CAPPELLANIA. — The c. consists in the obligation to provide for certain functions or acts of worship and in the corresponding right to receive the financial compensation established by the founder. The obligation almost always concerns the celebration of Masses in a particular church or at a particular altar and entails that the incumbent fulfill it personally or through others, according to the nature of the c. The compensation may be secured either by establishing an endowment, the revenues of which go to the chaplain, or by imposing a rent or annuity to be paid by individuals or juridical persons who have received property for this purpose. Frequently, c. denotes the autonomous and perpetual body of property intended to compensate for the obligation of sacred functions (T. Mauro, La personalità giuridica degli enti ecclesiastici, Città del Vaticano 1945, p. 190), just as before the CIC the body of property or rights constituting its endowment was called a benefice.
The c. is termed lay when, in its establishment, there is no authoritative intervention by the ecclesiastical superior empowered to create the juridical entity, or when it has not been assigned to an ecclesiastical juridical person (C. Berardi, Commentaria in ius ecclesiasticum universum, I, Milano 1846, no. 442); it is termed ecclesiastical, on the other hand, when it is erected by ecclesiastical authority or belongs to an ecclesiastical juridical person: in the latter case, its ecclesiastical character derives from the nature of the property, which has become ecclesiastical. A lay c. may be founded by anyone empowered to dispose of his own property, and this may be done either by an act inter vivos or by an act mortis causa; the property securing the incumbent’s compensation does not become ecclesiastical property; nevertheless, since several wills are involved, the Ordinary has the right of supervision (CIC, can. 1515, § 1). The incumbent, whose appointment is freely regulated by the founder, may be a cleric or a layperson, a man or a woman. In civil law it may take the form of a legacy, a foundation for the soul, or an autonomous entity (v. GIUDICE, Corso di diritto ecclesiastico, Milano 1939, pp. 113–14). An ecclesiastical c., if erected as a juridical entity by the competent ecclesiastical authority, is a true benefice and, as such, is subject to all the canonical prescriptions concerning benefices (CIC, can. 1412, no. 2°).
In Italy, the law of 15 Aug. 1867, no. 3348, suppressed all ecclesiastical and lay c.; the Civil Code of 1866 (arts. 833 and 1075) prohibited the establishment of lay c.; these provisions must be regarded as repealed by art. 29 of the Concordat of 1929.
#### CAPPELLANI SEGRETI DI SUA SANTITÀ: V. FAMIGLIA PONTIFICIA.