Alms

ALMS. - I. CONCEPT. - From the Greek ἐλεημοσάνη = compassion, it generally means any assistance given to one who is in need; it therefore embraces both material and spiritual aid. In more common usage it means material aid to one who needs it; and it is specifically this that is dealt with here.

II. OBLIGATION

Sacred Scripture and tradition clearly establish the obligation to help even materially those who are in need. The Old Testament contains it expressly, for example, in Deut. 15:11; Tob. 4:7-12; Ps. 40:1-4; it proclaims blessed the one who comes to the aid of the poor (cf., for example, Ps. 111:5-9; Prov. 14:21; 22:9); it affirms that almsgiving obtains all graces, not excluding the remission of sins (cf., for example, Tob. 4:7-9; 12:9; Sir. 3:33; 7:36; Dan. 4:24); it is preferable to fasts and even to sacrifices themselves (cf., for example, Is. 1:11-17; 58:5-7). Indeed the Old Testament also establishes certain concrete forms of aid to the poor (cf., for example, Lev. 19:9 ff.; 23:22; Deut. 14:28; 24:20).

The Gospel returns to these concepts, not only with its precept of actively loving one's neighbor, but also with explicit indications (cf. the parable of the rich man and the poor Lazarus, Lk. 16:19-31, of the unfaithful steward, Lk. 16:1-13; the final judgment, Mt. 25:41-46), emphasizing that aid must be given to all, even to foreigners and enemies (parable of the good Samaritan, Lk. 10:30-37) and without ostentation (Mt. 6:2-19). Above all Jesus Christ gave to such material aid a new powerful impulse, declaring that he considers as done to himself all that is done even to the least of his brothers (Mt. 25:40) and proposing the surrender of all goods to the poor as one of the preconditions of perfection (Lk. 18:18-23).

In line with the Gospel is the apostolic preaching (cf., for example, I Tim. 6:17-19; Jas. 2:13; I Jn. 3:17) and all the preaching of the Fathers and the pontiffs. For the former see, for example, Hermas, 2, 2; Tertullian, Apolog., 39: PL 1, 470-78; St. Cyprian, De opere et eleemosynis, 1, 30-34; PL 4, 602-22; St. Augustine, Serm., 36, 41, 45, 60, 61, 85, 86: PL 38, 215-21; 217-51; 251-54; 402-409; 409-14; 520-23; 523-30; St. Gregory the Great, Mor., 21, 16-17: PL 76, 204-205; Clement of Alexandria, Paedag., 3, 6: PG 8, 603-607; Stromata, 2, 18: PG 8, 1015-39; St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., 15, 26: PG 33, 907; St. Gregory of Nazianzus, De pauperum amore: PG 35, 858-910. For the Pontiffs see above all the encyclicals Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII and Quadragesimo anno of Pius XI.

The reflection of theologians has further deepened the obligation of almsgiving, regarding its motive and its extent: some hold that it is only a duty of charity (cf., for example, Soto, De iustitia et iure, I, V, q. 3, a. 4; L. Lessius, De iustitia et iure ceterisque virtutibus cardinalibus, 2, 12, 12; 16, 1; and among recent authors M. Zara, El motivo de la limosna, in Fomento social, 3 [1948], pp. 421-26); others instead speak of a social justice (cf., for example, Cajetan, De eleemosynae praecepto; and among modern authors C. Damen, De recto usu bonorum superfluorum, in Miscellanea Vermeersch, I, Rome 1935, pp. 63-79). Some even go so far as commutative justice, at least for superfluous goods (for example, A. Horváth, Eigentumsrecht nach dem hl. Thomas von Aquin, Graz 1929).

The extent of the duty theologians make depend on the means of the one who must assist and on the degree of necessity of the one who must be assisted. They usually distinguish three degrees of necessity: common, grave, extreme (v. BENI SUPERFLUI). To these they make correspond three forms of superfluous: the superfluous for the individual, that is, what is not strictly necessary to live; the superfluous for the person, that is, what is not indispensable for a certain development of one's faculties; the superfluous for one's state, that is, what is not necessary for a complete development of one's life according to the requirements of one's state and one's person. According to some one is bound to give only in case of extreme necessity; according to others also in case of grave necessity (for example, L. Lessius, De iustitia et iure, etc., 2, 12, 12); according to others finally also in common necessity (for example, Fr. Suárez, De charitate, 7). As for the motive of the duty, it seems one must say that it arises from different sources: a) from the duty of actively loving one's neighbor as oneself; b) from the destination of things to the advantage of all humanity; c) from the duty of every member of society to contribute to the common good according to his possibilities. Charity indeed imposes the sharing with others of what we have, thus establishing a certain identity of conditions; the universal destination of goods brings it about that true and proper superfluous must be devoted to the advantage of others; belonging to society finally imposes on each one the duty of placing at its disposal, according to his possibilities, what is indispensable for the common good. It is obvious that the different motives can converge on the same object, which in certain cases must be given both for the motive of charity, and for the universal destination of goods, and for social solidarity.

