TITLE OF ORDINATION. - It consists in the guarantee of a lifetime income sufficient for the dignified support of the ordinand (can. 979 § 2).
I. HISTORICAL NOTES
In the early times of the Church, ordination in sacris was subordinated to the availability of a permanent office in a determined church, with the consequence of thus assuring the ecclesiastic's sustenance. Conferring the Sacrament of Order only on one who had been assigned to a church meant that the ordination necessarily had to be carried out taking into account the needs of individual places and of the communities of the faithful. The ordained cleric was numbered among the clerics attached to a determined church, remaining incardinated there perpetually, with the obligation of rendering the prescribed service, so much so that the church and the ecclesiastical office to which the cleric was destined came to constitute the purpose and the t. of the o., in the sense, that is, that this could be given only ad titulum, that is, with the incardination of the ecclesiastic to a determined church.
The principle was reaffirmed by the provision of the Council of Chalcedon of 451, issued following ordinations of clerics in a number disproportionate to the available revenues and therefore without assignment to a church (ordinations sine titulo): the Council (can. 6) declared the ordination null if the cleric had not effectively taken up the exercise of the ecclesiastical ministry and, at the same time, decreed that an ecclesiastic could not be ordained when a stable office (titulus) in a determined church had not been entrusted to him. The effects of the provision were, however, quite short-lived, since in the 6th century numerous clerics were again ordained without any title, starting from the consideration that the conferral of Order had to be kept distinct from the title, that is, from the ecclesiastical office to which was annexed the right to receive the fruits of the goods of the church. Probably, to remedy these new inconveniences, in the 6th century the cleric, as soon as he was ordained, was invested with a benefice from which to draw the proceeds for his sustenance, thus coming to equate the titulus beneficii with the titulus ordinationis, which thereafter remained the normal t. of the o. Toward the end of the 11th century, what had been laid down on the matter by the Council of Chalcedon was again reaffirmed, but without any result.
Meanwhile, in the early years of the 12th century, a new tendency was asserting itself, namely that of conferring Orders on those who, while not having a canonical title (titulus beneficii), possessed a body of goods that could guarantee them, for as long as they lived, a dignified sustenance. Alexander III, at the Third Lateran Council of 1179, maintained the rule that clerics were to be ordained principally with the titulus beneficii, but also permitted, in a subordinate line, that they could be ordained with a private patrimony, when the needs of the church and of worship required it (can. 5). He ordained, in fact, that if the bishop had ordained a deacon and a priest without a certain and stable title sufficient to guarantee his sustenance, he had the obligation to provide for his maintenance until he had provided him with an adequate benefice, unless the cleric had been able to sustain himself with his own or his father's goods (c. 4, X, de praebendis et dignitatibus, III, 5), and thus the titulus patrimonii had its origin, that is, a body of goods constituted as a patrimony by the ordinand for himself, or by a third party for the ordinand, so that the latter had a reserve fund at his disposal, and an institution that had already long been occurring frequently in practice was officially recognized. The aforesaid provision also laid down the sanction for bishops who had not respected it, providing for them the obligation to administer food to the ordained cleric if they had conferred sacred Order without title or patrimony; a sanction of a patrimonial character, from which, moreover, the bishops found the possibility of escaping by having the ordained clerics promise under oath that they would never advance a claim for food. Subsequent conciliar provisions declared, however, to be simoniacal those who had compelled ordinands to swear that they would always abstain from requesting food. Given the exclusively alimentary character of the sacred patrimony, this could not be regulated by the common law relating to lay goods, but had to enjoy the special norms, prerogatives and privileges enjoyed by the goods of the Church, such as those of inalienability and immunity from seizure, which were later recognized for it.
