Article IV: Of Alms or Stipends of Masses

§ 1. According to the received and approved custom and institution of the Church, it is lawful for any priest celebrating and applying Mass to receive an alms-offering or stipend.

§ 2. But as often as he celebrates several times in a day, if he applies one Mass by a title of justice, the priest cannot, except on the day of the Nativity of the Lord, receive an alms-offering for another, except some remuneration by an extrinsic title.

It is never lawful:

1° To apply Mass to the intention of him who is going to ask the application, an alms-offering having been offered, but has not yet asked, and to retain the alms-offering afterward given for a Mass previously applied.

2° To receive an alms-offering for a Mass which is owed and applied by another title.

3° To accept a double alms-offering for the application of the same Mass.

4° To receive one alms-offering for the celebration alone, another for the application of the same Mass, unless it is certain that one stipend was offered for the celebration without application.

§ 1. Stipends which are offered by the faithful for Masses, whether from their own devotion, as it were by hand, or from an obligation even perpetual made by a testator upon his own heirs, are called manual stipends.

§ 2. Stipends of founded Masses are called after the manner of manual stipends when they cannot be applied in their proper place, or by those who ought to apply them according to the tables of foundation, and therefore by law or by indult of the Holy See they must be handed over to other priests so that satisfaction may be made for them.

§ 3. Other stipends which are received from the revenues of foundations are called founded stipends or founded Masses.

Every kind whatsoever of business-dealing or trade is to be entirely kept away from the Mass stipend.

As many Masses are to be celebrated and applied as stipends, even small ones, have been given and accepted.

Although without fault of the one who is burdened by the obligation of celebrating, the alms-offerings of Masses already received have perished, the obligation does not cease.

If someone has offered a sum of money for the application of Masses, not indicating their number, this number is to be reckoned according to the alms-offering of the place in which the offeror was residing, unless another intention of his must legitimately be presumed.

§ 1. It belongs to the local Ordinary to define the manual stipend of Masses in his diocese by decree, issued, insofar as it can be done, in the diocesan Synod; nor is it lawful for a priest to demand a larger one.

§ 2. Where a decree of the Ordinary is lacking, the custom of the diocese is to be observed.

§ 3. Even religious, although exempt, must stand, concerning the manual stipend, by the decree of the local Ordinary or the custom of the diocese.

It is lawful for a priest to accept a stipend spontaneously offered in a greater amount for the application of Mass; and, unless the local Ordinary has prohibited it, even a lesser one.

The offeror is presumed to have sought only the application of Mass; but if the offeror has expressly determined some circumstances to be observed in the celebration of Mass, the priest, accepting the alms-offering, must stand by his will.

§ 1. Masses for the celebrating of which a time has been expressly prescribed by the offeror are to be celebrated entirely at that time.

§ 2. If the offeror has expressly prescribed no time for the celebration of manual Masses:

1° Masses offered for an urgent cause are to be celebrated as soon as possible within useful time.

2° In other cases Masses are to be celebrated within a moderate time, according to the greater or lesser number of Masses.

§ 3. But if the offeror has expressly left the time of celebration to the discretion of the priest, the priest can celebrate them at the time which is more pleasing to himself, with the prescription of can. 835 remaining firm.

It is lawful for no one to receive so many burdens of Masses to be celebrated by himself that he cannot satisfy them within a year.

In churches in which, because of the particular devotion of the faithful, alms-offerings of Masses flow in such a way that all the Masses cannot be celebrated there in due time, the faithful are to be admonished, by a notice placed in an open and visible place, that the Masses offered will be celebrated either there, when it can conveniently be done, or elsewhere.

One who has Masses to be celebrated by others is to distribute them as soon as possible, with the prescription of can. 841 remaining firm; but the legitimate time for celebrating them begins from the day on which the priest who is to celebrate received them, unless something else is established.

Those who have a number of Masses concerning which it is lawful for them to dispose freely can assign them to priests acceptable to themselves, provided that it is well established to them that those priests are beyond every exception or commended by the testimony of their own Ordinary.

Those who hand over to others to be celebrated Masses received from the faithful or in any way entrusted to their fidelity are held by the obligation until they have obtained testimony from the same persons of the obligation accepted and of the stipend received.

§ 1. One who transmits manual Mass stipends to others must transmit the accepted stipends in full, unless either the offeror expressly permits something to be retained, or it is certain that the excess above the diocesan tax was given in view of the person.

§ 2. In Masses after the manner of manual stipends, unless the mind of the founder stands in the way, the excess is legitimately retained and it is sufficient to remit only the manual alms-offering of the diocese in which the Mass is celebrated, if a rich alms-offering takes the place in part of the endowment of the benefice or pious cause.

§ 1. All and each administrators of pious causes, or those obligated in any way to fulfill Mass burdens, whether ecclesiastics or lay persons, toward the end of each year, are to hand over to their Ordinaries, according to the manner to be defined by them, the Mass burdens for which satisfaction has not yet been made.

§ 2. This time, moreover, is to be understood in such a way that, in Masses after the manner of manual stipends, the obligation of depositing them runs from the end of that year within which the burdens ought to have been fulfilled; but in manual Masses, after a year from the day of the burden undertaken, with a different will of the offerors preserved.

The right and office of watching that Mass burdens are fulfilled belongs, in churches of seculars, to the local Ordinary; in churches of religious, to their Superiors.

§ 1. Rectors of churches and of other pious places, whether secular or religious, in which alms-offerings of Masses are customarily received, are to have a special book in which they accurately note the number, intention, alms-offering, and celebration of Masses received.

§ 2. Ordinaries are held by the obligation of inspecting books of this kind at least every year, either personally or through others.

§ 1. Local Ordinaries also and religious Superiors who commit Masses to be celebrated to their own subjects or to others are quickly to enter in order in a book the Masses which they have accepted with their alms-offerings, and are to take care according to their powers that they are celebrated as soon as possible.

§ 2. Indeed all priests, whether secular or religious, must accurately note which Mass intentions each has received and to which he has made satisfaction.