ECCLESIASTICAL PATRIMONY. — It ecclesiastical property (v.).
I. THE CHURCH’S RIGHT TO PROPERTY
The Church pursues a spiritual end, but since its members and ministers are human beings, it must also concern itself with their material needs, on pain of failing in its mission. Without possession of material goods, it would be exceedingly difficult to provide for the construction of churches, the needs of worship, the establishment of seminaries, the education, formation, and support of the clergy, the propagation of the faith in mission territories, and all the numerous works of charity to which the Church has devoted itself in every age. To fulfill its perennial mission, temporal goods provide the Church with an indispensable means; possessing property is therefore for it a vital right, belonging to it insofar as it is an independent, perfect, and sovereign society.This right must first of all be called a natural right; for, apart from its supernatural character, the Church cannot but be regarded at least as any association (coetus humanus) that pursues an honest end by honest means. Now, the right of association is a natural right (v. LIBERTÀ POLITICHE), which entails the right to the means, including material means, necessary for attaining that end.
If, moreover, the Church is considered as instituted by Christ as an external society with public, universal, necessary, perpetual, perfect, and independent worship, such a society, precisely because it is external, is subject to the common requirements and needs of human societies, not by reason of its end, but because of the persons whom it must lead to that end. Thus, by divine positive law, temporal goods, both movable and immovable, belong to it for worship and for the adequate support of its ministers, independently of any earthly authority. When, therefore, the State recognizes the Church’s civil personality and hence its capacity to own property, it does not confer any new right upon it, but acknowledges the right that the Church possesses by natural and positive-divine law and also protects it in civil law.
Throughout the centuries, the Church has not failed to exercise this native right and to vindicate it clearly and firmly, condemning doctrines tending to deny or diminish it and resisting with all its strength usurpations and acts of oppression, from whatever quarter they might come.
At the Council of Lyons of 1274 (cann. 12, 13, I, 6 in VI), the Church punished with excommunication ipso facto incurrenda all those laymen who, taking advantage of the vacancy of ecclesiastical goods, had appropriated their revenues. Pope John XXII condemned Marsilius of Padua in 1327, who had attacked the Church’s right to possess property with much greater violence than Arnold of Brescia (12th cent.) (Denz-U, n. 495 ff.). In turn, Martin V (bull Inter cuncta, 22 Feb. 1418) reproved (as the Council of Constance had already done on 6 May 1415) the errors of Wycliffe, who claimed that it was necessary for the Church not to possess property in order to remain faithful to the will of the Master and of Sacred Scripture (ibid., n. 590, can. 10; n. 612, can. 32; n. 613, can. 33; n. 616, can. 36). The same document condemned thirty propositions of Huss, very similar to those of Wycliffe, and approved a questionnaire to be used in trials for heresy, expressing the Church’s doctrine concerning its right lawfully to acquire and possess temporal goods (ibid., n. 684, q. 34; n. 685, q. 35). The errors of Wycliffe and Huss were revived in the 13th cent. by certain jurists and by the so-called reformers, who carried out numerous spoliations in practice.
To curb this movement, the Council of Trent punished with latae sententiae excommunication all those who had usurped the goods and rights of the Church, dioceses, secular and regular benefices, monte di pietà, etc. (sess. XXII de reform., c. 11). In Pius IX’s bull Apostolicae sedis (12 Oct. 1869), this excommunication appears among those specially reserved modo (P. Gasparri, Fontes, III, Rome 1938, n. 552, p. 24 and nn. 11–12, p. 26). The Syllabus, moreover, condemns the doctrines of those who deny the Church’s native and legitimate right to acquire and possess property (Denz-U, nn. 1726–27, prop. nn. 26–27).
The CIC (can. 1495) vindicates for the Church the innate right to acquire, possess, and administer temporal goods necessary for the attainment of its own end, and to do so in full freedom and perfect independence from civil authority. All churches and all juridical persons whose legal personality is recognized by the legitimate ecclesiastical authority likewise possess the same right. Civil authority has frequently recognized this right of the Church, either explicitly or implicitly. It is enough to mention the concordats with Colombia (art. 5), Poland (arts. 16, 17, 24), Latvia (art. 14), Lithuania (arts. 17, 22), and Italy (arts. 10–27).
