TASSA INNOCENZIANA. – This name denotes the body of prescriptive and directive norms issued under Innocenzo XI to standardize ecclesiastical fees. They arose from the request made by many bishops to Innocenzo XI that, for the security of their consciences, to remove every occasion of doubt that might arise from the different customs of the dioceses, and to prevent abuses, a general and uniform fee be established for the episcopal or ecclesiastical forum.
For this purpose the Pontiff appointed a special congregation, composed of the prefect cardinals of the SS. Congregations of the Council and of Bishops, four other cardinals, and the secretaries belonging to those Congregations, the datary monsignor, and the auditor of His Holiness.
This Congregation decided that in contentious, civil, criminal, and mixed cases a general fee could not be fixed without prior knowledge of the particular fees of each diocese or province, since juridically this fee could vary according to differing custom, regulated by the diversity of countries and places. However, the declarations that the SS. Congregations of the Council and of Bishops had made at various times and on different occasions concerning ecclesiastical or purely spiritual matters were published, so that it might be known what was illicit and every excuse or protest of ignorance
or of contrary custom might be removed. In such matters observance had to be uniform everywhere, in accordance with the generality of the canons and councils, particularly the Council of Trent, so that every contrary custom or different fee, however previously established, had to be declared reproba et illicita. Thus, with pontifical approval, on 1 October 1678 (Bull. Rom., XIX, Turin 1870, pp. 105 ff.), the emolument that it was lawful to receive was declared, for example, for benefices conferred by bishops, for the execution of apostolic letters, for manual chaplaincies, in the founding and erection of benefices, chaplaincies, confraternities, congregations, etc., in cases concerning marriage and betrothals (execution of apostolic matrimonial dispensations, proof of free status, dispensation from the banns, permission to contract marriage at home or elsewhere or at an unusual or prohibited time, etc.), and for various licenses (to preach, to work on feast days, etc.).
Benedetto XIII, in the Roman provincial Council (15 April–29 May 1725: Bull. Rom., XXII, Turin 1871, p. 284), again commanded observance of the t. i. In 1896 Leone XIII, in order to make the innocenziana law more suitable to the times, to the new and differing conditions of people, and to the changed value of money, appointed a commission at the S. Congreg. of the Council which, in the form of replies to questions raised, declared that in sacramental matters, and especially in matrimonial and beneficial matters, a fee could be imposed according to the rules of justice and prudence (the truly poor were to be exempt from it). This could be determined either by the individual Ordinaries or by provincial synods or, for Italy, regional synods, and once determined it had to be communicated for approval to the S. Congregation of the Council, which would grant it ad instar experimenti for five years for the dioceses of Italy and for ten years for the others. On 10 June 1896 Leone XIII approved and confirmed the commission’s replies (Acta Sanctae Sedis, 29 [1937], pp. 433–35). The matter covered by the t. i. was regulated anew, with adaptation to the times, by the provisions contained in chapter IX and in the transitional provisions of the Ordo servandus annexed to the constitution Sapienti consilio of Pius X of 29 June 1908. At present, in view of the changed financial conditions of various countries, this matter is regulated by norms issued by each Congregation, Tribunal, and Office of the Roman Curia.