Chapter IV: Of the Right of Patronage

The right of patronage is the sum of privileges, with certain burdens, which by concession of the Church belongs to Catholic founders of a church, chapel, or benefice, or also to those who have title from them.

The right of patronage is:

1° Real or personal, according as it inheres in some thing or directly regards a person.

2° Ecclesiastical, lay, or mixed, according as the title by which one enjoys the right of patronage is ecclesiastical, lay, or mixed.

3° Hereditary, familial, gentilitial, or mixed, according as it passes to heirs, or to those who are of the family or clan of the founder, or to those who are at the same time heirs and of the family or clan of the founder.

§ 1. No right of patronage can validly be constituted in the future by any title.

§ 2. The local Ordinary, however, can:

1° Grant, either for a time or even in perpetuity, spiritual suffrages proportioned to their liberality to the faithful who have built churches or founded benefices in whole or in part.

2° Admit the foundation of a benefice with this condition added, that the benefice for the first time be conferred on the cleric founder or on another cleric designated by the founder.

§ 1. Local Ordinaries are to take care that patrons accept, in place of the right of patronage which they enjoy or at least in place of the right of presenting, spiritual suffrages, even perpetual ones, for themselves and their own.

§ 2. If patrons are unwilling to do this, their right of patronage is governed by the canons which follow.

Popular elections and presentations to benefices, even parochial ones, wherever they are in force, can only be tolerated if the people select a cleric from among three designated by the local Ordinary.

§ 1. A personal right of patronage cannot validly be transmitted to unbelievers, public apostates, heretics, schismatics, those enrolled in secret societies condemned by the Church, nor to any excommunicated persons after a declaratory or condemnatory sentence.

§ 2. In order that a personal right of patronage can validly be transmitted to others, the consent of the Ordinary given in writing is required, with the laws of foundation and likewise the prescription of can. 1470, Sec. 1, n. 4 preserved.

§ 3. If a thing to which a real right of patronage inheres passes to some person of whom in Sec. 1, the right of patronage remains suspended.

No right of patronage is to be admitted unless it is proved by authentic documents or other legitimate proofs.

The privileges of patrons are:

1° Presenting a cleric to a vacant church or vacant benefice.

2° With the execution of burdens and the decent support of the beneficiary preserved, obtaining support in equity from the revenues of the church or benefice, if any remain over, whenever the patron has been reduced to want through no fault of his own, even if he himself has renounced the right of patronage for the advantage of the Church, or a pension has been reserved to the patron himself at the threshold of the foundation which does not suffice for alleviating his want.

3° Having, if the legitimate customs of the places so provide, the coat of arms of the clan or family in the church of his patronage, precedence before other lay persons in processions or similar functions, and a more dignified seat in the church, but outside the presbytery and without a baldachin.

A wife exercises the right of patronage by herself, minors through parents or guardians; but if the parents or guardians are non-Catholics, the right of patronage remains suspended in the meantime.

Presentation, no just impediment obstructing, whether there is question of lay patronage or of ecclesiastical and mixed patronage, must be made, unless a shorter time has been prescribed by the law of foundation or legitimate custom, at least within four months from the day on which he to whom the right of instituting belongs has made the patron certain concerning the vacancy of the benefice and concerning the priests who were approved in the concursus, if there is question of a benefice which must be conferred through concursus.

§ 1. If presentation has not been made within the prescribed time, the church or benefice for that case becomes of free collation.

§ 2. But if a lawsuit, which cannot be resolved within the useful time, arises either concerning the right of presenting between the Ordinary and the patron or among the patrons themselves, or concerning the right of preference among those presented, the collation is suspended until the end of the controversy, and in the meantime, if there is need, the Ordinary is to place an oeconomus over the church or vacant benefice.

§ 1. If several individual persons are patrons, they can come to agreement among themselves concerning alternate presentations, both for themselves and for their successors.

§ 2. But in order that this agreement be valid, the consent of the Ordinary given in writing must accede; nevertheless, once given, it cannot validly be revoked by the same Ordinary or his successors against the will of the patrons.

§ 1. If the right of patronage is exercised collegially, he is considered presented who has obtained the greater number of votes, according to the norm of can. 101, Sec. 1; but if, two scrutinies having been conducted without effect, in the third scrutiny several have a greater number of votes than the rest, but equal among themselves, all of them are considered presented.

§ 2. If the right of patronage rests with individual persons who have not agreed among themselves concerning alternate presentations, he is considered presented who has obtained at least the relatively greater number of votes; and if several have the same number of votes, greater than the others, all are considered presented.

§ 3. He who obtains the right of patronage from diverse titles has as many votes in the presentation as he has titles.