The Council of Trent regulated the titulus patrimonii with stable norms, determined in sess. 21, c. 2, de reformatione, which may be said to contain the complete and definitive discipline of the institution. The Council first sanctioned that the cleric, even if provided with all the other requisites, could be ordained in sacris only if furnished with an ecclesiastical benefice from which he could derive an honest sustenance. By requiring for ordination the requisite of the titulus beneficii, the Tridentine Council confirmed the provision of can. 6 of the Council of Chalcedon; only in a subsidiary way did it admit the titulus patrimonii, as also the titulus pensionis (that is, a fixed income constituted preferably on immovable goods and guaranteed by them), enjoining the bishops to ordain at such a title — according to their judgment — that limited number of clerics deemed strictly necessary or useful to individual churches, and to assure themselves before the ordination that the cleric was truly furnished with a patrimony or pension sufficient for his dignified maintenance. It excluded, moreover, as an insufficiently secure means and of a precarious nature, the titulus mensae, consisting in the right of the cleric to be maintained by a third party (as happened especially in Germany, where the rich were accustomed to have an ecclesiastic ordained), which promised a variable food allowance and which could cease when the priest had obtained a benefice or had procured for himself another means of living; it forbade, finally, unless there had been authorization from the bishop, the alienation of the goods constituted as sacred patrimony until the cleric's attainment of another benefice, and likewise forbade that without the license of the Ordinary one could renounce the patrimony or the pension, or that such titles could be declared extinguished. The Tridentine provision sought to restore the titulus beneficii to its position as the normal title for ordination and the titulus patrimonii to that of a subsidiary title, to be given exceptionally, when the possibility of a titulus beneficii was lacking. So that the sacred patrimony might correspond more effectively to the purpose for which it had arisen, there were then provided, in addition to those of inalienability and immunity from seizure previously established, other privileges. It remained as a rule that the sacred patrimony had to be constituted in immovable, certain and fruitful goods; nevertheless the canonists and canonical jurisprudence tempered the principle, admitting that the patrimony could also be constituted on ground rents or other charges burdening immovable goods, with the obligation, however, on the part of the constituent, in case of redemption of the ground rent, to maintain the ordained cleric until a new investment. And further, the privilege of not being subject to mortgage was recognized for the goods of the sacred patrimony, with the aim of thus assuring the cleric what was necessary for his sustenance, without fear of action by a creditor tending to expropriate him, just as the true and uncontested possession of the goods composing the sacred patrimony was required on the part of the cleric or of whoever had constituted it.
Canonical legislation also admits two other t. of o., namely the titulus paupertatis or mensae communis and the titulus missionis: the first was introduced by Pius V, who, with the bull Romanus Pontifex of 14 Oct. 1368, extended to the regular clergy the Tridentine provisions concerning the t., establishing that whoever entered an Order acquired the right to be maintained at its expense.
The titulus missionis had a particular origin. In Italy and abroad, between the 16th and 17th centuries, colleges were founded for the education of those who wished to devote themselves to the apostolate in mission territories, in which they were then bound by a special oath to go. The Holy See, bearing in mind their particular condition, in order to facilitate their promotion to the sacred Orders, derogated from the ordinary provisions: thus, for example, Gregory XIII, on 1 May 1579, granted that the students of the English College of Rome be ordained without a t., and this faculty was likewise extended to others as well. This lack of a specific t. of o. and the office of the missionary apostolate soon gave rise to the new mission t., which by the brief Ad uberes fructus of Urban VIII, dated 18 May 1638, received a first determination, requiring, however, that the missionary oath always be taken.
In later centuries the mission t. was also granted to native priests and to the members of exclusively missionary institutes, giving rise to a series of particular provisions, collected and almost codified in the instruction of 27 Apr. 1871.
II. CURRENT CANONICAL LEGISLATION
The CIC lists among the positive requirements for the lawfulness of conferring the major Orders the canonical t., and, while completely reorganizing the matter, it accepts the principles that had governed it until then. Canon 979 § 1 establishes that pro clericis saecularibus titulus canonicus est titulus beneficii, eoque deficiente, patrimonii aut pensionis: which means that even today, as a rule, the source of income for the ecclesiastic is constituted by the right to a benefice and, in the absence of that, by a sacred patrimony or by a pension. Paragraph 2 of the same canon provides that titulus debet esse et vere securus pro tota ordinati vita et vere sufficiens ad congruum eiusdem sustentationem...: the expression vere securus must be understood in the sense that even the will of the owner is not sufficient to transfer the ownership of the goods that constitute the t. until the bishop gives authorization, which leads one soundly to hold that such goods must be considered inalienable and unseizable. And indeed, security and stability could not exist if the goods of the patrimony were not withdrawn from the disposal of the cleric and from forced execution by creditors. Therefore the opinion of certain scholars, for whom canon 979 § 2 would have abrogated the norm laid down by the Council of Trent, which established the inalienability of the sacred patrimony, is not to be accepted: although the CIC does not contain an express norm establishing the inalienability and non-expropriability of that patrimony, nevertheless it must be held that the norm is implicit in the text of the cited canon, in accordance with n. 6 of canon 6, and, should any doubt remain, the provision of n. 4 of the same canon should in any case be applied, according to which a veteri iure non est recedendum. The CIC has not laid down precise norms on the guarantee and sufficiency of the patrimony or of the pension, but has left them to the discretionary judgment of the bishops, who, in deciding, will take into account the various circumstances of place and time. In the following canon 980 the legislator has provided that if one ordained in sacris loses the title, he must procure another, unless the bishop considers him otherwise provided with means for his sustenance; and further it has established that whoever, without apostolic indult, has ordained or has allowed to be ordained a cleric without a title must himself and his successors provide the ordained with sustenance, until the latter is otherwise provided for, thus determining civil liability for non-observance of the norms on the t. of ordination, and considering null any agreement exempting from such liability.
