesiastical bodies was not always in relation to the needs of the places, but rather in relation to the desires of the founders to provide for a greater number of clerics and for greater splendor of worship; while many times the wealth of the revenues did not correspond to the importance of the office, but depended on the generosity of the founder. Let it be added further that each of these foundations or endowments, from the most powerful and exalted to the most modest and limited, always arose with the aim that it should be perpetual and immutable, and always too with its own juridical personality, but not always, on the other hand, on a uniform model sanctioned by canonical rules; for each one, alongside generic and common attributes, could be invested with privileges, obligations and conditions of existence entirely particular to itself.
It was up to the bishop, as is clear, to ordain clerics in the number required by the offices and foundations existing in his diocese, that is, in relation to the prebends established, because on the one hand every cleric had a right to an honest sustenance, and on the other there were not to be clerics who were not attached to some office provided with the means necessary for their sustenance. In the case, moreover, of ecclesiastical institutions (for example, monasteries and chapters) invested with special rights and exemptions, the right to ordain clerics was regulated by particular provisions, but always according to the rule recalled above. And since clerics had a right to subsistence and could not be deprived of their offices without being reduced to beggary, such deprivation was not to take place except for very grave causes, that is, for offenses committed, in a manner analogous to what happened with fiefs, but through a strictly ecclesiastical judgment.
In this development of the ecclesiastical patrimonial order, which continued for centuries, feudalism certainly had its influence, above all by introducing the more important ecclesiastical institutions into the living fabric of the state, favoring them with privileges and exemptions of a political-social character, placing them in conditions that differed from place to place and from institution to institution, thus creating a curious disparity, which might appear arbitrary if it had not been caused for the most part by momentary historical causes or by geographical reasons or by both together. As for the lesser institutions, on the other hand, we see them, in their different forms, likewise reflecting that bizarre variety which distinguishes the lower fiefs, with this difference, however, that in the latter one sees for the most part the reflection of economic conditions, whereas in benefices it is the piety of the faithful that proceeds according to that particularistic spirit of which we have made mention. It is easy, however, to note that the whole feudal influence did not succeed in affecting in the least what was the substance of the ecclesiastical institution, as is clear to anyone who carefully examines the history especially of the episcopal institution and of that of the parish churches, both in the strictly spiritual field and in the feudal one. It was in particular the struggle over Investitures and then the legislation of the decretals that, reacting against the laicizing tendency, saved for the benefice system that sacred character which was about to be distorted by excessive dependence on the public power.
Pio Paschini
II. CANON LAW IN FORCE
1. Elements
The Code only vaguely hints at the relations that exist among the three elements of the ecclesiastical benefice.a) The sacred office is defined by can. 145 as a charge or complex of attributions and obligations of jurisdiction or of order that belong to its holder (v. UFFICIO). Undoubtedly the sacred office presents itself as an institutional organ of the Church, which in relation to the benefice has the character of cause and of end, and explains the intervention of ecclesiastical authority in the constitution and in the governance of the benefice itself; but the benefice is a juridical entity in its own right, and therefore has, at least in theory, a personality of its own independent of the office to which it is annexed, although this constitutes a necessary presupposition of it.
b) The endowment is the second element of the benefice, constituting its patrimonial basis, from which are derived the revenues owed to the holder of the office. Landed property was in ancient times considered almost the sole source of wealth, so that the benefice was almost always formed by a mass of immovable goods, usually lands, owned by the Church and enjoyed by the officeholder; even today such property constitutes the ordinary basis of the benefice's endowment, but the content of the latter has been so broadened as to make possible the existence of a benefice even without any immovable endowment, and without even a capital consolidated in income-bearing securities. It follows that the autonomy of a patrimony owned by the benefice is not always an essential requirement of the endowment; it is its normal condition, but it cannot be excluded that the endowment may also consist of services and rights in rem, and even of simple customary offerings recognized by the faithful to the beneficiary entity.
