RES. - I. GENERAL NOTIONS. - In legal language, a "thing" is any portion of the external world suitable for use in satisfying human needs; a concept which, as can be seen, tends to be identified with that of an economic good.
Excluded from the notion of a thing, however, are, besides the human body and its parts, all those immaterial entities that are not susceptible of that exclusive dominion which is protected by the action of vindication (immaterial goods).
Legally, things are distinguished into fungible and non-fungible, according to whether they are such as can be substituted one for another, so as to be indicated only by sums or quantities of a given category, or whether they are considered in their individuality; into divisible and indivisible, according to whether they are susceptible of division or not, with the caveat that not only those things are considered indivisible for which division would entail material destruction, but also those in which the parts resulting from division do not preserve, in proportion, the value of the whole thing (thus a diamond is indivisible whose value consists in a particular size); into consumable things, whose use consists in destroying them (foodstuffs) or in disposing of them (money), and non-consumable things, which can offer more than once to the person to whom they belong the utility of which they are capable; into simple things, which constitute by nature a single whole, and composite things, which consist of several parts, of the same or of different materials, put together by man to serve a certain purpose; into fruitful and unfruitful, according to whether, remaining intact and preserving their purpose, they yield or do not yield, more or less periodically, a certain product capable of becoming an autonomous thing; into movable and immovable, according to whether they can or cannot be transported from one place to another without prejudice to their material integrity (with regard to this last classification, it must be remembered that things which, although movable, are traditionally called, in relation to use, immovable by destination and which the Italian Civil Code, art. 817, now calls appurtenances).
Bibliography2 works
Rodolfo Danieli
II. CANON LAW
In canon law the term "thing" (res) is also used in a more general sense, to indicate everything that is not a person; in this sense Book III of the CIC, in the title de rebus, includes the means for attaining the end of the Church, distinguishing them into spiritual things, temporal things and mixed things (can. 726). According to this terminology, spiritual things are the sacraments (v.), the sacramentals (v.), ecclesiastical offices (v.); temporal things are those that have an economic value; mixed things are those that have an economic value but at the same time have an element of spirituality, which can derive above all from the conferral of a sacramental (for example, the sacred things, of which we shall speak shortly).
But apart from this already broad notion of things, and limiting ourselves here to things having economic value alone, canon law, besides the general distinctions already seen above (cf. can. 1497 § 1 and others, for the distinction between divisible and indivisible things; can. 1543, for the distinction between fungible and non-fungible things, etc.), has others of its own particular kind. Thus ecclesiastical goods are distinguished, that is, those things or those patrimonial rights that belong to an ecclesiastical juridical person (v.), from non-ecclesiastical goods (can. 1497 § 1; v. BENI TEMPORALI ECCLESIASTICI); precious things from non-precious things (can. 1497 § 2); sacred things from non-sacred things (can. 1497 § 2).
Precious things are subject to certain special norms regarding prescription (can. 1511 § 1), administration (can. 1522 n. 2), alienation and other acts exceeding ordinary administration (cann. 1532 § 1 n. 1 and 1533). Pius Ciprotti
Sacred things are those that, through blessing or consecration, have been destined to serve immediately and exclusively for worship. These, in turn, are further subdivided into consecrated things, which are destined for divine worship through the solemn form of consecration (for example, cathedral churches, the fixed altar stone: cf. cann. 1137, 1148, 1150, 1497 § 2, 1539 § 1, 1199, 1200, 1169 §§ 2 and 5, 1167, 1155, 1156, 239 § 1 n. 20, 323 § 2, 294 § 2) and blessed things, which are destined for divine worship through the less solemn rite of blessing (for example, bells, cemeteries: cf. cann. 1156-59, 1169 § 5, 239 § 1 n. 20, 1165 §§ 1, 2 and 4, 1196, 1304, 1279 § 4).