As for the measure of the assistance to be given and the gravity of the duty, one should not insist so much on the distinctions between the different degrees of necessity and of superfluous, as rather on the general attitude of the giver. More than precisely determining his superfluous and the degree of necessity of the poor to be assisted, the one who has should remember that he has before him a brother and not a stranger, and what he would wish to be done to himself if he found himself in the condition of the poor man he is helping.

Finally, as for the manner of conveying material assistance, the forms can be indefinitely varied. Those should be preferred which least favor improvidence and laziness, which most put the assisted in a position to manage on their own thereafter, which least humiliate, etc. Only the search for ever more prudent and more delicate forms will be able to remove from almsgiving that unpleasant aspect that unfortunately many find in it, and will make it possible to overcome many of the difficulties habitually raised against it.

Giovanni Battista Guzzetti

III. ALMS IN CANON LAW

The practice of almsgiving played a very large part in the life of the Church from its earliest times; and assistance to the poor and the distribution of alms constituted one of the chief and specific functions of specially appointed ministers: the deacons. Later there was introduced, and - particularly from about the 9th century onward - there spread in many regions the custom of granting the redemption of sins by means of alms or of commuting certain canonical penances into alms; sometimes even with fixed-rate assessments. But because of the frequent abuses to which this practice gave rise, there was no lack, on the part of synods and councils, of severe prohibitions and restrictions in this regard.

Once the abuses were removed, the practice of almsgiving remained in the discipline of the Church as a satisfactory penance; and even at present the CIC lists almsgiving among the principal penances: can. 2313 § 1: Praecipuae poenitentiae sunt praecepta... 4 Erogandi eleemosynas in pios usus.

Almsgiving also constitutes one of the sources of ecclesiastical patrimony. It was indeed the first, since in the apostolic period the needs of the Church and of its ministers were met essentially by the voluntary oblations of the faithful, whether through offerings in kind or through monetary contributions. Although later, in the course of the centuries, other sources of patrimonial revenue under public and private law were added to secure for the Church the means for attaining its ends, free oblations have always retained an important, and sometimes preeminent, part in the economy of the Church itself. Of such oblations or offerings - which in a broad sense would include all free and spontaneous bestowals of things not owed, for a supernatural purpose, and therefore also all transactions of a gratuitous nature known as ad causas pias, whether by act inter vivos (donation) or mortis causa (testament) - those particularly regulated by canon law are the offerings or alms (oblations in the stricter sense), consisting of manual donations made for the benefit of ecclesiastical persons or entities, or for purposes of worship or charity, but which do not give rise to a permanent juridical entity (institution, foundation) and where the relationship between the offerer and the acceptor, exhausted in the delivery of the thing offered, does not give rise to subsequent juridical effects. As a general rule the CIC, with the exception of religious for whom special norms are laid down, establishes the principle that every private person, cleric or layman, is forbidden to beg or to make collections (stipem cogere) for any ecclesiastical or pious institute or purpose without the apostolic beneplacitum, or without the written permission of one's own Ordinary and of the local Ordinary (can. 1503). It is held, however, that local customs can legitimize other quests and collections, in churches or from house to house, on the occasion of special circumstances, or for given pious works (Propagation of the Faith, Holy Childhood, etc.).

Pious associations too cannot collect alms if their respective statutes do not permit it and there is no express authorization of the Ordinary (can. 691). Parish priests, on the other hand, are free to collect alms, within the limits of their parish, to meet the needs of the works entrusted to them, subject to the obligation of administering and distributing those alms according to the will of the offerers (can. 415 § 2 n. 5; 630 § 4). The administration of oblations is subject to the control of the local Ordinary, whether they are oblations in favor of a parish, missions or other churches (can. 1182), or in favor of pious associations (can. 691).

