FONDO PER IL CULTO AND FONDO DI RELIGIONE E DI BENEFICENZA PER LA CITTÀ DI ROMA. — The expression has precedents in Austrian legislation; in Austria, in fact, there was a fondo di religione that provided its resources for the benefit of religion and worship. In Italy, and initially in the Kingdom of Sardinia, with the new separatist ecclesiastical policy begun with the suppression of the Society of Jesus and the Ladies of the Sacred Heart in 1848, and with the abolition of tithes to the clergy in Sardinia in 1851, no worship-related tasks were created or entrusted to administrations separate from the State’s financial administrations; rather, the property of the Society of Jesus was given to the State. In other European countries too, and at different times, former ecclesiastical property was taken over by the State. In 1855, however, still in the Sardinian Kingdom, as the separatist conception was refined in its formal aspect, and certain religious orders, the Chapters of certain collegiate churches, and certain simple benefices were suppressed, an ecclesiastical fund was first established, and the property of the suppressed bodies was assigned to it for administration. With the progressive unification
FONDO PER IL CULTO AND FONDO DI RELIGIONE
of the Kingdom of Italy and the extension of the suppressive laws to the new provinces (Umbria, the Marches, and the Neapolitan provinces), the ecclesiastical fund came into possession of a considerable income derived largely from real property, except in Sicily, where the ecclesiastical bodies were not suppressed but were obliged to lease their rural property on emphyteutic tenure. The ecclesiastical fund had an existence distinct and independent from the State finances: it consisted of a body of assets and was administered by an organ created by the State. In 1862 the Fund’s immovable property was transferred to the State demesne, and in compensation for the transfer the government registered in favor of the Fund a five-percent annuity on the public debt, equal to the income from the property transferred to the demesne. The Fund was subsequently suppressed by the law of 7 July 1866 and replaced by the Fondo per il culto, which collected the income deriving from the suppressions carried out throughout the Kingdom by that law and by the subsequent laws of 15 August 1867 and 19 June 1873, with the exception of the ecclesiastical property suppressed in the city of Rome, for which the Fondo di religione e beneficenza della città di Roma was established.
The task of the Fondo per il culto was to meet all the obligations, including those toward third parties, previously borne by the suppressed bodies, whose property it succeeded to; those generally charged to the State budget for the expenses of Catholic worship; and, furthermore, the task—which constitutes its most important function—of settling and paying the supplements to the congrua of the clergy (v. CONDITA). The tasks involved in settling the rights of third parties over the assets of the suppressed bodies, the rights of reclamation, release, and reversion, as well as those subsequently added for settling the allowances owed to municipalities from the income derived from suppressed religious houses, have by now been exhausted; the transfers in favor of municipalities from the income of the suppressed ricettizie churches and local curacies have also nearly all been completed. By contrast, the functions of the Fondo per il culto with regard to the settlement of congrue and other allowances to the clergy have increased.
This body of property possessed its own patrimonial autonomy, because it was not merged with the property of the State and was assigned by law a specific and special purpose. The administrative body was created and organized by the State. Both the ecclesiastical fund and the Fondo per il culto had a state organ with functional autonomy placed in charge of administering the body. This functional autonomy, however, gradually diminished thereafter, and the general directorate of the Fondo per il culto came to be entirely assimilated to the other State administrations, while the autonomy of the administered property continued always to be respected; in legal acts and proceedings it was represented by its own director general. The law of 14 April 1927 no. 514 reaffirmed the inviolability of the property and changed its designation to General Administration, in order to emphasize its character as a state administration, but one existing in its own right. Finally, following the Lateran Concordat of 1929, by the law of 27 May 1929 no. 848, the administration of the Fondo per il culto and of the other assets joined to it was concentrated in the Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs, constituting a general directorate of that Ministry, and the minister became its head and representative. The service has now passed from the Ministry of Justice to that of the Interior. This patrimonial fund, deriving from the suppressed ecclesiastical bodies, retains its autonomy and its legal identity, but is thus administered no longer by a state organ existing in its own right, but by an organ of the central authority. Consequently, it cannot be maintained that Italy has a budget for religious worship, even though, in substance, the budget of the Fondo per il culto is supplemented to a considerable extent by financial resources from the State.
The Fondo per il culto has its own board of administration, composed of ten members, five of whom are designated by the ecclesiastical authority, in accordance with the Lateran Concordat. It has consultative functions, with a non-binding opinion, in certain matters, and deliberative functions regarding appeals concerning the settlement of supplements to the congrua and other allowances owed to the clergy. This board is also common to other assets that are now administered by the same general directorate, except for the Fondo di religione e di beneficenza per la città di Roma, which has its own board of administration.
It should not be thought that, when the former ecclesiastical immovable property was transferred to the demesne, the Fondo per il culto received in exchange an income realistically corresponding to II. In fact, the conversion of immovable property into public annuities was carried out not on the basis of the actual income from the properties or the price for which they were sold, but on the basis of the income previously declared by the bodies before the suppression for the purposes of the mortmain tax. The demesne also levied an extraordinary tax of thirty percent on the former ecclesiastical property, and consequently the Fondo per il culto received only seventy percent of that income. The State annuity was subsequently converted from the original five percent to 3.50 percent. The law of 7 July 1866, no. 3036 assigned to the municipalities of the Kingdom one quarter of the income of the corporations suppressed within the territory of each municipality, and the other three quarters to the State. An annual income of more than one hundred thousand lire was also transferred in favor of the National Provident Fund for Invalidity and Old Age; another hundred thousand lire was transferred in favor of third parties on account of recognized rights of reversion over ecclesiastical property. Overall, as a result of these reductions and other losses sustained, the institution’s patrimonial income was reduced to slightly more than 12 million lire annually, as shown by the 1921–22 budget. Today, in the 1950–51 budget, it amounts to 20,750,000 lire.
