PECULIUM. - A legal institution of great importance in Roman law, intimately connected with the unitary conception, in civil and economic matters, of the family under the power of the pater familias. It passed into canon law (cf. cc. 1-5, X, tit. 25, l. III, de peculio clericorum), in which today its name and doctrine survive in the law of religious, and traces of it remain with regard to clerics (cf. can. 1473).
I. HISTORICAL NOTES
The Church, imitating Roman law, adopted the institution with regard to clerics, placing them on the same footing as filii familias; only the episcopate was exempt from the law. Clerics, as civil persons, could have their own civil peculium, observing Roman legislation; more important was the application of the doctrine to the ecclesiastical peculium, indicating those movable goods or money that a cleric receives from the Church or from the fruits of ecclesiastical goods, of which he, in the manner of a son of a family, is not the absolute owner but a conditional one, in such a way that whatever exceeds his honest sustenance must be distributed to the poor or restored to the Church. While the civil peculium comes to the cleric from paternal or family goods, the ecclesiastical peculium is given by quasi-patrimonial goods (derived from activities or ecclesiastical goods extraneous to the benefice), parsimonial goods (derived from personal economy on the goods of the benefice), and superfluous goods: it is for the latter that the provision holds which obliges the cleric to distribute them to the poor. Before the CIC it was disputed whether clerics had true and free dominion over the peculium, or rather its administration and simple use. On the answer depended the nature of the obligation to distribute superfluous goods, whether by justice or by religion and obedience; consequently, whether there exists an obligation of restitution, which, being real, passes to the heirs. The CIC (can. 1473) is silent on the matter, sanctioning only the obligation of distribution; commentators therefore say that, since the legislator did not wish to specify a grave and well-known question, in this case one must see only an obligation ex religione. Consistent with Roman doctrine, ancient canon law determined that clerics should not make a will. Custom and various pontifical privileges, in order to avoid difficulties in the separation of civil goods from ecclesiastical goods and thereby avoid disputes and discord, legitimized the will, with the restriction relating to superfluous goods.
II. PECULIUM OF RELIGIOUS
The doctrine of the p. in the law of religious is of current relevance. In patrimonial matters (by virtue of can. 580, if they are of simple vows, and can. 582, if of solemn vows), they are placed on the same footing as the filii familias of Roman law: they are incapable of possessing, retaining, disposing of, receiving, giving or using anything without the permission of their superiors, even if the thing is given specifically for the person and on a personal basis, by their own relatives or coming from their own patrimonial goods; moreover, whatever they produce by their own activity or acquire personally falls into the patrimony of the community (cann. cited and 594), from which they have the right to receive what is necessary.
In the case of religious, p. indicates any temporal good, estimable in price, separated from the common mass, which the subject keeps and uses on his own authority for his own personal desires or needs not presently at hand. Whatever the Superior gives for a determined purpose, even if future, is not p., because by designating the end, there is in effect removed an indispensable element for the p. (the use on one's own authority); thus that money which the Superior gives once in a while to a religious who must go out frequently and use trams, etc., is not p. Similarly, clothing, books, furnishings, tools, etc. granted to the individual religious do not constitute p., whether they come from the Superior directly or are donated by outsiders, provided they are understood to be received for the community and the Superior can grant or deny their use. The patrimony which the religious of simple vows must preserve with radical dominion without the right to have its fruits personally, the money given to the religious by outsiders for honest and charitable purposes that are not personal even if kept by him, the spending of money or goods obtained from his own work for a specific personal purpose or that of third parties with the permission of the superior, etc. do not constitute p. There is p. in life annuities, pensions and the like established and given by relatives or third parties, if these goods do not enter into the common mass and the religious can have the right to dispose of them (not if the Superior, for a certain equity, first takes account of the religious's needs); in money deposited with the Superior for the direct purpose of providing food, clothing, etc. for a particular religious; in the fact that the religious can procure for himself with the proceeds of his work clothing, books, etc.
The religious p. can be perfect or proper and imperfect or improper, according as the individual can keep and use things independently of the superior, or with his consent and under his dependence, in such a way that the Superior can limit or revoke their use. The proper p. is against the substance of the vow of poverty (v.), not only against the common life; therefore it cannot be introduced even by religious of simple vows (cf. can. 27); and in notable matters can. 2389 applies. The improper p. does not of itself destroy the vow of poverty; but it is contrary to the perfect common life and to the will of the Church. Cann. 580 § 2, 582, 594 use terms that import totality (quidquid, omnia bona, quovis modo), impose the careful observance of the common life in matters concerning food, clothing, etc., also on the part of Superiors; these must place in the common treasury whatever they receive. It is clear that this is not a matter of mere material placement, but of juridical placement. Authors see in excessive rigor and severity on the part of the Superior in procuring the things suited to the decorous sustenance of religious a principal cause of p.; the middle line becomes necessary. Suitability takes account of the rigidity of individual religious orders, of the needs of individuals, of the conditions of climate, region, economic-social conditions and the possibilities of the common treasury. Before the Council of Trent the improper p. was neither forbidden nor expressly permitted. A direct implicit prohibition came in the Tridentine council (sess. XXV, de regularibus, c. 1 f.); a more energetic one came from Clement VIII (25 July 1599), from other popes and from various decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars.
Faced with clear declarations and with facts no less clear and not sporadic, authors asked themselves whether the improper p. could be introduced by custom. Some denied it, starting from the principle that no custom could derogate from the Tridentine council and that from the obligatory public reading of the decree of Clement VIII the necessary legal consent of the legislator was lacking. Nevertheless St. Alphonsus holds the affirmative opinion to be well founded. In some institutes the p. was officially lawful, on condition that it be placed in the common treasury, that there be the consent of the Superior to procure determined things and that the individual be disposed to renounce it as soon as the Superior should have thought it opportune to dispose otherwise.
Can. 594, and consequently all the Constitutions, inculcate the perfect common life and the observance of poverty. Therefore if in 1918 the custom ab immemorabili of the p. was in force in some institutes, according to can. 5, the Ordinary could tolerate it, if he judged that it could not prudently be removed. In other religious communities (provinces, monasteries, etc.) for the future it could be introduced according to can. 27, if the Superiors do not object.
It is clear that in its concept the p. imports: a) the small quantity, b) the use for purposes consonant with the religious state, c) the effective dependence on the Superior. Experience teaches that the p. brings grave harm to religious discipline and charity. Superiors have the grave obligation to remove it, if grave causes do not advise against it; much more must they prevent it from being introduced, and therefore they must provide suitably for the needs of their subjects. Grave causes for permitting its continuation are, for example, preventing the introduction of the proper p., the indigence of the religious house, the grave and long-continued negligence of Superiors in providing for the religious.