Chapter II — How simony is committed while a temporal thing is delivered either as a price, or as a motive, or as a gratuitous compensation

I. A new manner of opining having been brought in, very many sins have put off their malice; since, says Caramuel, one Diana has taken a thousand of them out of the world. Formerly holy men inveighed sharply against simony with its mask laid aside. At present it is so trapped out and adorned with paints and allurements that it is scarcely found in the world. Very many casuists distinguish in money, or in a temporal thing, the characters of a native price, a principal, a secondary, a proximate, a remote, a directly intended, of compensation, of gratuitous remuneration. Hidden under this wrapping of little distinctions, simony, fortified as with leaves and a rampart, blunts the strokes of all the sacred canons, and runs about triumphant.

II. The Council of Toledo, canon 3, established these things: If any of the bishops, money having been received IN WHATSOEVER MANNER, shall have ordained a bishop, an abbot, and so forth, let him lie under the peril of his own grade.

III. The Council of Trent, innumerable other canons being passed over, session 24, chapter 18 On Reformation, among several things decrees these: And let them beware lest they receive anything at all on occasion of this examination, either before or after, otherwise let both they themselves and those giving incur the vice of simony, from which they cannot be absolved save with the benefices dismissed which they in whatsoever manner even before obtained, and let them be rendered unfit for others in the future.

IV. Nothing, whether before or after, can be delivered to examiners and collators of benefices. Therefore vain are the comments which teach that something can lawfully be bestowed either before or after, covered with whatsoever paint. Neither the Scriptures, nor the Fathers, nor the Councils distinguish in a temporal thing to be delivered the characters of price, of motive, of proximate, of remote, of principal, of accessory; but absolutely, all technicalities being rejected, they cry out: Freely have you received, freely give.

V. Fr. Gregory of Valentia is wont to be cited among the first who relaxed the mandates against simony. And in fact, Vol. III, disputation 6, question 16, point 3, he teaches these things: “A man can confer a spiritual thing on account of a temporal thing principally, as on account of an end, in such wise that the temporal be not with him the end of the spiritual thing itself, as though the temporal were esteemed by him at more than the spiritual, but only the end of the will, or of the application of the mind to the act of conferring the spiritual: this is not simony.” Which in the same place he more fully confirms.

VI. Could a prettier and more acute little distinction be devised? A collator of a benefice can principally accept a temporal thing; but this temporal thing is not the end of the spiritual thing, but only of the will, or of the application of the mind to the act of conferring the spiritual thing. A temporal thing therefore is given not on account of the spiritual thing, but that the collator may apply his will to the conferring of the spiritual thing. Whether heretics and the impious reading these festive interpretations are about to receive scandal, let others judge. The doctrine of Valentia was followed by Tanner and very many others, among whom Fr. Viva himself.

VII. The Roman See, hearing that the wickedness of simony was fostered by the opinings of certain men and daily stalked abroad, condemned the three following theses. Alexander VII proscribed this, no. 22: It is not against justice not to confer ecclesiastical benefices gratis: because a collator conferring those ecclesiastical benefices, money intervening, does not exact it for the collation of the benefice, but as it were for a temporal emolument which he was not bound to confer. And the Venerable Innocent XI devoted the two following, 45 and 46, to execration: To give a temporal thing for a spiritual is not simony, when the temporal is not given as a price, but only as a motive for conferring or effecting the spiritual; or even when the temporal is only a gratuitous compensation for the spiritual, or contrariwise. No. 46: And this also has place, even if the temporal be the principal motive of giving the spiritual; nay, even if it be the end of the spiritual thing itself, so that it be esteemed of more worth than the spiritual thing.

VIII. QUESTION I. Does he commit simony who gives money as a motive not of immediately obtaining a spiritual thing, but as an honourable intermediate motive from which a spiritual thing may be expected? ANSWER. Some deny it. But this opinion is to me false, and utterly contrary to the doctrine of the Scriptures, of the Councils, and of St. Thomas. A candidate for Orders, or for a parochial benefice to be received, offers money to the examiners, to the bishop, to the collator, and so forth. What is that true, honourable, intermediate motive from which the benefice or the sacrament of Order is expected? They are silent. In brief, the candidate would not deliver or promise a temporal thing, unless he hoped for the attaining of the benefice or of the sacred Orders. Therefore he commits simony.