The non-income-producing property of the Fondo per il culto includes the churches and rectories formerly belonging to the suppressed ecclesiastical bodies, except those that are parish churches and are considered to belong to the parish body to which they are attached. There are approximately three thousand throughout the territory of the State. If they are and remain open for worship, the Fondo per il culto must bear the expenses of their services. Under the Concordat, these churches may request recognition of juridical personality with the assignment of an endowment.
The ordinary revenues of the Fondo per il culto are supplemented by a contribution charged to the State corresponding to the amount of the abolished quota di concorso (a tax that the Fondo per il culto had previously received from all the ecclesiastical juridical entities retained for the purpose of equalizing the different incomes of those entities). Since its revenues are insufficient to pay the supplements to the congrua due to parish priests and the mensa allowances due to bishops, together with the increased allowances granted by subsequent measures, all these increased allowances are charged to the State, as are likewise the allowances due to the clergy of the former Austrian provinces. But it could probably constitute an administrative simplification to arrange between the Italian Government and the Holy See for the payment, once and for all, of a sum in favor of all the Italian clergy receiving a congrua; in this way, insofar as concerns the settlement of the supplements to the congrua due to the clergy, this branch of the administration could be abolished.
As a result of the Lateran Concordat, the administration of the institution has now expanded, since it manages, with separate budgets, four estates: the one originally belonging to the Fondo per il culto; that of the Fondo di beneficenza e religione della città di Roma; that of the former general Economati of vacant benefices, combined with that of the Fondi di religione of the former Austrian provinces.
From the expenditure estimates of the Ministry of the Interior for the 1950–51 financial year (bills and reports 1948–50 to the Senate of the Republic, no. 852, Appendix no. 1, p. 59 ff.: Expenditure Estimates of the Administration of the Fondo per il culto; p. 77: Expenditure Estimates of the Fondo di beneficenza e di religione nella città di Roma; p. 93: Expenditure Estimates of the Estates of
FONDO PER IL CULTO - FONSEGRIVE LESPINASSE GEORGES-PIERRE
(the former exchequer funds) shows, for all three administrations, that the Treasury’s contribution to their budgets is always greater, and sometimes by many millions, than the sums disbursed for expenses mandated by laws and decrees for worship, education, and charity. This is why the administrative simplification of these bodies should be studied.
II. The Fund for Religion and Charity of the City of Rome originated from the allocation of the assets of certain corporations and ecclesiastical institutions suppressed in the city of Rome, following the extension to the Roman provinces of the subversive laws in force in the other regions of the Kingdom, by the law of 19 June 1873. In 1885 this Fund was placed under the administration of the General Directorate of the Fund for Worship. This was confirmed in 1888 and regulated by the regulation of 5 January 1888, no. 5165; after the Lateran Concordat, by law no. 848 of 27 May 1929, arts. 19–20, its administration, as stated, was concentrated in the Ministry of the Interior, with separate administration and a separate budget, within the General Directorate of the Fund for Worship; it retains its own purpose and has its own board of administration, whose members are appointed half by the Italian government and half by the ecclesiastical authority.
The provisional budget and the annual report are submitted to Parliament for approval together with those of the Ministry of the Interior; the provisions governing State administrations apply to II. Like the Fund for Worship, the Fund for Religion has retained its original character as an autonomous juridical entity, with its own assets and budget and its own purposes. After the conversion of the real property, the entity’s patrimonial revenues consist for the most part of public bonds, leases, ground rents, and a few incomes from buildings not yet sold. They are supplemented by an extraordinary State contribution for the payment of the increased allowances granted to the clergy. The churches and rectories formerly belonging to monastic associations or other ecclesiastical institutions suppressed in the city of Rome are kept open for worship by II. Its purposes are analogous to those of the Fund for Worship within the limits of the city, but also include religion and charity; in Rome a greater number of ecclesiastical institutions was preserved, and the distribution of revenues is also broader in its purpose; it was charged with allowances in favor of the Congregazione di carità, the Pio Istituto di S. Spirito a ospedali riuniti, and the Istituto dei ciechi di S. Alessio. The administration exercises supervisory powers over the ecclesiastical property of Rome, powers that before the Concordat were reserved elsewhere to the general exchequer offices for vacant benefices, and today to the prefectures.
III. Following the Treaty of S. Germano with Austria and the Treaty of Rapallo and the Pact of Rome with Yugoslavia, the assets of the funds established in those territories with the property of suppressed ecclesiastical institutions that came to be included within Italy’s new borders passed to Italy: these consist of urban real estate in various cities and the forest of Tarvisio. Under arts. 18–19–20 of law no. 848 of 27 May 1929, they form a single estate together with that of the general exchequer offices and vacant benefices, and this single estate is administered, with separate administration and separate budgets, by the General Directorate of the Fund for Worship; the provisional and final budgets are submitted to Parliament for approval. This fund has lost its original purpose of contributing to the payment of supplements to the clergy’s congrua, since these combined revenues have been assigned the sole purpose of assisting clergy who are particularly deserving and in need and of furthering general aims of worship, charity, and education. Any regulation of relations with Yugoslavia following the last war is currently being arranged.