RICE CHURCHES. - Receptitiae was the name given to those churches in which, at one time, only those who were natives of the place in which such churches stood could be recepti, that is, admitted to the governance and to the sharing of the relevant fruits of the common mass. The recepti were therefore called participants, and the relevant right to receive the proportional share of the fruits of the mass was called participation.
The r. were also called patrimoniali (insofar as only those who were natives a patria, in which the said churches stood, could be recepti), matrici (in the sense that such churches were regarded as mothers and their participants as patrimonial sons), consorziali, comunie or communerie (since the participants formed a consortium and originally had common rights and duties). Since all the natives of the place could of themselves be recepti in the church of that place, the r. were originally innumerate; later, however, a numerus clausus was fixed at the rate of one participant for every thousand inhabitants. Curate is the name given to those r. having the care of souls exercised actualiter and in solidum first by all the participants, then by turnum, and finally actualiter by a curate vicar and habitualiter by the college of participants; there are also non-curate r. The r. is a single collegiate moral person, since the dignities existing within it were purely nominal or ventosae, quod honores tantum, without erection into a title; and therefore the r. is essentially distinct both from cathedral and collegiate Chapters and from the parish.
The origin of the r. is uncertain. Ruling out a direct historical-juridical derivation either from the ancient presbyterium and the paroccia, or from the Eigenkirche (ecclesia propria) and from the right of patronage, one may with solid probability hold that in Italy the r. arose on the model of the ancient corporations in the time of the Communes and then developed predominantly in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies through the influence of Spanish domination, the patrimonial churches having been very widespread in Spain as well. With the arrival of B. Tanucci at the Court of Naples, the r. suffered undue interference on the part of the civil authority, with the Neapolitan jurist Fr. Diego Gatta as sponsor, who attempted a historical-juridical reconstruction of the r. in a jurisdictionalist sense. But after the Concordat of Terracina (16 Feb. 1818) the juridical situation of the r. was revised in accordance with the canon laws by the brief Impensa (13 Aug. 1819), supplemented by "Instructions and elucidations for the drawing up of plans" and by a "Model Statute" of the r.
The law of 15 Aug. 1867, no. 3848, art. 2 suppressed the r., whose goods were confiscated, except only that for the curate ones a single benefice was reserved, to which was assigned as endowment a quota, called curata, detached from the mass of the goods of the r. and belonging to the curate vicar, while to the other participants a life pension was assigned: upon the death of the last pensioner the goods of the r. were to pass to the Municipalities, which, however, would have had to assign an endowment for the maintenance and for the officiating of the c. r. and to constitute the supplement of congrua for the parish priest of the same r. Subsequently, in order to satisfy the expectations of the Municipalities, there was established in their favor, by the law of 4 June 1899 no. 191, the early delivery of the revenues of the suppressed r., without waiting for the death of the last pensioner.
The Holy See, which could not approve the illegitimate suppression of the r., regulated the new economic relations created between the curate vicar and the participant pensioners by the decree Ad dirimendas (22 Feb. 1876). The CIC did not treat explicitly of the r., which canonically and de iure must be considered as still existing, even if they do not always and de facto function regularly. As regards their regulation, the S. Congr. of the Council declared the brief Impensa still effective, salvis CIC praescriptionibus, si et in quantum eidem Brevi derogaverint (Melphieu. et Rapollen. Circa Breve: Impensa. 17 Maii 1919). Nor did the Lateran Concordat deal with the r., although in the Gentili draft (1923) for the reform of ecclesiastical legislation the restitution to the r. of the goods already seized by the Municipalities by virtue of the eversive laws had been proposed.
The settlement, both juridical and practical, both canonical and civil, of the r. remains one of the most serious problems to be solved in Southern Italy.
Bibliography
Fiorenzo Romita