RICETTIZIE, CHIESE. - Receptitiae were the name given to churches in which, in past times, only those who were natives of the place where such churches arose could be recepti, that is, admitted to the governance and to a share in the relative fruits of the common mass.
The r. were also called patrimoniales (since no one could be recepti other than natives a patria where these churches arose), matrices (in the sense that such churches were considered mothers and their participants patrimonial sons), consorciales, comunie or communerie (since the participants formed a consortium and originally had common rights and duties). Since all natives of the place could by themselves be recepti in the church of that place, the r. were originally innumerate; later, however, a numerus clausus was established at the rate of one participant for every one thousand inhabitants. Curate are the r. that have the care of souls exercised actualiter and in solidum first by all the participants, then by turnum, and finally actualiter by a vicar curate and habitualiter by the college of participants; there are also non-curate r. The r. is a single collegial 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 distinguished both from cathedral and collegial Chapters and from the parish.
The origin of the r. is uncertain. Excluding a direct historical-legal derivation either from the ancient presbyterium and paroccia, or from the Eigenkirche (ecclesia propria) and patronage, it may be considered with solid probability that in Italy the r. arose on the model of the ancient corporations at the time of the Communes and subsequently developed predominantly in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies through the influence of Spanish domination, 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, under the auspices of the Neapolitan jurisconsult, the Rev. Diego Gatta, who attempted a historical-legal reconstruction of the r. in a jurisdictionalist sense. But after the Concordat of Terracina (Feb. 16, 1818), the legal situation of the r. was revised in accordance with canonical laws by the brief Impensa (Aug. 13, 1819) supplemented by "Instructions and elucidations for the formation of plans" and a "Model Statute" of the r.
Law no. 3848 of Aug. 15, 1867, art. 2 suppressed the r., whose property was confiscated, save only, for those with cure of souls, a single benefice, to which was attributed as an endowment a share, called curata, carved out of the mass of the r.'s property and belonging to the vicar curate, while the other participants were assigned a life annuity: upon the death of the last pensioner, the property of the r. was to pass to the Municipalities, which, however, were to provide an endowment for the maintenance and officiation of the c. r. and constitute the supplementary stipend (supplemento di congrua) for the parish priest of the same r. Subsequently, to satisfy the expectations of the Municipalities, it was established in their favor, by law no. 191 of June 4, 1899, that the revenues of the suppressed r. would be delivered to them in advance, 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 established between the vicar curate and the pensioner participants with the decree Ad dirimendas (Feb. 22, 1876). The CIC has not treated explicitly of the r., which canonically and de iure must still be considered as existing, even if they do not always and de facto function regularly. As for their regulation, the S. Cong. of the Council has 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 property previously seized by the Municipalities under the subversion laws had been proposed.
The legal and practical arrangement, both canonical and civil, of the r. remains one of the most serious problems to be solved in Southern Italy.