II. THE TEMPORAL POSSESSIONS OF THE CHURCH
The original source of temporal possessions was offerings (v.). However, custom and canonical texts perfected this system, which was too primitive and practicable only in periods of great religious fervor, by instituting regular offerings, subsequently fixed by tariff, which were distinguished as follows: 1) first fruits, the oldest and most widespread form of ecclesiastical tax; 2) tithes, which appear as one of the oldest forms of ecclesiastical contribution; 3) fees on the occasion of Ordinations (the first to give rise to the regular collection of monetary dues); and 4) fees on the occasion of funerals; 5) income from immovable property, a means to which the Church had recourse to provide for needs in the most difficult periods, when, as poverty increased, revenues declined; 6) relatively modern fees paid on the occasion of the administration of the Sacraments, alms (v.) for Mass. Pecuniary penances, on the other hand, occupy a separate place (for the individual subjects, V. BENI ECCLESIASTICI; DECIME; TASSE ECCLESIASTICHE).The regular use of ecclesiastical revenues may have been determined by the intentions of the donors, expressed or at least presumed; otherwise, it is established by the Church. For offerings, V. the relevant entry. From the classical age, and increasingly during the early barbarian period, patrimonial centers also came into being, with their own life and interests, distinct from the bishop, until little by little the benefice (v.) was reached.
In connection with the principles on which it based its right to possess property, the Church claimed immunity (v.) for its goods from fiscal burdens. In fact, however, ecclesiastical goods in every period, and especially in the Middle Ages, when great wealth in immovable property had accumulated in the Church, were subject to waste and secularizations (v. SECOLARIZZAZIONE DEI BENI).
III. CURRENT LAW
1. Subjects of the right of ownership
The subjects of the right of ownership over ecclesiastical goods are the individual ecclesiastical juridical persons (cann. 531, 1495 § 2, 1498–99); but the subjects of patrimonial rights in the Church are, besides ecclesiastical juridical persons, also physical persons, who may be clerics, religious, or even laymen. Clerics may hold sacred patrimonies, that is, goods constituted by the title required for their Ordination to the priesthood, according to rules that vary with dioceses and periods (cann. 1476, 1482 § 1, 1183 § 1, 974 § 1 n. 7). Laymen mayown sacred objects: churches, oratories, sanctuaries, sacred furnishings, and tombs.
The capacity to hold patrimonial rights is, on the other hand, denied by the rules and Constitutions to certain ecclesiastical juridical persons: for example, in the case of the mendicant Orders, everything acquired by the Order passes into the ownership of the Holy See (cann. 579, 580, 569 and the respective Constitutions of the Orders). Moral persons are those that have received a canonical status from the authority.
Ecclesiastical juridical persons are divided into collegial and non-collegial persons. Some are such ex ipsa ordinatione divina (by divine law, such as the Universal Church and the Apostolic See); others are such ex iure ecclesiastico, that is, by human ecclesiastical law; these, in turn, derive their status as moral persons a iure, that is, ex ipso iuris praescripto, or ab homine, that is, ex speciali competentis superioris ecclesiastici concessione, granted by formal decree (cann. 99, 100 § 1).
2. Administrators of ecclesiastical patrimony. — A juridical person requires organs in order to administer its affairs. The rules from which the administrative organization of juridical persons derives its existence belong to common canon law, but there is also particular diocesan law. The bishop has regulatory power within the diocese over all institutions (cann. 1519 ff., 1521 § 2, etc.). He may not only establish the regulations governing the administration of a juridical person, but also create the juridical person and provide it with its foundation charter, statutes, or organizational regulations (cann. 492, 495, 686 § 2, 689 § 1–2, etc.). Forms of administration may also be established by the will of founders or donors (can. 1514, etc.). With regard to ecclesiastical moral entities, one speaks of statutes. Canon law recognizes in certain corporations the right to regulate their internal social relations in a general manner; that is, it recognizes their autonomy or ius condendi statuta, regarding the provisions of such statutes as juridical norms (cann. 410, 715 § 1). These corporations are Cathedral Chapters, Collegiate Chapters, Orders, religious Congregations, Associations of common life without vows, and Confraternities (cann. cited). Custom may have a certain sphere of application. This occurs, for example, with regard to tithes and firstfruits (can. 1502), the cathedraticum (can. 1504), etc. The bishop may also issue general rules for the administration of the ecclesiastical goods of his diocese within the limits of common law and with due regard for legitimate customs (can. 1519 § 2). Administrative organs, however, cannot be regulated by custom, since common law, particular law, and the foundation charter are the sole normative sources; no value can therefore be attributed to custom unless common or particular law and the foundation charters are lacking (cann. 1521 § 1, 1523, n. 2°, 1525, etc.). The founder may give the institution an autarchic organization or entrust its administration to other entities or moral bodies, public or private, lay or ecclesiastical, or charitable works (cann. 1490, 1514, 1523, n. 2°, etc.). The most varied forms of organization may arise from the foundation charters. The administrative organs of each juridical person are determined partly by law and partly by the foundation charters (cann. 1520 ff., 1521 § 1, 1525 § 1, etc.).