In cases of the absence of the t. beneficii, patrimonii and pensionis, which in some countries are becoming ever rarer, canon 981 allows that this may be supplied by the t. servitii dioecesis e missionis. The first consists in an obligation assumed by the ordaining bishop to provide adequately and for the whole of life for the decorous sustenance of the ordained, who for his part binds himself by oath to render service for the whole of his life in the diocese; the other concerns an analogous formal promise on the part of the ordinand to dedicate himself in perpetuity to the service of the mission in the territories dependent on the Sacred Congregation De Propaganda Fide, accepting the assignments that will be entrusted to him by the competent superiors, upon whom is imposed the obligation to provide for the sustenance of the ordained.
The oath on the part of the ordinand to attend in perpetuity to the service of the diocese or of the mission is given, in accordance with canon 981, without any reservation, so much so that the bishop can always oblige the one who has taken it to dedicate himself to the care of souls. Previously, on the contrary, the possibility for the Ordinary to compel a priest to assume the parochial office appeared rather doubtful, and indeed the jurisprudence of the Roman Congregations had on this point conflicting decisions, some of which held the ordinary faculties of the bishop sufficient, while others required particular delegated faculties (cf., e.g., the decisions of the Sacred Congregation of the Council, 7 Aug. 1910, in Monitore ecclesiastico, 22 [1911], p. 437 ff.). Further effects of the oath referred to in canon 981 consist in the prohibition for the cleric to abandon it and — according to a part of the canonists — to enter religion. Indeed, some writers maintain that the oath to render service in the diocese does not forbid, on the basis of canon 1319 § 2, entering religion, and that the prohibition exists only for those who have placed themselves at the disposal of a mission, unless they have obtained the relevant authorization from the Holy See; others, on the contrary, are of a different opinion, holding that the oath constitutes a iuris vinculum such as not to permit entry into religion, independently of the application of canon 542, n. 2, on the basis of which the bishop is authorized to forbid admission to the novitiate of clerics who have received the major Orders, whenever grave harm to souls could otherwise not be avoided.
Canon 982 provides that for religious the canonical t. is constituted by the sollemnis religiosus professio seu titulus, ut dicitur, paupertatis, that is, by that means of sustenance which comes from belonging to a religious Order, in the sense that the mere quality of religious gives the right to maintenance and therefore permits ordination. When the vow of poverty is a simple, perpetual vow, the titulus paupertatis takes the more attenuated form of titulus mensae communis or Congregationis or of an analogous kind.
III. THE «TITULUS PATRIMONII» IN THE ITALIAN LEGAL SYSTEM
Among the various t. of ordination, in Italian law it is above all the titulus patrimonii or sacred patrimony that comes into consideration, the question being raised whether the institution is admitted and whether its canonical regime is recognized, in the sense, that is, that neither the alienation or expropriation of the goods of such patrimony, nor the distraint and sequestration of the income from those goods, may be permitted.
As is well known, conflicting opinions have been maintained on this point by doctrine and jurisprudence. According to an authoritative opinion, which seems to be the one to be accepted, the goods constituting the sacred patrimony are in themselves withdrawn from forced execution, the provisions of the common canon law in force in the States being applied to them, where the concordats had not established otherwise. Indeed, it must be held that such provisions have been abrogated neither by the Italian Civil Code of 1865 nor by the current one, which have not regulated the matter of the sacred patrimony, although recognizing it in various norms as an autonomous juridical institution (art. 48 disp. trans. Cod. civ. 30 Nov. 1865, n. 2606; art. 4 disp. prelim. Cod. civ. 1865; art. 15 disp. prelim. Cod. civ. in force). In consideration, therefore, of the fact that for the inalienability of the goods constituting the titulus patrimonii no provision has been laid down by the Italian legislator, one is led to conclude that the sacred patrimony continues to be governed by the canonical norms, provided they do not conflict with the law of the State, and that therefore the goods that constitute it must be considered inalienable.
As regards, then, the income deriving from the goods of the titulus patrimonii, their unseizability is to be held, taking into account the provision of art. 545 Cod. proc. civ., concerning unseizable credits. And indeed, it is quite clear that the raison d'être of such income has an eminently alimentary character, so that it seems correct that the prohibition of seizability provided by the cited article for alimentary credits should be applied.
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