IX. The same opinion the Salmanticenses defend, tract 19, chapter 1, point 4, no. 55, where they teach that for the character of simony there is required a will of giving money “as a price, or of commensurating it with the spiritual thing, and of esteeming it at so much, so that it be through an onerous contract. This depraved will nevertheless being excluded, even if a temporal thing be given with the mind of obtaining a spiritual thing, not as an onerous price but gratis, or out of gratitude or benevolence, even with the imposition of some antidoral obligation, no simony is committed — whether the gift be conferred before the collation of the spiritual thing, or after it, or at the same time with it.”

X. What could be brought forth more expressly against Trent and against all the sacred canons assuredly escapes me. For the character of simony there is required a will of commensurating money with the spiritual thing, and of esteeming it at so much? He who should have this will would be a most impudent heretic, not to say a simoniac. Which of the Catholics ever asserted that money can equal a spiritual thing of an altogether superior order? This opinion, in my judgment, is in fact contained in the rescribed condemned theses. For this doctrine being admitted, there is no simony in the world. If you desire more, consult Vol. X, Book 2, dissertation 2, chapter 8. Nor does it please me to delay longer in overthrowing a doctrine evidently false.

XI. QUESTION II. Whether it be lawful to give a temporal thing under the hope of obtaining a spiritual thing from the donee, or contrariwise, under the title of friendship or of gratitude? ANSWER. Fr. Billuart affirms it, provided it be sincerely and not feignedly expected as a spontaneous gift out of mere gratitude, friendship, and liberality, and not owed under the title of a temporal gift. Since, he says, this is to give a temporal thing as a motive indeed of obtaining a spiritual thing, but by the mediation of another honourable motive, namely gratitude and friendship.

XII. These are pure and mere comments devised for encrusting the wickedness of simony. All the Councils, chiefly Trent, forbid to give money — not the mind, not the mode of giving. The Councils forbid to give a temporal thing for the obtaining of a spiritual thing. Most ineptly is the mode of giving devised, when in fact money is given. Nor do collators of benefices, of Orders, and so forth care whether the money be given under the title of a price, or of an incitement, remote or proximate, or under the motive of antidoral gratitude, provided it be in fact given and they in fact receive it. This alone they care for; the rest they deride. This farrago of precisions and distinctions being admitted, there would be no simony in the world.

XIII. QUESTION III. Whether the sale of the sacraments be simoniacal? ANSWER. All affirm it, when anything is exacted for the administration of the sacraments. Similarly he would be a simoniac who should sell the Eucharist. Those things which are given to sacred ministers are destined for their sustentation, by no means as a price of administering the sacraments: for the labourer is worthy of his meat, says the Evangelist Matthew; just as also to a priest celebrating there is given something for his sustentation. It is agreed among all, by natural, divine, and ecclesiastical right, that it is forbidden to receive or to deliver anything as a price, whether for the receiving of the sacred habit, or for monastic profession.

XIV. Those who preach either for the sake of applause or for the sake of gain are simoniacs, as the Angelic teaches, 2-2, question 100, article 3, reply 2. If a priest in the article of death should be unwilling to baptize without money, if the one to be baptized were a boy, anyone else, even a layman, could baptize him. If the one to be baptized were an adult, and no priest were at hand, the priest would be simoniacal, and then the baptism of desire would supply, as St. Thomas teaches, II-II, q. 100, art. 2, reply 1. Whence is rejected the opinion of those who teach that money can be given for the bending of the will of an avaricious priest. But that comment is utterly empty. Simony similarly is to receive anything for the administration of the sacramentals. Those things which are wont to be bestowed for the chanting of Mass, for a funeral office, for a procession, and so forth, are immune from the stain of simony, because they are given according to a laudable custom for the sustentation of the ministers.

XV. Fr. Nicholas Mazzotta, tract 3, disputation 5, question the only one, on simony, recounts many who teach that something can be received without simony for the obligation of exercising spiritual things, provided this obligation be severed from the ecclesiastical function. He reports also the opposite opinion. Fr. Mazzotta imitates the method of Fr. La Croix of proposing a collection of probable contrary opinions, that readers may be able to choose what more pleases and flatters them. The former opinion has already been proscribed.

XVI. QUESTION IV. Whether it be simony to sell or to buy the power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction? ANSWER. Authors commonly distinguish. There is a power of jurisdiction which regards the forum of conscience, as to absolve from sins; and there is a power which pertains to the exterior forum, as to dispense in vows and in laws, to visit, to condemn, and so forth. For all these things to receive anything is simony, because they are spiritual. Similarly it is simony to exact anything for a licence of hearing confessions, of absolving from censures, for the concession of indulgences, for the faculty of dispensing in vows and oaths, for the assistance of a parish priest at a marriage, for the election, collation, and confirmation of benefices, and so forth.