As for religious, only the mendicant Orders (regulares, qui ex instituto mendicantes vocantur; can. 621 § 1; that is to say, mendicants in the strict sense, such as the Friars Minor and the Capuchins), have the right to beg, that is, to collect alms in the territory of the diocese where their house is situated. For this purpose the license of their respective religious superiors is sufficient. Outside the diocese, that of the local Ordinary is also required (can. 621).

Non-mendicant religious, on the other hand, cannot collect alms without a special privilege of the Holy See, if they are religious of pontifical right; for religious of diocesan right, the written permission of the local Ordinary of the place where their house is situated, and of that of the place where they intend to beg, is required instead (can. 622). Special instructions of the Holy See (decree De eleemosynis, 21 June 1908; Singulari quidem, 27 March 1896) to which the CIC refers (cann. 623-24), rigorously regulate the procedures to be observed for the quests of religious; among others, notable is the one by which they are ordinarily forbidden to beg individually; the exceptions, permitted for male religious of the best repute, are not allowed for women religious.

A particular kind of alms is that which is given for the celebration or application of Masses. In technical language it is also designated by the term stipendium, which the code itself adopts as equivalent to that of alms (v. Book III, Part I, tit. III, a IV, De Missarum eleemosynis seu stipendiis). This terminology, which attaches to the Latin custom of calling stipendium what was given to every soldier for his maintenance (and so also St. Paul in the celebrated passage: quis militat suis stipendiis unquam?... Nescitis quoniam qui in sacrario operantur, quae de sacrario sunt, edunt: et qui altari deserviunt cum altari participant? Ita et Dominus ordinavit iis, qui Evangelium annuntiant, de Evangelio vivere: I Cor., 9, 7-14), whence then the designation of stipend for all that the ministers of the altar might receive for their maintenance, already in a certain way serves to bring out the justifying element of the payment in question. An element that is identified with the purpose of procuring for the celebrant a means of sustenance, excluding, as is moreover generally the case for all payments given to a priest on the occasion of acts of his spiritual ministry (v. STOLE, RIGHTS of), any concept of payment of a price and still less of a monetary equivalent of the sacrifice celebrated or applied.

Mass stipends originated from the offerings that, from the earliest origins, the faithful made for the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and from which whatever remained over, after setting aside the bread and wine necessary for the Eucharistic banquet, was destined for the nourishment of the poor and for the maintenance of the clergy. From this form of generic oblation there later derived - it is uncertain whether only at the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th or already earlier - the form of the specific oblation for the Mass, so that it might be celebrated according to the desires and applications wanted by the offerers. With the spread of the practice of the Mass stipend, theological controversies on the subject developed in parallel; in these, while the doctrine on the fruit and the application of the Eucharistic Sacrifice was being determined, there was discussion of the nature and lawfulness of the Mass stipend, and in particular of the capital problem whether the matter of simony should not be seen in it. This point was, among others, extensively examined by St. Thomas, who, having posed the question of the lawfulness of the monetary payment pro Sacramentis, answered quod Sacerdos non accipit pecuniam quasi pretium Consecrationis Eucharistiae aut Missae decantandae (hac enim esset simoniacum), sed quasi stipendium suae sustentationis (Sum. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. C. art. 2).

With its spread, especially from the 12th century onward, the practice of the stipend for Masses was not without giving rise, through greed for gain and the corruption of the times, to notable abuses. Such was the generalizing of the custom of celebrating a single Mass to satisfy several stipends at once; such was the celebration of the so-called dry Masses, that is, abbreviated Masses, without Consecration and Communion and lacking many prayers, by which people sought to satisfy the various obligations they had assumed; the collection of an enormous number of Masses, etc. Abuses that lent themselves extensively to attacks by the medieval heresiarchs and above all especially by the Englishman G. Wycliffe, but which also provoked the repeated energetic interventions of the popes (Innocent III, c. 3, X, III, 41; Honorius III, c. 12 ibid.) and of the councils (Paris 1215; Ravenna 1311; Toledo 1325), until the ecumenical Council of Constance (1414-18), by condemning the Wycliffite heresy with the decree Fidem catholicam, later confirmed by Martin V, consolidated the institution of the stipend for the Mass in the canonical order. With the Council of Trent (sess. XXV, Decr. de observandis et evitandis in celebratione Missae) and the subsequent declarations of the Congregation of the Council and of the Pontiffs (in particular one may recall the constitution Auctorem fidei, of Pius VI, 28 Aug. 1794, against the errors of the Synod of Pistoia, which among other things had contested the validity of the special applications of the Mass and the possibility of enjoying the fruit of the Mass by paying a stipend), the discipline in the matter came to be fully elaborated, and it found its definitive arrangement at last in the CIC (cann. 824-24).