§ 4. Any patron, before the presentation is accepted, can present not only one but several, both all at once and also successively, within the prescribed time however, provided he does not exclude those whom he has presented earlier.

No one can present himself nor accede to other patrons so that he may complete for himself the number of votes necessary for presentation.

If provision must be made for a church or benefice by concursus, the patron, even a lay person, cannot present anyone except a cleric legitimately approved from the concursus.

The person presented must be suitable, that is, on the day of the presentation or at least of the acceptance, furnished with all qualities which are required by common or particular law or by the law of foundation.

§ 1. Presentation must be made to the local Ordinary, whose part it is to judge whether the person presented is suitable.

§ 2. To form his judgment, the Ordinary must, according to the norm of can. 149, inquire diligently concerning the person presented and take opportune information, even secret information if there is need.

§ 3. The Ordinary is not compelled to disclose to the patron the reasons why he cannot admit the person presented.

§ 1. If the one presented has been found not suitable, the patron, provided that the useful time for presenting has not elapsed by his negligence, can present another within the time of which in can. 1457; but if not even this one has been found suitable, the church or benefice for that case becomes of free collation, unless the patron or the one presented has interposed recourse from the judgment of the Ordinary to the Apostolic See within ten days from the notification of refusal; while this is pending, the collation is suspended until the end of the controversy, and in the meantime, if there is need, the Ordinary is to place an oeconomus over the church or vacant benefice.

§ 2. A presentation infected with the stain of simony is by the law itself invalid, and renders invalid even an institution perhaps following it.

§ 1. One legitimately presented and found suitable, after the presentation has been accepted, has the right to canonical institution.

§ 2. The right of granting canonical institution is proper to the local Ordinary, but not to the Vicar General without a special mandate.

§ 3. If several have been presented and all are suitable, the Ordinary chooses him whom he has judged more suitable in the Lord.

Canonical institution for any benefice, even a non-curate one, must be given, no just impediment obstructing, within two months from the time when the presentation was made.

If the one presented has resigned or died before canonical institution, the patron again has the right of presenting.

§ 1. The burdens or offices of patrons are:

1° To warn the local Ordinary if they have seen the goods of the church or benefice being squandered, yet without mixing themselves in the administration of those goods.

2° To build again a collapsed church or to make in it the repairs necessary in the judgment of the Ordinary, if they have the right of patronage by title of building, and unless the burden of building the church again or repairing it falls upon others according to the norm of can. 1186.

3° To supplement the revenues, if the right of patronage comes from title of endowment, when the revenues of the church or benefice have so failed that divine worship can no longer be exercised decently in the church or the benefice can no longer be conferred.

§ 2. If the church has collapsed or needs necessary repairs, or if the revenues have failed according to the norm of Sec. 1, nn. 2, 3, the right of patronage meanwhile lies inactive.

§ 3. If the patron, within the time to be determined beforehand by the Ordinary under penalty of cessation of patronage, has built the church again or restored it or increased the revenues, the right of patronage revives; otherwise it ceases by the law itself and without any declaration.

§ 1. Besides the case of which in can. 1469, Sec. 3, the right of patronage is extinguished:

1° If the patron has renounced his right; nevertheless his renunciation can be made entirely or in part, but it can never bring harm to other co-patrons, if there are any.

2° If the Holy See has revoked the right of patronage or has suppressed the church itself or the benefice in perpetuity.

3° If it has been legitimately prescribed against the right of patronage.

4° If the thing to which the right of patronage inheres perishes, or the family, clan, or line to which it is reserved according to the documents of foundation is extinguished; in this latter case the right of patronage neither becomes hereditary, nor will the Ordinary be able validly to permit a donation of the right of patronage to be made to another.

5° If, with the patron consenting, the church or benefice is united to another of free collation, or the church becomes elective or regular.

6° If the patron has attempted to transfer the right of patronage simoniacally to another; if he has lapsed into apostasy, heresy, or schism; if he has unjustly usurped or detains the goods and rights of the church or benefice; if by himself or through others he has killed or mutilated the rector or another cleric assigned to the service of the church or the beneficiary.

§ 2. On account of the crimes of which in Sec. 1, n. 6, only the guilty patron loses the right of patronage and, on account of the last-mentioned offense, his heirs also.

§ 3. In order that patrons be considered to have lost the right of patronage from the offenses enumerated in Sec. 1, n. 6, a declaratory sentence is required and suffices.

§ 4. Those bound by censure or infamy of law after a condemnatory or declaratory sentence, as long as the censure or infamy continues, cannot exercise the right of patronage or use its privileges.

If the Apostolic See, whether in concordats or outside concordats, has granted to someone an indult of presenting to a vacant church or vacant benefice, the right of patronage does not arise from this, and the privilege of presentation must undergo strict interpretation from the tenor of the indult.