FABBRICI, FABBRICERIA. — In canon law, by "fabrica" is meant the church or sacred building in its material structure, including the temple and any annexed buildings necessary for worship. "Fabbriceria" is the body responsible for administering that part of a church's patrimony which is designated for the preservation and maintenance of the fabrica, as well as for expenses related to worship; it is also the entity constituted, in its material substratum, by a patrimonial mass whose revenues are allocated for a specific church to the aforementioned purposes.
Not every church has, nor must necessarily have, a fabbriceria, since the purposes in question can be met even without the existence of a distinct patrimony under its own administration, and with the revenues of the benefice or in other ways: offerings from the faithful, contributions from municipalities or other entities, etc. It is therefore not an institution deriving from canon law according to a typical model with constant norms of existence, but one that has developed in various places with forms and characteristics that are sometimes profoundly different.
The origins of the fabbriceria can be traced to the very ancient institution of the so-called *portio* or *quarta fabrica*, which appears in the financial organization of the Church from the 5th century onward, when the need was felt to regulate the disbursement of ecclesiastical revenues, which were entirely concentrated in the hands of the bishop in a single mass administered by him. By decrees of 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 allocated to the bishop (*quarta episcopi*), one to the clergy of the diocese (*quarta cleri*), one to the poor (*quarta panhermi*), and the last to the ecclesiastical fabrica (*quarta fabrica*), i.e., for the maintenance of the church and its accessories and for the conduct of worship.
The spread of the faith and the necessity of worship outside episcopal sees, and the consequent emergence of new churches in cities and countryside—even founded by private individuals—gradually led to a change in the ancient system of administration of ecclesiastical patrimony, with the elimination of the bishop’s central administration and the establishment of the new benefice system, based on the economic independence of individual churches. Thus, the *oma fabrica* was transferred to the beneficiary, inasmuch as the revenues of the ecclesiastical patrimony entrusted to the benefice were assigned indivisibly to its remuneration and to the purposes of maintenance and service of the church (*beneficia indistinctiva*). In many places, however, two separate and autonomous masses of property were established (*beneficia distinctiva*): one constituting the benefice patrimony, and the other, called *patrimonium fabricae*, intended to cover, with its revenues, the preservation and adornment of the church and the conduct of worship. This second autonomous patrimonial mass, often substantially funded by offerings from the faithful and sometimes by public entities, was thus subject, to a greater or lesser extent, to the interference of laypeople, who desired to have management or at least control, and who therefore intervened in various forms in its administration.
Administrations thus arose with generally predominant lay participation, which, recognized by the Council of Trent (sess. XXII, cap. 9, *de ref.*), assumed in the various regions not only different forms and names (in northern Italy *fabbricerie* and *fabbriche*, in Tuscany and Umbria *opere*, in Naples *cappelle*, in Sicily *maramme*, etc.), but often also substantial differences in juridical nature. Sometimes they constituted true moral entities or distinct juridical persons, holders of the patrimony, with an administrative council (*consilium fabricae*) with more or less broad lay participation, and sometimes entirely lay with the assistance of some cleric; other times, the fabbriceria was simply the collegial body competent for the administration of the patrimony destined for the needs of the fabrica, separate but always under the dominion of the individual parish or church.
Canon law, as noted, has not provided a typical scheme for this institution; indeed, since the participation of the lay element in ecclesiastical administration is, in itself, normally at odds with the general direction of the rest of canon law, and also in view of the abuses to which such participation gave rise through intrusions into matters purely of worship and liturgy, the Church has always sought to restrict lay action and bind it as closely as possible to the control and direction of ecclesiastical superiors. Canon law therefore limited itself to providing for the existence of the fabbrica council (*consilium fabricae*) as a tolerated eventuality, but always with a character of collaboration, and always leaving unimpaired in principle the original quality of ecclesiastical administrator belonging to the holder of the office (cf. can. 1182–84).
The legislation of various states, on the other hand, aimed to favor the tendency toward lay administration of the patrimonies destined for the maintenance of fabricae, and thus a juridical discipline of fabbricerie independent of canon law was established in individual legal systems, greatly expanding the concept and functions of these bodies. Significant in this regard were the French laws of the Napoleonic period, which made these institutions autonomous associations composed of laypeople to govern and administer matters pertaining to the patrimony of churches, with only the simple participation of rectors and limited interference from diocesan authority, under the supervision of civil authorities. Inspired more or less by these directives were, in Italy, the Napoleonic decree of 30 Nov. 1809 (for the Ligurian and Piedmontese provinces) and the law of 15 Sept. 1867 (for Lombardy-Venetia), which remained in force for more than a century; in Piedmont, however, after the Restoration of 1814, the French system being 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, profound differences persisted in their functioning and juridical nature, especially inasmuch as some fabbricerie existed as juridical persons, while others were merely internal institutions with administrative functions.
The Concordat of 1929 merely established, with a negative provision, that “the administrative councils, wherever they exist and whatever their denomination, even if composed entirely or predominantly of laypeople, shall not interfere in matters of worship, and the appointment of their 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
The executive decree of 2 December 1929 laid down the rules for the functioning of the institutions in question under the supervision and protection of the Minister of Justice (now the Minister of the Interior), to be exercised in agreement with the ecclesiastical authority. Lively disputes arose over the interpretation of these rules, especially concerning whether the legal personality of the *fabbricerie* that had previously possessed it should be considered as suppressed, the respective representation of the *fabbriceria* and the church, etc.; doubts resolved only in part by the subsequent Royal Decree of 26 September 1933, no. 2032. Setting aside here these overly technical issues, it is important to note how this latter measure helped to clarify the concept of *fabbriceria* for the purposes of the cited law and regulations, in the sense that only those councils that have a deliberative vote in the administration of property should be understood as such, and not the commissions that merely provide advisory activity to the ordinary diocesan, or the parish priest, or the rector as administrators of their respective churches. These administrations are therefore not subject to government supervision and protection, but are simply regulated by the norms of canon law.
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