Indispensable, on the other hand, is that the endowment be suited to attaining its ends, that is, to maturing or producing the revenues necessary for the functioning of the office and for the maintenance of the officeholder. Endowment and revenues must therefore have the character of certainty and stability, as cann. 1409, 1415, 979 prescribe. Another characteristic of the endowment that determines its relation to the benefice is that the goods constituting the endowment are owned by the benefice itself: they are therefore truly and properly ecclesiastical goods, and as such are treated in canon law (cann. 1495-97).
Can. 1410 extends the concept and the content of the benefice's endowment in relation to the changed economic conditions of the modern economy and enumerates five categories of constituent elements of an endowment: each category can constitute a sufficient endowment, and all or several of them can be found united in the mass of goods of an endowment. Thus the following can constitute a benefice's endowment: 1) a mass of goods owned by the benefice itself, whether immovable or movable, corporeal or incorporeal, or rights in rem; 2) certain services owed by a moral person or a single family; 3) the secure voluntary offerings of the faithful that belong to the one invested with the benefice (sacramental tithes, first fruits, quests, regalia can fall within this category: can. 1502); 4) stole fees, within the limits of the diocesan taxation or of customs (cf. can. 1507); 5) choral distributions, excluding the third part of them, whenever all the revenues of the prebend consist solely of distributions.
By can. 1415, § 3 the local ordinary is moreover permitted to erect parishes even if it is not possible to constitute the congruous endowment, provided however that it is foreseen that what is necessary will not be lacking.
c) The revenues of the endowment are the third constitutive element of the benefice, together with the right of the holder of the office and of the benefice to enjoy them. The benefice's revenue is the juridical element which, placing itself between the office and the endowment, becomes objectively the connective tissue of the benefice and subjectively gives rise to the ius percipiendi, which brings into evidence the figure of the office or holder of the office as having a right to the revenues of the endowment. The revenue may be said to be the sum of the goods or values that are periodically produced by the endowment and can be consumed or disbursed without diminishing the patrimonial consistency of the benefice itself. In what is commonly called the revenue of the benefice, and which the beneficiary may freely enjoy, three shares or parts must in fact be distinguished: a first part which, since the endowment must not be depleted (can. 1476), is destined to its reintegration, since it cannot remain intact if the deficit in production is not made up; a second part is that destined to the congruous maintenance of the beneficiary, as the primary juridical obligation of the benefice toward the holder of the office; the third part is constituted by the net revenue that remains, and which represents the superfluous revenue of which can. 1473 speaks.
2. Division
Can. 1411 adopts, in comparison with the interminable divisions of the ancients, a clear and justified nomenclature:consistorial are called those benefices that are customarily conferred in consistory (v.) or by the S. Congregation Consistorial, non-consistorial all the others; they are secular or religious according as they belong exclusively to secular or religious ecclesiastics. The wording of the Code is uncertain; nevertheless three elements, whether singly or jointly, can identify the religious or secular nature of a benefice: the will of the founder to attribute it only to religious; the nature of the benefice's office, proper to religious, such as the office of abbot or regular canon; the fact that the benefice is united pleno iure or incorporated into a religious house (cann. 1425, 1442); they are called residential (or double) or non-residential (or simple) according as they impose or do not impose on the holder of the office the obligation of residence; they are removable (or temporary), or irremovable (or perpetual) according as the conferral is on a revocable or perpetual title (v. AMOVIBILITÀ);
curate benefices are those that have the care of souls annexed, non-curate the others.
In the past, when the distinction of proper and improper benefices existed, other kinds of benefices were listed which today can. 1412 recalls as having some similarity with benefices but which nevertheless are excluded from the category for lack of some essential element. The similar institutes are: parochial vicariates not erected in perpetuity; lay chaplaincies; life annuities or annuities at fixed maturity on the benefice revenues of another benefice; temporary commendams. It is not excluded that such institutes, provided they have the essential elements, can become true benefices.
