Section — Bucceroni, Institutions of Moral Theology
Every Kind of Commerce is Prohibited
- By means of Masses any commerce, or kind of commerce, is prohibited under grave sin, whether to merchants or to others who are not merchants, whether to laymen or to ecclesiastics. And not only is the collection of Masses accepted from the faithful or from pious places prohibited, but also simply to request, accept, and hand over these Masses for any other end whatsoever than for the celebration itself of Masses, and with the full stipend then given and not commuted into another thing.
And this is prohibited both for Masses to be celebrated and for Masses already celebrated, namely if for these someone were to receive, in place of the stipend, books or other merchandise; so that for these Masses already celebrated, the contract not yet having been fulfilled, not merchandise but the stipend is to be handed over, whenever this falls into usage and habit and turns into the support of some commerce.
But it is prohibited to booksellers, merchants, sellers of sacred things, administrators of periodicals, and others requesting Masses, for example authors of books for selling them, to hand over not their own Masses, but others', namely those accepted from the faithful or from pious places. For these cannot be handed over except to those who celebrate them, whether by themselves or through their subjects. Contrary indults granted up to now all remain abrogated in the future. Paragraphs 8, 9, 10.
But it is not prohibited, in place of a stipend in money, to hand over to the Priest any other thing whatever in place of the stipend, whether by a merchant or by anyone else who asks of the Priest that he be willing to celebrate Mass for him or according to his intention, when namely, as is evident, it is a question of one's own Mass, not of another's which is committed to the Priest to be celebrated.
"Whenever this falls into usage and habit." Therefore a Priest who has bought cloth from a merchant and afterwards could not pay its price could on that occasion offer himself to celebrate Masses whose stipend would equal that price, and which perhaps he knows that that merchant must have celebrated from the legacy of his father. Nevertheless he could not do this habitually; for it is explicitly prohibited by the Decree and would certainly fall into support of that commerce.
The alms is to be handed over entirely to the one celebrating. The case is excepted in which the priest spontaneously, not having been asked, yields part of the stipend handed over to him to the one handing it over. But it is not a question of the case in which the excess of stipend is not given in view of the celebration of Mass, but in view of the person, for whatever other reason it is given, and this is certain.
- Against this prescription, and consequently he would not incur the penalties, although he would sin from another source, would not sin a Priest who, celebrating a second Mass on the same day and accepting alms for it from indult, had to hand this over entirely to the Bishop, and handed over to him only part. Sacred Congregation of the Council, February 27, 1905. But although for this second Mass on the same day a stipend cannot be accepted by general law, nevertheless the priest can apply it according to that intention to which by the rule of the Order, if for example he is a religious, he is obligated, or by the statute of a pious Congregation or pious Sodality to which perhaps he is enrolled, he is held.
On the contrary, priests to whom by rectors or administrators of churches the satisfaction of one or several legacies of Masses founded in the church is committed could not at their own judgment commit the celebration of those Masses to other priests outside the proper church and with a lesser alms. Sacred Congregation of the Council, December 19, 1904.
- Moreover it is lawful for no one, not even Bishops, not even with the permission of the offerers, without permission of the Holy See, to subtract anything from stipends handed over to Sanctuaries so that provision may be made for their adornment; nor, so that necessary expenses for the celebration itself of Masses may be sustained, namely for hosts, wine, etc., if the church has no other revenues, and for this reason the number of Masses is not diminished. Concerning this matter, cf. Enchiridion Morale, n. 624. Paragraph 11.