Question XI: Whether a regular prelate has the power to administer temporal things, and what power

SINCE temporal goods are aids and alleviations of the needs which the human race suffers on the way by reason of its condition of constitution, however much a Regular person abstain from the care and handling of secular things, it is necessary that the community subsist by means of them and obtain their dominion, or at least their use. But since, if the administration of temporalities should burden the whole community, disturbances, suspicions, and other inconveniences would thence arise, not without reason did canonical law once transfer this whole burden in the Monastic Order to Abbots; and in the Religious Order now the special statutes of each have provided the same with respect to Regular Prelates.

I ASSERT therefore that this manner of administering, granted to Abbots by ancient law, is most fitting, that the whole dispensation of temporal goods should remain in them. The Seraphic Doctor consequently proves this with most ample testimonies of Scripture, throughout the whole book de Paupertate Christi; where he approves both renunciation of goods, the common and the proper, though he asserts the latter to be more perfect than the former; see him there. Wherefore, this renunciation and polity of living in community being supposed, it is necessary that the Power of ministering be in someone; and this cannot be more fittingly than in the Abbot, or Father of the Community: both because this ministration is of dominative power, which resides in him; and because it is decent that to whom persons are subject, the goods of persons also be subject, because the accessory follows the nature of the principal. Add the congruity, that the power of dominion and of jurisdiction be united in one; whence the manner of governing will be more expeditious if temporal and spiritual things depend on one, than if on diverse; especially if the former goods are ordered immediately to spiritual profit, as happens in Monks, who may expend temporal goods only as much as is necessary for the sustenance of life or the execution of offices.

It IS PROVED, second, by the Saintly Doctor from the example of Christ himself, who willed, while he presided over the College of Apostles, that he himself minister temporal things also to them; to which end he had purses carried by Judas, for three causes, as the Saintly Doctor notes, in the place cited. The first is to supply the need of the poor, begging from door to door. The second is to have compassion on the infirm. The third was to minister to those who were with him in his company; to which he adds, to alleviate also the extreme necessity which could impend while he passed through the lands of foreigners in the time of persecution; whence, being about to approach the Samaritans, whom he foresaw would minister nothing to him, he had purses prepared, as St. Bonaventure notes, in the place cited. Wherefore, in imitation of this temporal ministry which Christ did not disdain to exercise while he was in the company of the Apostles, as appears in John 13, and as St. Bonaventure notes on the Rule there, the disciples thought, when he said to Judas, that which thou dost, do quickly, that because Judas had the purses, Jesus had said to him, buy those things which we have need of, etc.

Hence the Prelates of Regulars take temporal goods to be ministered to their subjects; as Suarez also notes, chap. 26: so that if poverty be only in the particular, property remains with the Community, but use with the Prelate; if however it be also in common, as in the Friars Minor, the Prelates have the naked use of ministering likewise, not dependently on the Community, in which is the property of nothing, but dependently on the supreme Pontiff, or on one of the most Eminent Cardinals whom he shall have deputed to that task, as St. Bonaventure teaches in the chapter, cited of the Rule, and in the Apologia pauperum, where he learnedly explains that common distinction of use and dominion, to prove that one is separable from the other: see him there resp. 3. chap. 1., where he adds more things which are amplified everywhere in the expositors of the Rule, which I omit here; for it is not the place here to defend poverty, since no one now keeps vigil in assailing it like a Vigilantius.

It IS PROVED, third, from the Seraphic Doctor, in the place cited, by the example of the primitive Church, whose heart not only was one, and soul one; but goods also common under Apostolic administration; so that all sold their possessions and carried the prices of them to the feet of the Apostles, to indicate that property, the wellspring of immense evils, must be trodden under the feet of the Prelate, as he notes from St. Jerome to Demetrius, epist. 8., in the place above; where he also subjoins from the same: and distribution was made to every one, according as he had need, by the Apostles, namely; wherefore Ananias and Saphira, struck by the blow of death, fell at the feet of St. Peter, because they had dared to contaminate his public ministration in the common goods of the faithful with private property.

