Case LIV: Reduction of the Number of Masses, or Reduction of the Stipend?

Case.—Father Peter leaves a bequest, for the benefit of a poor mission, of one thousand dollars, with the condition that the priest in charge is to say each year fifty Masses, for each Mass to receive a stipend of one dollar. The money is invested at five per cent. and Father Peter obviously had not thought of a possible lowering of the rate of interest. Nevertheless, after a short while it happens that the money can no longer be invested at five per cent., and four per cent. is the best obtainable. Now, the priest in charge of the mission faces a dilemma: either he must reduce the fifty Masses to forty; or be satisfied with a smaller stipend.

Question.—Is it lawful to reduce the number of Masses in the present case?

Solution.—The priest is not obliged to let the stipend left him by the testator be decreased and consequently it is permitted to reduce correspondingly the number of the Masses. That this decision is correct is proved (1) from the form of the bequest; (2) from the testator’s declared intention; (3) from the decisions of weighty authorities.

1. That Father Peter laid stress not upon the number of the Masses but upon the amount of the stipend is readily seen by the wording of the bequest. If he had willed that in any case, and without regard to the yield of interest, the fifty Masses were to be said, it would have been superfluous, even absurd, to fix the amount of the stipend. Hence we may rightly assume that Father Peter, by fixing the stipend, wished to modify his statement about the number of Masses. 2. As it was the clearly expressed intention of the testator to improve the slender income of the mission, we are justified in case of doubt to decide for an interpretation favorable for that view. It is obvious that our view favoring reduction of the number of Masses is in the sense of that intention, while a reduction of the stipend would be opposed to that intention. 3. In support of our view we may refer to St. Alphonsus. In his Theologia Moralis he raises the question: An possit Capellanus ex se minuere numerum missarum, si deficiant reditus? And after he has answered the question in the affirmative, for the case that the income entirely disappeared, he continues: Si vero reditus deficiant in parte, etiam videtur certum cum Escob. n. 638 posse Capellanum minuere Missas, casu quo testator congruam eleemosynam designaverit. Therefore, according to the teaching of St. Alphonsus, when the testator himself fixed the amount of the stipend, the priest may, if the income is reduced, correspondingly reduce the number of Masses.