Some benefices sometimes assume specific or customary names according to the offices to which they are annexed: thus they are called titles (cardinalitial), mensas (episcopal), prebends (canonical), congruas (parochial), etc.
3. The relations of the holder of the benefice
The personal or subjective relations of the beneficiary with the benefice are, in a general way, set forth by can. 1472: « The cleric invested with a benefice, once he has taken possession of it, enjoys all the spiritual and temporal rights and duties annexed ». In the first place the beneficiary, as holder of the sacred office, has the right and the duty to exercise all the attributions that are proper and specific to it (v. UFFICIO): such a relation is certainly the most important and has a public character, given the juridical publicness of the Church, in which all ecclesiastical offices participate; and the Code imposes penalties, even pecuniary ones, against the cleric who fails in his obligations of office (cf. cann. 1475, 2186, 2175).In relation to the endowment, the beneficiary is its direct administrator ex officio (can. 1476, § 1), both to enjoy its fruits (can. 1473) and to bear the burdens connected with its ordinary administration (can. 1477, § 1). The norms for ordinary and extraordinary administration are the same as those imposed by the Code, by the Holy See and by the local ordinaries for the administration of ecclesiastical property (cans. 1476-83).
In relation to the revenues, the beneficiary must first, as has been said above, restore the endowment for its liabilities. He freely enjoys, however, the portion of the revenues that is due to him as an acquired right for the fulfillment of his duties of office (can. 1473).
How such a right may be qualified is not settled among authors, also because of the different conceptions of the nature of the ecclesiastical benefice. According to the ancient and modern theory of the benefice, many have insisted on the figure of the usufructuary, formal or causal; others have had recourse even to the marital relations between spouses; however, albeit with the due reservations, it seems more exact to insist on the concept of a stipend owed ex lege to the ecclesiastical officeholder by the benefice. It must in fact be remembered that the life of the office is guaranteed, under the economic aspect, by the benefice, which has the function of a means: once the benefice is erected as a moral person, with the character of a foundation, it is itself the owner of an endowment, the permanent source of the revenue necessary for the functioning of the office; logically, therefore, the first one entitled to the revenues is not the beneficiary but the office, from which there derives to the officeholder the ius percipiendi reditus, et utendi.
The remaining portion of the revenues, or net income, the beneficiary must, according to can. 1473, distribute to the poor. It is debated among canonists how such an obligation may be qualified: whether of justice or of charity, but the former conception prevails.
4. Erection
The juridical personality of the ecclesiastical benefice proceeds solely from the act of will of the ecclesiastical legislator, even in the hypothesis that a private individual donates the goods of the endowment. The ecclesiastical benefice is a juridical person, that is, it is recognized as such in the canonical order only when it is erected or constituted (synonymous words) by the ecclesiastical authority (can. 1409). The essential conditions for the erection of an ecclesiastical benefice are:a) the competent ecclesiastical authority: the Roman Pontiff could constitute any benefice; in fact he has reserved to himself the erection of consistorial benefices (can. 1414, § 1), and of capitular dignities (can. 394 § 2); the other benefices can be erected by the local Ordinary (can. 1414 § 2). Cardinals can erect non-curial benefices in their own deaconry or title (can. 1414, § 4); b) the just cause, that is, the necessity or spiritual utility of the Church for the salvation of souls and for the increase of divine worship; c) the objective perpetuity of the ecclesiastical benefice itself in its elements: sacred office, endowment and revenues (can. 1409).
Other conditions recalled by the Code are: the existence of a place for the title of the benefice of a bishopric or of a chapter (can. 1426); having consulted those who have an interest (can. 1416); documenting the erection through a juridical instrument in the form of a decree with explicit mention of the place of the benefice, of the endowment, of the obligations and rights of the beneficiary (can. 1418). In the act of foundation, he who offers the goods for the endowment of the benefice may lay down conditions even contrary to the Code, provided they are honest and compatible with the nature of the ecclesiastical benefice, which, once admitted by the legitimate ecclesiastical authority, cannot be changed except in favor of the Church and with the consent of the founder (can. 1417; and v. PATRONATO, PATRONO).
