FABRICA AND FABBRICERIA. - In canon law, "fabbrica" means the church or sacred building in its material structure, and thus the temple and any annexed buildings necessary for worship. "Fabbriceria" is the body that provides for the administration of that part of the patrimony of a church which is destined for the preservation and maintenance of the fabric, and for the expenses of worship, or even the entity constituted, in its material substratum, by a patrimonial mass whose revenues are destined for a determined church for the aforementioned purposes.
Not in every church is there, nor must there necessarily be, a fabbriceria, because the purposes in question can also be provided for without the existence of a distinct patrimony and its own administration, or with the revenues of the benefice or in another way: offerings of the faithful, contributions of municipalities or bodies, etc. It is therefore not a matter of an institution that derives from canon law according to a typical model constant norms of existence, but one that has come to be constituted in various places with forms and characters sometimes even profoundly different.
The genesis of the fabbriceria can be seen in the very ancient institution of the so-called "partio" or "quarta fabricae", which is encountered in the financial organization of the Church starting from the 5th century, when, feeling the necessity of regulating the disbursement of ecclesiastical revenues, completely concentrated in the hands of the bishop in a single mass administered by him, by dispositions of the popes Simplicius and Gelasius a uniform system of distribution was made obligatory. The revenue was divided into four parts (three, in Spain), of which one was destined for the bishop (quarta episcopi), one for the clergy of the diocese (quarta cleri), one for the poor (quarta pauperum) and the last for the ecclesiastical fabric (quarta fabricae), that is, for the maintenance of the church and its accessories and for the exercise of worship. The spread of the faith and the necessity of worship outside the episcopal sees, and the consequent arising of new churches in the cities and countryside, also through foundation by private individuals, determined gradually the change of the ancient system of administration of ecclesiastical patrimony, with the elimination of the central administration of the bishop and the constitution of the new benefice system, founded on the economic independence of the individual churches. Thus the "onus fabricae" came to be transferred onto the holder of the benefice, inasmuch as the revenues of the ecclesiastical patrimony entrusted to the benefice were assigned indivisibly to his remuneration and to the purposes of maintenance and officiation of the church (beneficium indistinctum). But in many places, instead, there came about the constitution of two separate and autonomous masses of goods (beneficium distinctum), one of which constituted the benefice patrimony, and the other, called patrimonium fabricae, destined to supply with its revenues the preservation and embellishment of the church and the exercise of worship. This second autonomous patrimonial mass, particularly nourished by the offerings of the faithful and often of public bodies, was therefore destined to undergo to a greater or lesser extent the interference of the laity, who desired to have its management or at least its control, and who accordingly intervened in various forms in its administration. Thus there arose administrations with a generally preponderant intervention of the lay element and which, recognized by the Council of Trent (cap. 9, sess. XXII de ref.), assumed in the various regions not only different form and denomination (in northern Italy fabbricerie and fabbriche, in Tuscany and Umbria opere, in the Neapolitan area cappelle, in Sicily maranane, etc.), but often also a substantial difference of juridical nature. Sometimes in fact they constituted various moral entities or distinct juridical persons, holders of the patrimony, and having a board of administration (consilium fabricae) with a more or less broad participation of laity, and sometimes only of laity with the assistance of some ecclesiastic; at other times, instead, the fabbriceria was simply the collegial body competent for the administration of the patrimony destined for the needs of the fabric, separated but always in the ownership of the individual parish or church.
Canon law, as has been mentioned, has not given a typical schema of this institution, and indeed, since in itself the fact of the normal participation of the lay element in ecclesiastical administration is at variance with the general direction of the rest of canonical discipline, and also in view of the abuses to which such participation gives rise with intrusions into matters merely of worship and liturgy, the Church always sought to restrict its action and bind it as much as possible to the control and direction of ecclesiastical superiors. Canon law therefore limited itself to foreseeing the existence of the council of the fabric (consilium fabricae) as a tolerated eventuality, but always with a character of collaboration and with the original quality of ecclesiastical administrator of the holder of the office remaining unimpaired in principle (cf. cann. 1182-84).
The legislation of the various States, on the other hand, aimed to favor the tendency toward lay administration of the patrimonies destined for the maintenance of fabrics, and thus there came to be constituted in the individual legal systems a juridical discipline of fabbricerie independent of canonical norms and which notably broadened its concept and functions. Particularly notable in this regard were the French laws of the Napoleonic period, which made of these institutions autonomous associations composed of laity to govern and administer whatever had to do with the patrimony of churches, with the simple participation of the rectors and limited interference of the diocesan authority, under the vigilance of the civil authorities. More or less inspired by such directives were, in Italy, the Napoleonic decree of 30 Nov. 1809 (for the Ligurian and Piedmontese provinces) and the Italic law of 15 Sept. 1807 (for the Lombardo-Veneto), which remained in force for more than a century; in Piedmont, on the other hand, after the restoration of 1812, with French law abolished, the fabbricerie ceased to be regulated by civil provisions, while in the other provinces they were governed by customs or ecclesiastical provisions, and in some places by particular statutes. Thus there remained very profound differences in functioning and juridical nature, especially insofar as certain fabbricerie existed as juridical persons, and others as simple internal institutions with administrative functions.
The Concordat of 1929 limited itself to establishing, with a negative provision, that "the boards of administration, wherever they exist and whatever their denomination, even if composed wholly or in the majority of laity, must not interfere in the services of worship and the appointment of the members shall be made in agreement with the ecclesiastical authority" (art. 29, lett. A). The implementing law of 27 May 1929, no. 848 reiterated the principle, and the regulament, executive regulation of 2 Dec. 1929 laid down the rules for the functioning of the institutions in question under the supervision and guardianship of the Minister of Justice (now of the Interior), to be exercised in agreement with the ecclesiastical authority. Lively questions arose over the interpretation of these rules, especially as to the point whether the legal personality of the factory councils previously endowed with it should be considered abolished by their effect, as to the respective representation of the factory council and of the church, etc.; doubts only partly resolved by the subsequent Royal Decree of 26 Sept. 1935, no. 2032. Leaving aside here such overly technical questions, it is important however to note how this last measure helped to clarify the concept of the factory council for the purposes of the cited law and regulation, in the sense that only those Councils which have a deliberative vote in the administration of property are to be understood as such, and not also the commissions which assist, with merely consultative activity, the diocesan ordinary, or the parish priest or the rector as administrators of their respective churches. These administrations are therefore not subject to governmental supervision and guardianship, but are simply governed by the norms of canon law.