Chapter III — On the penalties against simoniacs, and on the restitution of those things which have been acquired through simony

I. QUESTION I. Do they lie subject to the penalties against conventional simony, when such simony is not complete on either side? ANSWER. Peter resigned a benefice to Paul under a promise of a hundred gold pieces; he did not pay the promised money. Do these men incur the penalties against simoniacs? Sánchez, Lessius, Valentia, and others deny it: because so long as the money is not paid, real simony is not complete. Otherwise mental simony does not lie subject to penalties, as all confess. This opinion is false. For the incurring of the penalties passed against simoniacs it is enough that a spiritual thing be delivered with a promise of money to be paid. For then the simony is real, not mental. Simoniacs incur the penalties, whether the simony be against divine right or against ecclesiastical right. Since the law does not distinguish simoniacs of divine or of ecclesiastical right. Those who are guilty of simony contracted upon entrance into Religion incur excommunication by that very fact reserved to the Pope. Several contend that those do not incur this penalty who are guilty of simony contracted in the reception of the habit, but only in profession. But this distinction is arbitrary, and in no way drawn out of the law, chapter Exiit, on simony.

II. QUESTION II. What penalties are imposed upon those receiving sacred Orders simoniacally? ANSWER. He who through simony ordains anyone, or is a mediator that he be ordained, is bound with an anathema, and remains suspended from the collation of any Orders whatsoever and from the execution of all pontifical acts, and is interdicted from entrance into the Church and from the perception of all fruits, if he shall have violated the suspension in a pontifical office. But those ordained are obnoxious to excommunication reserved to the Pontiff, and suspended from the execution of all Orders. He who unknowing has been simoniacally ordained by another's work remains suspended from the execution of the Order.

III. Those who are ordained under the title of a feigned patrimony cannot be promoted to higher Orders, nor can they exercise the Order received, as Trent established, session 21, chapter 2 On Reformation. Those who simoniacally confer or procure for another a benefice or an ecclesiastical office by election, postulation, confirmation, or nomination, whether publicly or secretly, by that very fact incur excommunication reserved to the Supreme Pontiff; and obnoxious to this penalty also is the one receiving the benefice, as is had in the Extravagant Cum detestabile, on simony. Besides, all collations and provisions made in this way are annulled. Wherefore simoniacs do not make the fruits their own, but ought to restore them before the judge's sentence, and to dismiss the benefice received, even if the simony was committed by parents or friends without the beneficiary's knowledge, as St. Thomas teaches, II-II, q. 100, art. 6, reply 4.

IV. QUESTION III. Whether simony in the collation of benefices deprives one of benefices rightly obtained before? ANSWER. Authors commonly deny that before the judge's sentence a simoniac is deprived of the benefices which he lawfully possessed before the benefice acquired through simony: because, they say, this is expressed in no law. There is nevertheless excepted fiduciary simony, which by force of the constitution of St. Pius V induces the privation not only of the benefice procured by such simony, but also of all antecedent ones; just as simony perpetrated with examiners, which by Trent deprives one of all benefices rightly obtained before, besides the benefice simoniacally acquired. Lastly those who attain benefices through simony remain by that very fact unfit for obtaining other benefices before the judge's sentence, as St. Pius V expressly declared in his constitution Cum primum. What the Salmanticenses say out of Lessius, Sánchez, and Castropalao — that the aforesaid constitution is not received in use — is a mere comment. It is indeed not received in use by very many, because they in fact commit simony. But by this reasoning neither is the Gospel received in use by very many, because it is violated. A contrary use does not bring it about that just laws sufficiently promulgated do not oblige.

V. QUESTION IV. Whether the things acquired through simony ought to be restored? ANSWER. The affirmative resolution is plain from what has been said, namely that all benefices simoniacally obtained, and the fruits of the same, are to be restored. The Salmanticenses, tract 19, chapter 4, point 5, no. 21, say: “He who buys a benefice does not do an injustice, but suffers it. For he ought to have received gratis that which, a price being given, he received: he sins only against Religion, whose transgression does not oblige to restitution. Nor does he who confers the benefice sin against justice, or by divine right make the collation invalid.” This doctrine has been condemned by Alexander VII, no. 22: It is not against justice not to confer ecclesiastical benefices gratis, and so forth. From the proscribed doctrine the cited authors infer several absurd corollaries, which are to be guarded against.