5. Innovations
Can. 1440 reaffirms the ancient principle by which ecclesiastical benefices must be transmitted without any diminution, save in the cases admitted by law (c. 15, C. I, q. 3; c. 10, X, III, 5; c. 15, X, III, 39, etc.). Nevertheless the Code foresees the possibility of making modifications and establishes in cans. 1419-1430 the specific norms on the matter.For every innovation made by Ordinaries the Code requires as essential conditions: the just cause, that is, the utility or necessity of the Church; competence, since different innovations are reserved to the Holy See; a sufficient endowment for the new benefices eventually deriving from the innovation; the authentic document in the form of a decree attesting the modification; having heard the opinion of the cathedral Chapter and of the eventual interested parties; the consent of the patron is furthermore required where he exists.
Innovations consist in changes relating to the state of the ecclesiastical benefice, and this can occur through union, division and dismemberment, transfer of seat and change of kind.
a) There is union when from two ecclesiastical benefices one is formed: it is a unio aeque principalis if the benefices remain as they are in their juridical individuality and the rights and charges inherent in them are conferred on a single titular; it is called unio minus principalis, or by subjection, when the united benefices remain in existence but one or more are considered as accessories of a principal one; the unio estintiva causes the united benefices to cease to exist in order to create an entirely new one (cans. 1419, 1420). As a form of union, so-called incorporation should be remembered, by which an ecclesiastical benefice is united pleno iure or semipleno iure to a moral person, church, monastery, religious house (can. 1425). The incorporation pleno iure of a benefice with a monastery or religious house has, by the will of the legislator, the effect of making the benefice religious in the sense that the representative and administrator by right, and the titular of the office, must be a religious (cans. 1411 n. 2, 1442). Also the incorporation semipleno iure seu quoad temporalia tantum produces with regard to the benefice's endowment the same effect, while the titular of the office may be a secular cleric, who will receive sustenance from the revenues of the benefice's endowment in the agreed measure.
In recent times the Holy See proceeds to unions of benefices with religious houses with the formula « ad nutum S. Sedis ».
The expression seems to mean a union « pleno iure », with the sole reservation that the religious house can be deprived of the united parish by a simple administrative act, without the requirement of a process such as would ordinarily be required by canon law (A. Gutierrez, in Commentarium pro Religiosis, 26 [1947], p. 74). The Code, in fact, knows no other unions than those mentioned by can. 1425, the meaning of which is given by the ancient law (can. 6, n. 2). The question is nevertheless not entirely settled, as is evident from the position « Romana et aliarum administrationis » in the Archive of the S. Congregation of Religious N. 7941/29, section « Maschi ».
The competence for the union of ecclesiastical benefices is indicated by cans. 1422, 1423, 1424. Reserved to the Holy See are: the unio estintiva of any ecclesiastical benefice, except in the cases of can. 394, and of can. 1355, n. 31; the union of ecclesiastical benefices whose erection is reserved to it, or which are exempt from the Ordinaries; the unio aequae and minus principalis of a religious benefice with a secular one or vice versa; the union of a benefice of one diocese with a benefice of another diocese even if both are governed by the same Ordinary; the union of a parish with the episcopal or capitular mensa, with a monastery, religious house or other moral person, or with dignities or benefices of cathedral or collegiate churches (cans. 1422; 1423, § 2; 1424).