The fundamental norms established by canon law with regard to stipends for Masses, whether it be a question of the so-called manual stipends (that is, those paid from time to time by the faithful upon the request for the celebration or application of Masses), or of founded stipends (that is, those received from the revenues of foundations), or finally of the intermediate category of stipends ad instar manualium (those, that is, of founded Masses that can no longer be applied as established by the tables of foundation, and per-

therefore they must be paid to other priests so that they may satisfy them), are the following. In principle a priest is forbidden to receive (except for the three Christmas Masses) a stipend for more than one Mass a day, even if he celebrates several times; moreover, to eliminate abuses it is forbidden: 1) to apply the Mass according to a request for future application (i.e. of application for stipends in spe), and to receive an offering subsequently for a Mass previously applied; 2) to accept the offering for a Mass that must be celebrated or applied under another title (e.g., pro populo); 3) to accept a double offering for the celebration and the application of the same Mass, unless it is certain that an offering was given for the celebration alone without application.

The amount of the offering is established by decree of the Ordinary, and in default thereof by the custom of the diocese; the priest may however receive either a larger one voluntarily offered to him, or a smaller one if there is no prohibition by the Ordinary. Other detailed norms regulate the procedures for the fulfillment of Mass obligations arising from the payment and acceptance of offerings, the supervision of which is entrusted to the local Ordinary, and, for the churches of religious, to their respective superiors. Finally, every kind of commerce or negotiation in offerings for Masses is severely banned, and canonical sanctions are provided for anyone who contravenes this prohibition, or who does not celebrate or apply the Masses for which he has received the offering, however small (cann. 2324, 827, 848).

Much has been discussed concerning the juridical nature of the relationship that, following the payment of the stipend for Masses, comes to be established between the offerer and the accepting priest, and in particular whether it is an obligatory relationship, by virtue of which fulfillment may require, against possible non-fulfillment, the protection of the law. In this regard a distinction has been drawn between the case in which the one who pays the offering requests only the application of the special fruit and of the Holy Sacrifice (v. MESSA) according to his intentions, and the case in which the offerer requests the celebration, with or without application. In the first case it is held that juridically no obligatory relationship arises, because the facere requested (the application) is not verifiable, being an interior and secret act, and therefore juridically unenforceable. Thus the oblation is reduced to a simple manual donation from which no action for fulfillment arises. In the second case, however, in which the celebration is requested, since the object of the relationship is the labor extrinsecus, that is, the external activity that the priest must carry out in the celebration, a bilateral transaction may be recognized between the offerer and the celebrant. It always remains uncertain, however, what contract may be spoken of here. Some authors speak of a contract of hire of services, or of a contract da ut facias, analogously to what the CIC expressly declares for pious foundations (can. 1514 § 2); others hold that it is a contract of mandate; still others (with an opinion that seems preferable) that it is a modal donation. Recent doctrines tend instead to bring the relationship under the figure (analogous to that of stole fees) of the ecclesiastical tribute or tax, but to this it may be objected that no public-law element is seen in the relationship between the offerer and the celebrant that would justify the nature of a tax.

In the Italian positive legal order, setting aside whatever may fall within the general discipline of public assistance and charity activity (v. ISTITUZIONI ED OPERE DI BENEFICENZA), or may relate to phenomena considered by repressive norms of social interest (v. MENDICITA), and thus limiting ourselves to considering the offering insofar as it is an activity of religious content, it is worth recalling art. 2 of the Concordat, under which the ecclesiastical authorities may, without any interference by the civil authorities, carry out collections inside and at the entrance of churches as well as in buildings owned by them. It should be noted, however, that an identical concession is also granted to the ministers of non-Catholic cults by R. D. 28 Feb. 1930, no. 280, for collections carried out inside and at the entrance of buildings destined for their own worship. - See pl. XV.

Arnaldo Bertola