XVII. QUESTION V. Is it simony to receive anything for entrance into a monastery? ANSWER. The Council of Trent, session 25, chapter 16, establishes these things: But neither before profession, except for the food and clothing of the novice or novice-woman of that time in which she is in probation, let anything from her goods be bestowed upon the monastery UNDER WHATSOEVER PRETEXT, whether by parents, or by kinsfolk, or by guardians, or by alms. These two things are certain among all. But very many casuists, who consider money as a price and as a primary and secondary, proximate and remote motive, and as an antidoral title, of obligation, of gratuitous compensation, take away all simony out of the midst. But the sacred canons which forbid to receive or to deliver anything for entrance into Religion are so clear that they rout all the aforesaid little distinctions and devised comments. Consult Vol. X, Book 2, dissertation 3, chapter 5.

XVIII. QUESTION VI. Is it simony forbidden by divine right alone to confer any benefices whatsoever with a view to a temporal emolument? ANSWER. Two rights are included in benefices. One spiritual, or the right of administering spiritual things, which is called the office; the other the right of perceiving temporal things, which is called the benefice. According to all, simony is forbidden by every right, from which not even the Pope can dispense, namely the sale of a benefice inasmuch as it means the right of administering spiritual things. Authors dispute whether it be simony forbidden by divine right to catch at or to confer benefices with a view to the temporal emolument alone. Some deny it. But this opinion is to me false, because the right to the temporal revenues is so annexed to the right to the spiritual offices that it can in no way be separated. There are to be distinguished the fruits of a benefice, which a beneficiary can sell, let out, or exchange, from the right of perceiving these fruits. This beneficial right is inseparable from the prior right of administering spiritual things. Therefore he who sells the one must needs sell the other.

XIX. To offer something to Sempronius that he may intercede with the collator is simony. Fr. La Croix continuously adds a distinction: if you give for the labour, it is not simony. And this opinion Fr. Mazzotta transcribes, tract 3, chapter 5, saying: “But if you give something to an intercessor, whether mediate or immediate, not indeed for the intercession, but for the labour, for ceasing gain, for emerging loss, for the expenditure of time, and so forth, in going and returning, it is not simony, because these are something temporal altogether extrinsic.” La Croix, no. 91, and others commonly.

XX. In truth La Croix teaches this opinion in just so many words with Diana, Castropalao, Raynaud, and others. The falsity and laxity of that opinion is evident to my weakness. That to deliver money for an intercession with the collator of a benefice is simony, those authors themselves confess; but to deliver money for the time to be expended, for ceasing gain, for emerging loss in going and returning, is not simony. And why? Because these are something temporal altogether extrinsic. Excellently! I yield. Can an intercession be made without some expenditure of time, without approach and return to the collator? If a man must intercede, it behoves that he speak. And that he may be able to speak, time is required, and approach and return. Therefore if it is simony to deliver money for an intercession, it is simony also to deliver money for the things necessarily annexed to the same. Even to the collator himself money could be given, not for the collation but for the expenditure of time consumed in the collation. Diana devised these little distinctions; from Diana Castropalao, from Castropalao La Croix, from La Croix Mazzotta: and afterwards they conclude, So the Doctors commonly. Unskilled readers reading these things think that the Doctors of the Church so teach; and hence with a secure conscience they commit simony. Behold how true is what I said at the outset, that, these opinions being admitted, no simony is given in the world.

XXI. The sale of the habits of military Orders, which are given to Religious deputed to the choir and the divine office, is simony. Similarly to sell pensions erected into the title of a benefice, as praestimonia or simple benefices, is simony, as all confess. Several things concerning these pensions St. Pius V established in the Bull which begins Ex proximo. Someone asserts that this Bull is nowhere received. But he is deceived, and deceives. For the Salmanticenses testify, no. 74, that it is received in Spain. And the common opinion teaches that pensions of this kind cannot be redeemed or sold without simony. Simoniacal also is the sale of an ecclesiastical right of patronage.

XXII. He who has been elected to a benefice, and has the collation from a lawful superior, although he do not yet possess it, has a right in the thing. Therefore he can redeem an unjust vexation with money, provided it be truly unjust, without simony, as St. Thomas teaches, II-II, q. 100, art. 2, reply 5. To redeem with money a vexation before a right in the thing is acquired is simony, as St. Thomas asserts in the same place. Authors nevertheless distinguish a vexation intended against a right to be acquired by one who can hinder but cannot profit, from a vexation intended against a right to be acquired by one who can both hinder and profit. When a vexation is redeemed from one who can hinder and profit by electing, confirming, and so forth, simony is committed. But to redeem a vexation intended by one who can hinder but cannot profit is no simony.