HENCE the Coenobitic life, the Seraphic Doctor says, took its origin and form, according to the Gloss of Bede, ibid., because one ministered the common goods to all; and hence in many Religions, where poverty is stricter, the Prelates claim for themselves the name of Minister, to show that nothing is to be assumed to themselves in the goods of the Religion but the naked ministry.

It IS PROVED, fourth, from the chapter Nullam, 18 q. 2, where it is established by Pope Pelagius: all things which pertain either to the reverence of divine worship or to the utility of the Monastery, the care of the Abbot, to whom the whole power ought to pertain, ought to fulfill, which the Saintly Doctor indicates to be the most ancient law, on chap. 1 of the Rule; and that it was not newly constituted but declarative of old law, Suarez reports, num. 2 chap. 26.

It IS CONFIRMED by the Saintly Doctor on chap. 2 of the Rule, litt. A. 2, from the diverse institutes of St. Augustine, St. Benedict, etc., as Suarez also has it, num. 3.

It IS PROVED, fifth, by St. Bonaventure, in the said chap. 2 of the Apologia, fol. 423 litt. A, by the authority of Gregory IX, whose Rescript to the Friars Minor is read thus: We say, that they ought to have property neither in common nor in particular, but of utensils and books, and those things which it is lawful to have; the Order have the use, and the brethren use them according as the General or Provincial Ministers shall have determined in disposing: wherein he refers the whole administration to the providence of the said Ministers, not however excluding local Prelates, who undertake this burden more immediately, but because the matter there treated was the disposition of weightier things, which must always be with the greater Prelates; see here the Saintly Doctor, chap. 3 resp. 3, weaving a most splendid Panegyric of the poverty of the Minors, praising exceedingly possession also in common, being indeed supported by the examples of so many Patriarchs, Augustine, Benedict, and other Saints; yet in these last times, with avarice creeping in gradually and charity growing tepid, he shows it necessary that some should uproot the whole root of cupidity from the foundation, professing a more sublime poverty, both in common and in particular, than which the Seraphic one, our Father Francis, chap. 6 of his Rule, enriched with these words: This is that height of most high Poverty, etc. Wherefore most high? the Saintly Doctor asks, postilling: unless because most remote from the world, and consequently nearest to the kingdom of heaven, and also most like that eternal life, as far as is possible, where nothing earthly is proper or common.

There REMAINS to be explained the second part of the question, wherein is asked what sort of power of ministering temporalities there be in Regular Prelates.

HERE it must be carefully distinguished between those vowing total poverty, and those only promising it by a special vow; for a different power is found in each; yet both can be considered in three respects as regards ministering, namely as regards receiving, conserving, and alienating; for the whole administration of any temporal good is reduced to these three acts.

OF the power of acquiring the common law limits nothing, leaving it to the prudence of the Prelates in general terms: faithfully and diligently, all things which pertain either to the reverence of divine worship or to the utility of the same Monastery, etc.; by reason of which words the Prelate of a Community which has not vowed poverty in common may receive whatever is offered to him by just title of donation, testament, etc., whether it be offered to himself or to the community; yet its dominion is always acquired to that alone, not to him; for although the Prelate put on a common person as regards those dispositions of goods which accrue to the utility of the Monastery, yet it is nowhere permitted him to possess anything of his own; because as regards the observance of the vow which he made, he does not cease to be a private person; wherefore what other brethren also acquire passes into disposition, as the Saintly Doctor says, in the said chap. 2 litt. E, but not into the dominion of the Abbot.

BESIDES this common manner of acquiring, there are many statutes of Religions and Rules modifying the acquisition of Prelates and subjects, which are varied either by their own judgment or by the Privileges of Pontiffs: each Religious may better see these for himself.

THIS alone is to be noted here, that in the Religion of the Minors, according to the pure observance of the Rule, nothing can be acquired for the Prelate or for the Monastery, as regards quid iuris; but only as regards quid facti, or as regards pure use, so that the Dominion remains with the giver, or if he abdicate it, it passes under the dominion of the supreme Pontiff, or of the Roman Church, as St. Bonaventure teaches in these terms, in the place cited litt. E; and after him the other expositors of the Rule, according to the declarations of diverse Pontiffs, especially Gregory IX, Nicholas III, and Clement V.