The local Ordinaries may unite parish churches (or ecclesiastical benefices) of any kind to one another, even with a non-curate benefice, provided however that in this second case, if it is a unio minus principalis, the non-curate benefice remains accessory (can. 1423, § 1); incorporations or unions pleno vel semipleno iure of parishes with moral persons are reserved to the Holy See, but Ordinaries may unite a parish (parochial benefice) with the cathedral or collegiate church that has its seat in the parochial territory, and in such a way that, once a suitable portion of the revenues has been given to the parish priest or the vicar, the remainder accrues to the advantage of the church itself (can. 1423, § 2); and in general the Ordinaries may carry out all unions of benefices, except those reserved to the Holy See, as is implicitly gathered from cann. 1422, 1423. Expressly permitted are the unions of simple ecclesiastical benefices with capitular menses (can. 394, § 3) and with seminaries (can. 1355, n. 3).
b) Division and dismemberment are two related modes of innovation: by the first, one ecclesiastical benefice is made into two; by dismemberment, part of the territory or of the benefice's endowment is detached in order to assign it to another ecclesiastical body. Reserved to the Holy See is the dismemberment of any religious benefice that is not a parish, and the detachment of the benefice's endowment not followed by the erection of a new ecclesiastical benefice (can. 1422). The local Ordinary may dismember non-religious benefices, diminish the endowment of an ecclesiastical benefice in order to erect another of the same kind, detach from an ecclesiastical benefice part of its goods and territory; moreover, Ordinaries may divide any parish, even a religious one, erecting a perpetual vicariate or a new parish; dismember the territory of any parish, divide non-curate ecclesiastical benefices (can. 1427).
c) Transfer of seat consists in moving the title of the ecclesiastical benefice from one place to another. Reserved to the Holy See is the transfer of consistorial benefices and of religious ones (can. 1422); Ordinaries may transfer the seat of a secular parochial benefice and that of any other secular benefice when the church in which they are founded is ruined and irreparable (can. 1426).
d) Conversion consists in the change of kind of benefices, for example from curate to non-curate, from religious to secular, or vice versa. It is reserved to the
Holy See to transform curate benefices into non-curate ones, and religious ones into secular or vice versa (cann. 1430, 1422); whereas Ordinaries may transform removable parishes into irremovable ones, not the contrary, and simple benefices into curate ones (can. 1423 § 1).
6. Suppression of benefices
It is the total extinction of the ecclesiastical benefice, not in the sense of cessation ab intrinseco, because the moral person is presumed perpetual, but in the sense of suppression of the ecclesiastical benefice, inasmuch as the competent authority revokes the personality it had recognized in it. Suppression is reserved to the Holy See (can. 1422). Once this has occurred, the endowment and the revenues change destination within the ambit of the Church and with respect for the purposes of the foundation; the sacred office (if it too is not suppressed) passes to other ecclesiastical persons, while the right of patronage is extinguished.7. As regards the conferral of ecclesiastical benefices, v. PROVVISTA CANONICA.
BIBL.: sources
III. ITALIAN LAW
Until 1867 the Italian State recognized the legal personality of benefices erected by ecclesiastical authority; but by Law No. 3848 of 15 Aug. 1867 it no longer recognized the legal personality of the benefices of collegiate chapters, of various benefices of cathedral chapters, and of all minor benefices without cure of souls, while continuing instead to recognize bishoprics, abbeys or prelatures nullius, parochial or coadjutorial benefices, those of palatine churches, and certain benefices of cathedral chapters. When this law was extended to Rome and the suburbicarian dioceses (by Law No. 1402 of 19 June 1873), almost all the categories of benefices that had been suppressed in the rest of Italy were nevertheless exempted there from non-recognition.
With the Concordat and the implementing laws (especially Law No. 848 of 27 May 1929, and Royal Decree No. 2262 of 2 Dec. 1929) the Italian State, while continuing to recognize the personality of benefices that already possessed it, admits the possibility of recognition, to be granted case by case by decree of the head of State, after obtaining the opinion of the Council of State, for any category of benefice: without such recognition the benefice (unless it existed and was already recognized before the Concordat) does not exist in the eyes of the State and of civil law. Likewise, any substantial change in the purpose, in the destination of the goods and in the modes of existence of a benefice already recognized civilly has no effect for civil purposes, unless a similar decree of recognition is obtained (doctrine is somewhat uncertain in clarifying when there is a "substantial change"), v. BENI ECCLESIASTICI; CONGRUA; ITALIA; PROVISTA. Pio Ciprotti