XXIII. To commute spiritual things for spiritual things is no simony, benefices being excepted. Wherefore it is lawful for you this week to celebrate four Masses for Peter, that Peter may celebrate just as many for you at another time. So relics can be delivered for relics.

XXIV. QUESTION VII. Can benefices be exchanged without simony? ANSWER. By ecclesiastical right all exchanges of benefices are forbidden and declared simoniacal, unless the authority and dispensation of a superior accede. For although the titles of benefices be spiritual, and on this account a spiritual thing can be commuted for a spiritual; nevertheless, because to the titles of benefices there are annexed temporal revenues which kindle avarice, therefore the Church has forbidden that these exchanges be made without the superior's authority. Under the name of benefices are understood all spiritual things which have annexed temporal emoluments. There is required therefore the authority of that superior who conferred the benefices. Wherefore a bishop cannot grant the faculty of exchanging benefices conferred by a superior, namely by the Pope. If the benefices be in diverse dioceses, the consent of each bishop is necessary, or of the patrons who have the right of nominating and presenting.

XXV. Exchangers of benefices can at the same time mutually enter upon honourable conditions, and propose them to the lawful superior. Elsewhere I shall show that these exchanges are rarely lawful. The acceptance of money for the collation of a benefice is not only simoniacal but also against justice; the opposite opinion Alexander VII condemned, no. 22.

XXVI. Bishops cannot grant a faculty of exchanging a benefice with a clerical pension. If the pension be lay, it can by no wrapping, not even by the Pontiff's authority, be exchanged with a benefice, as is plain. When benefices are unequal either in revenues or in dignity, they cannot be compensated with money, or with the accession of a temporal thing, whatever some may say to the contrary.

XXVII. A transaction in composing a suit over a benefice is simoniacal, if it be done without the authority of the Apostolic See. Several things concerning this matter some dispute, which it is not worth while to weigh, as being useless, because it pertains to the Apostolic See to settle them.

XXVIII. QUESTION VIII. How can a benefice be resigned without simony? ANSWER. 1. Anyone can resign a benefice into the hands of his bishop, no condition being added; 2. In favour of such a person; 3. In favour of such a person, a pension being reserved to himself; 4. Without designation of a person, and with reservation of a pension. A resignation made in the first way is true, and can be safe. For a resignation made in the other ways the authority of the Supreme Pontiff is required, who can dispense for the good and convenience of the Church.

XXIX. The Salmanticenses, no. 55, contend that a resignation can be made into the hands of a bishop in favour of Peter, provided this condition be not made in all rigour by the resigner, so that he should suspend the resignation, but only declare to the Prelate the mode conceived by the resigner and to be observed in the provision of the benefice after the absolute renunciation is made. These are bland thoughts, which a prudent bishop alone can resolve, by admitting no condition at all, whether rigorous or bland. For in this fashion he will explore the sincerity of the resigner.

XXX. Simoniacal are reciprocal renunciations, by which you renounce in favour of Peter, that he in turn may renounce to you. Similarly simoniacal are the renunciations which they call triangular, as when you renounce to Peter, that Peter may renounce to Paul, and at last Paul renounces his benefice to you.

XXXI. QUESTION IX. Whether a confidential renunciation of benefices be simoniacal? ANSWER. That resignation of a benefice is called confidential which is made into the hands of a lawful Superior with a trust that he in whose favour the benefice is renounced will resign the same benefice to him or to another, or will pay a pension or something else. A fiduciary resignation with an express or tacit agreement is beyond doubt simoniacal, forbidden by divine, natural, and human right, as all confess. A fiduciary resignation without any agreement, but with the hope that the resignee will under the title of gratitude at an opportune time resign the same benefice either to himself, or to a friend, or to a blood-relation, or to whomsoever he shall have willed, or will pay part of the fruits — although absolutely and speculatively it may be without simony, in practice nevertheless it is almost always to be reputed simoniacal.

XXXII. Guilty of simony are Canons who principally assist at choir on account of the distributions, as St. Thomas teaches, Quodlibet 8, article 5, saying: A cleric who goes to church principally on account of the distributions which he receives, as the end of the work, commits simony. Easily will each man assert that he goes to choir not principally but secondarily on account of the distributions. But let them seriously weigh their own conscience, whether they truly go to choir on account of the divine worship. Whence can they gather this? From several signs: from the fervour of devotion, from the modesty and attention with which they celebrate the divine praises; from the omission of frequenting choir when there are no distributions, or small ones.