NOR is this new in law, that use be separated from dominion, since property, possession, usufruct, and simple use are several things concurring under diverse titles in the same thing, and really distinct from one another, as the Saintly Doctor teaches in this chapter, and after him Galitius, Crousers, Corduba, and many others on chap. 4 of the Rule. But the law which once established that use should not be perpetually separated from the Dominion of things is civil, and moreover has no place in the dispositions of Pontifical law. Moreover, the Saintly Doctor notes litt. C that this was therefore provided in Civil law, lest dominion, deprived of perpetual use, be useless to the owner; but this reason ceases in spiritual things, where for one thing relinquished in favor of the poor, a hundredfold is received.

Nor does it avail to urge that then use is separable from dominion when both remain unconsumed; not indeed when the substance of the thing is destroyed by use, for then it draws dominion along with it indistinctly.

To this instance, which the Adversaries of the Minors have made so much of, the Saintly Doctor responds litt. C. 1. fol. 423: that it is most false by daily experience; for by the very law, as the Seraphic notes there, the son of a family uses the adventitious peculium, and consumes it by continuous use, yet does not obtain its property even for a moment.

MOREOVER, what is more improper than for the rich to receive guests with sumptuous dishes, giving them not only things to eat, soon consumed by use, but most splendid utensils, yielding to the use of fact, not to the dominion of law; if anyone were to seize any of these for himself not to use but to possess, he would deservedly be rebuked for injustice; by no means, however, however much he consumed while feasting, although dominion thus perished with the use. Of this use without dominion, lawful, Christ makes mention in those words: behold the birds of the air, which neither sow nor reap; yet to them it is sown and reaped, while they brood upon the harvests of others without any injustice, and indeed enjoy by use the necessary nourishment from the dominion of others; and yet the heavenly Father feeds them, namely the sparrows, snatching the grains of another's field; in a not too unlike manner before the Lord himself: the disciples were plucking the ears of corn while passing through alien fields, since indeed they appeased their pressing hunger with a benefit that offered itself, though offered by no one; who would say them bound to restitution, because they made dominion perish together with the use? Since not even the Lord himself, the fount of all justice, would reproach them even lightly, nay rather the very Jews, most observant in detecting the disciples' defects, upbraided them not with the consumption of another's goods, but with the breaking of the Sabbath; but Christ declared them immune expressly from the latter, and tacitly from the former, saying, Luke 6: Have ye not read this, what David did, etc.; where although he teaches explicitly that extreme necessities are not subject to the observance of the Sabbath, yet implicitly he wills to show it lawful, and most meritorious, to strip oneself of one's own goods in the common and particular renunciation of the vow, and to live on another's; since the disciples voluntarily cast themselves into the aforesaid necessity.

This is further unfolded, if the nature of dominion be weighed, which is a free power of using, selling, alienating one's own thing independently of another, etc., as all the Jurists cry with one mouth; hence it is that a madman and a minor cannot possess without the authority of a tutor, because they have not the affection of holding which is free, although they touch the things themselves with hand or body, as the Saintly Doctor teaches from the Jurist, in the place cited litt. B. 2, where he also exemplifies the same of a sleeper, who should receive some thing closed in his hand; for he is not said to possess it, because he lacks the liberty, or the mind necessary for possessing. So in like manner, although the use and handling of things be with the Friars Minor, yet since they lack the mind of acquiring, they acquire nothing: for liberty is not acquired by one unwilling; nor is a benefit conferred on one who refuses it; nor is anyone compelled to accept a harmful inheritance, as the Seraphic Doctor, cited, reports from the disposition of law; wherefore as the inheritance passes into the dominion of him to whom it is owed by the mind of accepting it, and is repudiated by a contrary mind, whence to comport oneself as heir is not so much of fact as of mind, as the Saintly Doctor reports from Julian; if a Friar Minor lack the mind of acquiring, nay rather possess not only within but declare outwardly the mind of repudiating, how shall he be said to acquire unwillingly that which others are wont to hunger for with full will? The Saintly Doctor has this to the matter, and almost to the word, which are weighed and fortified among the expositors of the Rule with much amplification. But let these things have been said as regards the power of acquiring, both by Prelate and subject, among us equally prohibited as regards property, but otherwise as regards the use of things, as is observed in practice.

