Chapter II — On pensions and coadjutorships

I. QUESTION I. What is a pension, and who can by right impose it? ANSWER. It is a right of perceiving some fruits from a benefice granted to someone, whether for life or for a time. One is lay, and another clerical, founded in a spiritual title, ordained to a spiritual end, and which supposes an Order in the receiver. Another they call mixed, which is given either to a poor cleric, or to an aged parish priest for maintenance. The Roman Pontiff alone can adjoin these pensions upon benefices. Bishops can impose upon the beneficiaries themselves, from a just cause, the burden of paying pensions: and because they do not burden the benefices but the persons, pensions of this kind cease at the death of the pensioner.

II. QUESTION II. What causes are required, that pensions may lawfully be imposed? ANSWER. Three are assigned by right. 1. That the resigners have, the benefice being dismissed, maintenance whereon to live; 2. There is the reason of equality in the exchange of benefices, as when a richer benefice is exchanged with a slender one; 3. There is the occasion of ending a suit.

III. A pension must needs be moderate, regard being had to the benefice upon which it is imposed; so that there always remain to the beneficiary that part of the fruits which suffices for his congruous sustentation. Wherefore it is never to be reckoned that the Pontiff wills to burden a benefice against the rule predetermined by Trent, session 24, chapter 13 On Reformation. For the valid imposition of a pension the beneficiary's consent is commonly required.

IV. QUESTION III. Who are capable of a clerical pension? ANSWER. A lay pension can be conferred upon any layman, even a woman, if the conditions be present. But a clerical one can be delivered only to those who have been initiated at least with the first tonsure. The age necessary for a pension is fourteen years. The excommunicated and the irregular are capable of no pension. The illegitimate also are incapable of a pension.

V. A beneficiary ought to pay a pension; he is nevertheless not bound to pay his predecessor's pensions, as seems to me the more probable. A pensioner cannot dispose at his pleasure of the goods of a clerical pension, but is bound to distribute the superfluous to pious uses, whatever some may say to the contrary.

VI. The burdens of a pensioner are: 1. The recitation of the Office of the Blessed Virgin; 2. The payment of the papal tithe, and of the subsidy for the repair of the Church, and to serve the Church according to his measure. What? Shall pensioners devour the pious revenues of the Church, that they may flow with idleness, that they may play, that they may serve little matrons? Pensioners ought to manifest the pensions and benefices obtained before. But this I leave to be resolved from the rules of the Chancery.

VII. A pension is extinguished: 1. By the death of the pensioner; 2. If a cleric be enrolled in the army, and being admonished does not forsake it; 3. By his profession made in some Religion; 4. If he contract matrimony; 5. By promotion to the episcopate; 6. If he refuse openly to wear the tonsure and the clerical habit; 7. If he himself remit the pension; unless he had been ordained under the title of the pension, in which case he cannot remit it without the bishop's authority. To Cardinals alone, and to a few others, the privilege of transferring pensions is wont to be granted.

VIII. AN ADMONITION. Hitherto I have culled a few things concerning pensions out of those which the canonists commonly dispute. The origin of pensions and their increase would have to be set forth. But this is not of this place and time. This I admonish in passing, that the revenues bestowed by the pious faithful upon the Church are for the maintenance of the ministers, of the clergy, and of the poor of that place in which the Church is. If the benefices be burdened with pensions, they cannot distribute alms. Never did the faithful understand that their goods should go to the feeding of strangers, far less to the fostering of their luxury, display, and idleness. Only the common good of the Church and true utility can be a just reason for giving moderate pensions to those alone who are not of the magnates and matrons, but well deserving of the Church, and who continually labour for the defence and increase of the Church. But let it be enough to have indicated these things.

IX. QUESTION IV. Of how many kinds is a coadjutorship? ANSWER. Twofold: one temporary and revocable; the other perpetual and irrevocable. The first is assigned to an aged parish priest not able to perform his own office, to whom is given a coadjutor who may supply his place, a congruous stipend being assigned out of the fruits of the benefice. A perpetual coadjutorship with the right of succeeding in the benefice is forbidden by Trent to be granted, session 25, chapter 7 On Reformation, in these words: In coadjutorships also with future succession let the same be observed in future, that they be permitted to no one in any benefices whatsoever. That the Supreme Pontiff alone can sometimes, the cause being known and necessity urging, grant a coadjutorship with future succession, the Council likewise declares. A coadjutorship is not a benefice. Coadjutors with future succession are bound, the principal commanding, to serve the prebend and canonry. When the letters of coadjutorship are expedited, if the principal has died, the succession is null.