Administrators may be designated by the founder or by his heirs; their appointment may be entrusted to specific persons or families, to civil or ecclesiastical authorities, or they may be designated by the assembly of members if the person has the character of a corporation, but the supervision of the Ordinary may never be excluded (cann. 1515 § 3, 1492 § 2). If they are not designated by the foundation charters, the appointment of administrators may be entrusted to the parish priest, the bishop, Orders or religious congregations, or persons belonging to religious communities. Administrators may be ecclesiastics or laymen, and administrative offices may be temporary or lifelong (can. 1521 § 2). The juridical and procedural representation of the Holy See belongs to the Pontiff. Apostolic Camera (v.), presided over by the Cardinal Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, administers the temporal goods of the Holy See, especially during a vacancy of the See.
Titular cardinals represent the rights of the church that constitutes their title.
The representation of the Roman Seminary (v. ECCLESIASTICAL COLLEGES) belongs to the cardinal vicar by virtue of his own right and not as the Pontiff’s delegate. The goods of the episcopal mensa are administered by the bishop, who represents the diocese in court (can. 1653 § 1). During a vacancy, representation of the mensa belongs to the capitular vicar or to the apostolic administrator (v. EPISCOPAL MENSA).
The rectors of churches are the administrators of the individual churches. Alongside them there may be other persons, ecclesiastical or lay, who together form the Fabbrica Council (v. FABBRI, FABBRICERIA).
The administration of the patrimony of the cathedral Church, with its spiritual and temporal rights, and of the goods of the Fabbrica and of pious foundations to which the founder or custom has not assigned a special administrator, belongs to the bishop together with the Cathedral Chapter (cf. can. 1633 §§ 1, 4).
With regard to the administration of the patrimony of Orders, the appointment of particular economes is prescribed (cann. 516 §§ 2–4, 2347, nn. 2–3). Benefices are administered and represented by the individual beneficiaries (cann. 1653 § 2, 1526). The goods of non-collegial ecclesiastical institutions, namely hospitals, orphanages, schools, etc., are administered by the individual rectors according to the rules of the foundation charters (cann. 1489 § 3, 1649). Temporary administrators are appointed in cases of refusal or neglect on the part of the holder, conflicts of interest, maladministration, or sequestration (cann. 1649, 1653 § 5, etc.).
3. How ecclesiastical goods are administered. — A distinction of great importance, because it marks the limits of the administrators’ powers, is that between acts of ordinary administration and acts of extraordinary administration (can. 1527 § 1; V. ADMINISTRATION, acts of). The duties of administrators are: the oath of service, the preparation of an inventory, security by the beneficiaries, and the rendering of accounts (cann. 1522, 1525 § 1, etc.). There are also other obligations of a general nature, such as watching over the ecclesiastical goods entrusted to their care so that they in no way perish or suffer damage; observing the prescriptions of canon law; investing the Church’s money; and keeping books and documents in proper order (can. 1523).
Major clerics who should dare to abandon the office entrusted to them by their own Ordinary, without the license of that Ordinary, may be suspended a divinis for a definite period by the Ordinary (cann.
1528, 2399). The ways in which ecclesiastical entities acquire their patrimony are divided by the code into ways under natural law and ways under positive law (can. 1499 § 1). A distinction may also be made between modes of acquisition under private law and those under public law.
The modes of private law are: occupation of ownerless things; accession, usucaption; contracts; acts inter vivos (= donations); acts mortis causa (= wills); intestate succession. The modes of acquisition under public law are numerous: succession resulting from the partial or total suppression of inferior ecclesiastical entities; tithes and first fruits; offerings, alms, collections, and solicitations; diocesan taxes; postal taxes; fees.
The administration of the p. of ecclesiastical entities comprises acts of conservation and acts of utilization. Administration is carried out not only by exercising one’s real rights, but also by entering into obligatory relationships. Moreover, patrimonial law and its corresponding legal order vary from country to country, both in old Europe and in extra-European countries. They also vary according to the history of the spread of Christianity and the political situation in the various countries.