Case XVIII: Payment of a Debt Owed to One Deceased

Case.—The editor of a newspaper applies the fee still due to a deceased contributor, a member of a religious Order, to Masses for the repose of his soul.

Question.—Did the editor act rightly?

Solution.—This question must be answered in the negative. The fee due belonged to the contributor; it was his by legal right, and this right, like all other rights, was by his death transferred to his heirs, and to these, therefore, or to the estate this fee should have been paid. With death the right of a person to all his temporary possession ceases. It is, therefore, not allowed to apply part of the possessions of the deceased according to the supposed intentions of the deceased. Since all rights to his properties have gone to the heirs, these have the right to claim the property, and as long as this claim has not been satisfied the demands of justice are not fulfilled. To have Masses said for the deceased does not satisfy the claim of the heirs, therefore it is not capable of cancelling the indebtedness, which can only be satisfied by payment. Only a reasonable assumption of consent on the part of the heirs can make such a discharge of a debt legitimate. In the case of a member of a religious Order, the Order or religious community is the heir. In the same way as on the death of a member of a religious Order everything that he possessed or received from the Order for his use, or legitimately earned, reverts of itself to the Order, all legal claims of the deceased do so likewise, so that anything due to the deceased must be paid to the Order or community. In this case the application of money for Masses for the deceased is not a proper or sufficient payment. Of course, a religious Order would probably not object to such application of the money due, but if such objection would be made the fee would have to be paid in money. This member of a religious Order was entitled to payment for his work, and upon his death his legal claim becomes the legal claim of his heirs.

In a religious community of simple vows the community is not the heir of the professed religious, unless made so by the last will of the religious. Such a community, nevertheless, could claim the fee in the present case because the community became the owner of this fee while the religious was alive.