AS REGARDS the power of conserving, in which is the second act of Administering, this is left to the prudence of a wise Prelate according to laudable customs of Religions: for the ancient law only requires that temporal things be dispensed faithfully and for the utility of the monastery, as is had in the alleged chapter Nullam: whence the stricter the poverty of each Religion, the tighter in this matter is the obligation of each Prelate. Wherefore if it was thought among the primitive monks, possessing in common, a piaculum and a kind of sacrilege to squander even a little of what pertained to the utility of the Convent, how much rather ought this to be urged now in Religions, at least where property is also abdicated in common; see Cassian, lib. 4 Instit. chap. 20, where he cries out that not only persons but things offered to monasteries are most sacred, and warns that they must be handled not only with careful diligence but with great reverence.

And lest anyone understand this of things serving more immediately the sacred altar, he subjoins: and with such faith do they procure and dispense all things, that they trust with full credulity that they shall obtain a reward from the Lord, who have even moved without place, or placed more fittingly, those things which are held to be of defect and small and vile; for such was the sincere and holy simplicity of the ancient Monks, that they accounted all things made sacred by the touch of a place consecrated to God. These things Suarez notes, num. 7.

MOREOVER this obligation of conserving the goods of the poor weighs upon the Prelate from justice, and upon those whom they have created for this end as officials and ministers, so that they are positively bound to be mindful of their duty; but others are bound to it only negatively (to speak with Suarez), namely not to give or handle the goods of the monastery unduly; and this obligation can pertain either to justice, by which one is bound that what is not his own he not appropriate to himself, or even to the vow of poverty, which relinquished his own, and much more does not admit what is another's.

The POWER finally of alienating is the last appendix of Prelacy; and it can be considered as regards movable or immovable things; likewise movables, whether they endure permanently, as books, utensils, and the like; or are soon consumed, as things to eat and drink, etc. These last, since they consist in mere use, scarcely fall under another rule than frugal and ordered temperance, according to decency.

BUT the power of alienating or exchanging enduring movables, or even immovables, the supreme Pontiffs have so determined and diversified by many sacred sanctions that each Religion can see more aptly for itself what it can do in this matter: Suarez also is to be seen, amply expounding the Pontifical constitutions indulged to his Society for the alienation of goods throughout the whole chap. 27 and 28 to the end.

IT is worth observing for the Friars Minor that from the beginning of the Religion Gregory IX had sanctioned, and St. Bonaventure reports in the Apologia pauperum cited resp. 4 chap. 2: Nor ought movables to be sold, or changed beyond order, or alienated in any way whatsoever, unless the Cardinal of the Roman Church who shall be the Governor of the order have granted authority over this, or assent, to the General or Provincial ministers. Not that the dominion of the things whose use is granted us is properly with the most Eminent Cardinal, Protector of the Religion; since the supreme Pontiff reserves that to himself, as the Saintly Doctor everywhere inculcates not rarely in his opuscula, and especially q. 26 in the determinations of questions around the Rule of St. Francis; but that the Pontiff is wont to transfer his power in this office to one of the Cardinals.

BUT the words of the Seraphic Doctor, in the place just cited, are these: The Prelate of the Apostolic See, who is the General provider of all the poor of the church, having special care of our order, has assumed to himself the property of all movables which are conferred on the order, except those whose dominion those conferring them retained, and he grants us only the use of the same things, etc. But shortly after he subjoins: Alms which is given us by the faithful passes into our use, and the dominion of his, to whom we are prepared, if he shall command it, to resign all things that we have, as to the Lord, as is fitting.

HERE is the primitive state of the Minors, in which the Prelates have no right to alienate in any way the goods of the Religion except according to the concessions of the supreme dispenser of the whole Order; which have been granted to some as perpetual privileges, and as dispensations of the rigor of that rule which many for the vicissitudes of times pretended. But to others they were given according to occurring necessities, so that of such concessions, as of the other things, they have rather a transient use than a right, or permanent duration.