In canon law, sacred things are not considered as absolutely extra commercium as in Roman law, inasmuch as it is not the thing in itself that is considered absolutely non-commercial, but the sacred character inherent in it, that is, its destination to spiritual use. In
In other words, sacred things, just as they can form the object of private rights, being owned either by ecclesiastical bodies or by private individuals (cf. can. 1510), can likewise, in certain determined cases and subject to the prescribed formalities, be exchanged, donated, alienated; but in an act for valuable consideration having a sacred thing as its object, it is not lawful to include in its value, and therefore in the determination of the price, the character of consecrated or blessed, under penalty of committing the sin of simony (can. 1539 § 1); likewise prescription (v.) does not cause a thing to lose its sacred character. It goes without saying, however, that this exceptional juridical situation due to such a character no longer has any reason to exist, and the norms of common law apply whenever the efficacy of the consecration or blessing ceases, as in the case of the so-called exsecratio ecclesiae which follows the destruction of the greater part of a church, or in the case of the so-called decretum de profanando (or exsecratio) issued by ecclesiastical authority (can. 1187).
See also CHURCH; CEMETERY.
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III. ITALIAN LAW
For ecclesiastical property in general v. BENI ECCLESIASTICI.
Regarding the legal regime of sacred things (c.) in Italian state law, numerous questions have been raised and theses maintained.
The principal point in dispute is that relating to the merchantability or non-merchantability of churches.
Before the Concordat, alongside the two radical theses according to which churches, and in general sacred things, would either be non-merchantable in the ancient sense of Roman law, or would be merchantable without any consideration of the purpose of worship and the public use to which they are destined, there were other opinions; one, according to which in the present matter canon law was to be considered in force even for the State; another, according to which churches constituted a demesne of ecclesiastical institutes analogous to that of the provinces and municipalities; another still, according to which churches are withdrawn from commerce insofar as there exists a servitude of public use in favor of the faithful over buildings destined for worship; and finally another, according to which in our law no consideration is given to the sacred character acquired after the consecration or blessing of buildings or objects of worship, but regard is had solely to the effective and actual destination of a building or object to public worship; so that the principles valid for immovables and things destined for public service would be applicable to them, within whose categories they would fall.
In the silence of the Lateran Concordat, the aforementioned question is still open. Moreover, from articles 9 and 10 of the Concordat it follows that sacred buildings are in a condition different from other buildings and that therefore the same rules valid for buildings of private use are not applicable to them.
On the basis of these norms Del Giudice adhered to the thesis that considers churches as demesnial property of ecclesiastical institutes; Jemolo shared, though not without limitations and reservations, the opinion according to which, by reason of their destination to public worship, sacred buildings and objects would fall within the category of things directly destined for public service, and therefore should be considered unseizable, unpignorable and inalienable, insofar as in the conflict between the interest of worship, or rather between the interest of the population in having worship and the interest of the creditor of the entity, or of the person to whom the things belong, in proceeding by way of execution upon them to satisfy their claims, the second interest must yield before the first; Falco held that churches must be recognized as non-merchantable in the terms in which this results from canon law, that is, in the limited sense that things destined for worship can indeed form the object of legal relations of private law, but cannot be the object of acts that would withdraw them from the use of worship to which they are destined: thus they cannot be subjected to forced execution, and furthermore alienation or prescription does not cause them to lose their destination to spiritual use.
Subsequent to the Concordat, article 22 of the book on property of the Civil Code (now article 831 of the Civil Code), after establishing in a general way that the property of ecclesiastical entities is subject to the norms of the Civil Code, insofar as special laws concerning them do not provide otherwise, provides, however, limited to buildings destined for the public exercise of Catholic worship, that they, even when belonging to private individuals, cannot be withdrawn from their destination even by effect of alienation, until such destination itself has ceased in conformity with the laws concerning them (that is, canon law).
For other provisions of lesser importance on buildings of worship, cf. article 879 of the Civil Code; article 15 of the lieutenant-general decree of 26 July 1917, no. 1513; articles 98, 171, 192 of the consolidated text of 18 June 1931, no. 773; article 12 of the royal decree of 22 Nov. 1937, no. 2105; article 4 of the law of 8 May 1940, no. 408; article 171 of the royal decree of 6 May 1940, no. 635; article 27 of the law of 26 Oct. 1940, no. 1543, subsequently amended and supplemented several times (most recently by legislative decree of 29 May 1947, no. 649); and furthermore v. CIMITERO.
Other provisions of Italian law concern sacred things in general, for which, for example, absolute unpignorability is established (article 514, no. 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure), and various forms of protection (cf. article 404 of the Penal Code; articles 61 and 295 of the law of war, royal decree of 8 July 1938, no. 1415 annex A; article 8 of the law of 1 June 1939, no. 1089; articles 179 and 187 of the Military Penal Code of War).