Case XXXVIII: Partiality in Bishop’s Appointment Not Simony

The priest Fabius asked his Bishop for his release, which was promised if he could produce evidence of having been accepted in another diocese. In a conversation with Fabius the Bishop offered him the pastorship at a certain place. Several other priests were anxious to obtain this pastorship, all of them more worthy than Fabius, but nevertheless the Bishop selected Fabius. We are asked to decide whether this preference is to be regarded as simony inasmuch as the Bishop, knowing Fabius to be the least suitable candidate for the rectorship, promised it to Fabius in order to retain the roving priest in his diocese. In this case, therefore, the studiosa voluntas would be the Bishop's word pledged to Fabius, the pretium temporale would be Fabius himself, whom the Bishop desired to keep in his diocese, and the rectorate is the spirituale, or rather the spirituali annexum.

Against this proposition the following remarks may be made: The assumption that Fabius is the price for which the Bishop has given the position to the same Fabius, is obviously too farfetched. We may more properly regard Fabius, or rather his continued residence in the diocese, as the object which the ordinary. wishes to secure at the price of the position. This continued residence in the diocese is not a temporale, in the sense of the definition of simony accepted by theologians, and certainly it is no obsequium, taking the place of money payment, but it is simply a matter of continuing the canonical connection between a priest and the diocese. This connection is not of a private, but of a public nature; it is not temporal, but spiritual, and may fittingly be termed a spirituali annexum. Hence it follows that to promise a priest admittance to the ranks of the clergy in a diocese, in return for payment of money, would be simony; but no simony is involved if a priest is induced simply to remain a member of the diocesan clergy by a promise of money or by other means to which a money value can be assigned. Still less can there be any suggestion of simony if the means employed to induce a priest to remain in the diocese are altogether of an ecclesiastical nature, even a spirituali annexum, especially a benefice or some similar position in the Church.

The common practise is in harmony with this view, for a Bishop is free to refuse to accept the resignation of a priest, who has not yet received a pastorship, and to give as excuse that a suitable benefice will shortly be conferred upon him. It is true that this must not be understood as meaning that the ordinary may give a binding promise to confer upon him some particular place not yet vacant. To promise a position held by some one else would be to confer an unlawful privilege. The only thing that the Bishop can do is to promise a priest who wants to leave the diocese to do what he can to further his interests. It would be a mistake to lay it down as a principle that the Bishop would in every case be right in retaining his clergy by means of such promises. The matter is left to the discretion of the ordinary to act as he thinks best. He will do well to make no promise when there is any reason to think that the priest, by tendering his resignation, is bringing pressure to bear upon the Bishop.

Although now and then a Bishop may go too far in showing partiality to a priest, and may even give support to one unworthy of it, there can still be no suggestion of simony. We ought not to forget that the meaning of Simonia juris divini must be interpreted strictly, as must also the laws concerning Simonia juris ecclesiastici, and they may not be extended to other cases not mentioned in the law. There is no law in existence which declares partiality or favoritism on part of a Bishop to be in simony.

If the Bishop was aware that he was selecting an unsuitable person, or one less suitable than other candidates, for the rectorship, he acted wrongly, but not simoniacally. This is quite clear from the fact that ecclesiastical law furnishes a particular means (viz., appellatio a mala relatione examinatorum and appellatio ab irrationabili judicio episcopi) for dealing with the analogous cases of a biased judgment of the qualifications of candidates for a rectorate, by synodal examiners, and of an undue selection of the Bishop, but there is no allusion to a charge of simony. In all these cases the immediate ground of complaint is an act alleged to be unjust, mistaken, or partial; the sin of simony may of course be committed in connection with an unjust action, but that it has been committed requires independent proof. We can speak of simony only when the recognized indicia of this offense are present, viz., an unlawful request for, or acceptance of, money and money's worth in return for some spiritual or ecclesiastical service.—Dr. Rudolf Ritter von Scherer.