THIRD PENSIONABLE. - It is an application of the institution of pensions, of special importance for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The Roman Pontiff had granted to the Bourbon kings the right to deduct, from the revenues of bishoprics, abbeys and benefices of royal patronage of the Kingdom, a third part in order to grant it as a pension to persons, mostly ecclesiastics, at the pleasure of the prince.
This right was abolished for the Neapolitan territory by the Concordat of 16 Feb. 1818; but the sovereign, on a provisional basis, continued within the limit of the t. p. to grant life pensions, charged to the mensas, so as not to deprive of them those who at the publication of the Concordat itself were invested with them. It was preserved in full, however, in Sicily, where it was exercised even afterwards and administered by means of the Economato generale dei benefici vacanti. The t. p. was considered as property that had issued from the goods of the mensa and therefore had to be paid also by the Economati of vacant benefices on the income of the mensas that passed under their administration during the period of vacancy of the titular. It should be noted that the t. p. weighed only on bishoprics whose income exceeded three thousand ducats, and the episcopal mensa could never be subjected to the t. p. if, on that account, a reduction of revenues below that sum had come about. Distinct from the t. p., although originating from it, was for Sicily the fund of perpetual pensions belonging in favor of certain moral bodies, which was distributed pro rata among the bishoprics, prelatures and abbeys of royal patronage, according to the liquidation approved by rescript of 27 June 1827.
By rescript of 10 Aug. 1824 it had, in fact, been established that the beneficiaries should profit from the pensions that became extinguished. Now, among the pensioners there were certain moral bodies that by their nature were perpetual. This gave rise to disparities and complaints; therefore the Government thought of distributing the burden of such perpetual pensions in fair proportion over all the benefices; and by rescript of 10 Jan. 1825 it ordered that the entire amount of the perpetual pensions "should cease to form part of the pensions and should become a charge on the income of the whole mass of pensionable ecclesiastical property, to be distributed pro rata"; thus there came about so many new and fixed charges to be paid by the bodies burdened, in addition to the t. p. The history of this institution is intertwined with that of ecclesiastical pensions. As a general principle the fruits of a benefice must be enjoyed by the beneficiary; but this principle is limited by the other, according to which the fruits must also serve the needs of the Church and of the poor.
Therefore the ecclesiastical authority may deduct from the fruits of the benefice a certain quantity in order to assign it to a third person, lacking a benefice and in conditions of need. Thus ecclesiastical pensions were born. But the civil powers often and willingly claimed an exclusive competence over the external endowments of the temporalities of benefices and opposed a system that placed at the disposal of the Pontiff considerable sums that left the various countries. Thus it happened that in certain States the availability of pensions was limited to the pontifical authority, or the sovereign's placet was required for them, and that in other countries the prince himself, while not yet daring to consider the goods of the Church as goods of the nation, altogether excluded the interference of the Supreme Pontiff and reserved to himself alone the faculty of granting pensions on ecclesiastical benefices. It was then that the popes strove to limit the action of princes, and from this there derived customs and agreements by virtue of which the sovereign could innovate and grant pensions on ecclesiastical benefices that did not, however, exceed a third of their revenues. Only following the Concordat of 11 Feb. 1929, art. 25, did the Italian State renounce the prerogative of royal patronage over major and minor benefices, and abolish the regalia over both and the t. p. in the provinces of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.