Chapter VII — Beneficiaries are bound out of justice, and not only out of charity, to dispense all superfluous things to the poor

I. Certain authors — I know not who, that I may use the words of Paul Comitolus, a most elegant and most learned Jesuit — have endeavoured to bring into the Christian commonwealth, after a thousand five hundred years, a new and perilous opinion, by which they attribute to those who obtain ecclesiastical benefices an absolute dominion of the fruits perceived therefrom. Which opinion assuredly is stabbed by its very novelty. The opinion which defends that ecclesiastics are bound by the bond of justice to distribute superfluous things to the poor is of its own nature perspicuous, propped by the prescription of fifteen centuries, fortified by the authority of Councils, canons, holy Fathers, and Pontiffs, and by unconquered weights of reasons.

II. Although, that at the outset I may unteach beneficiaries, the opinion of the younger authors avails them little, nay nothing. For it is agreed among all, both theologians and canonists, that the precept of charity urges ecclesiastics under the interdict of eternal damnation to the almsgiving of superfluous things. But that they descend into eternal fire on account of a precept violated, whether of justice or of charity — what, I ask, does it profit them, as Dominic Soto, Bellarmine, and the other theologians advert? Hence it is that I shall despatch this controversy in few words. I should fill a volume if I wished to transcribe hither all the testimonies of the Fathers and Councils which call those beneficiaries thieves, robbers, savage plunderers, who squander the patrimonies of Jesus Christ and of his poor in fostering luxury, ambition, and display, in enriching blood-relations, in making gifts to little matrons, in frequenting theatres, comedies, and games, in feeding dogs. These things are obvious and well known.

III. The most learned Pontiff Benedict XIV in his Diocesan Synod, page 154, no. 5, writes these things: It is likewise certain that, before the said division of ecclesiastical goods, a bishop, to whom the administration of the same belonged, ought to have bestowed faithfully the part assigned to individuals, and could not without a violation of commutative justice defraud the poor of that fourth part of the proceeds which according to the discipline of that age was destined for the relieving of the needs of the poor; which burden indeed, flowing from that virtue of justice, still even now lies in those places in which the aforesaid division has not yet been made, upon bishops, abbots, and other beneficiaries, with whose ecclesiastical revenues those are mingled which were attributed to the poor, or to the fabric of the Church, according to the ancient institution. Wherefore if they have usurped anything from these for themselves, they are unjust detainers of another's property, and are bound to restitution.

IV. At present the goods of beneficiaries here are undivided. Therefore beneficiaries are bound by the bond of justice to distribute superfluous things to the poor. And in the first place, from the very beginning of the division carried out, the administration of the portion of the poor always remained with bishops and beneficiaries. Never was a portion of the ecclesiastical revenues assigned to the body of the poor. Never did the poor obtain the administration and dominion of their own portion. But bishops and beneficiaries, either by themselves or by the work of ministers, distributed this portion, which was now greater, now less, according to the greater or lesser abundance of revenues. This is evident from the decrees of very many Councils, which I have reported in Vol. I, dissertation 6, chapter 18. In several places the poor were described in the tables or registers of the Churches, and were called matricularii.

V. Hence it is clearly established how chimerical is the comment which the patrons of the opposite doctrine feign for themselves. These reckon that the ecclesiastical revenues are a certain living, stable, and permanent tribute, divided into four parts, and consisting down to the present time, obnoxious to no vicissitude. They reckon that the portion of the poor, drawn from the living stock and separated in fact, has come into the dominion of the poor. How vain that comment is, no one does not see. The ecclesiastical revenues at the beginning were committed to the trust of the bishops and possessed in common, and were divided by the bishops through the work of ministers to individuals as need was. Charity growing cold and the avarice of ecclesiastics prevailing, some bishops, the poor being neglected and the worship of the Churches and the clergy, converting the sacred proceeds to their own and their blood-relations' profane uses, swallowed all things down their own throats. Then by the decrees of Councils a partition of the sacred revenues was commanded. To the clergy and to the worship of the Church portions were separately consigned; but the portion of the poor, mingled with the goods of the beneficiaries, was taxed each year by the beneficiaries themselves and bestowed upon the poor. The sacred revenues were subject to those changes to which all temporal things are subject. In the course of time, according to the increase or decrease of the revenues which were daily conferred by the faithful of Christ, the portion of the poor grew or was diminished. From the first time of the division down to this our age innumerable benefices have been instituted — bishoprics, chaplaincies, and so forth. Most ample estates, farms, rent-charges, and vast goods have been given to the Churches. When was the portion of the poor deducted from these? What steward or dispenser, besides bishops and beneficiaries, was to be appointed? It is evident therefore that the portion of the poor has always and always again remained mingled with the goods of the beneficiaries.

VI. What we have said is confirmed by a most clear reason repeated from an evident fact. The Pontiffs, Councils, and Fathers of every century exalted their voices against bishops and beneficiaries, because they neglected to succour the poor. They always reproved them as dilapidators of the patrimony of Christ and of the poor. Consult all the Councils and Fathers from antiquity down to this time: nowhere will you find even a slight vestige that any steward or dispenser of the portion of the poor, distinct from the beneficiaries, was rebuked as guilty of infidelity in his administration and dispensation. But they always reproached bishops and beneficiaries with an unfaithful administration of the portion of the poor: these alone they accuse and disapprove; to these alone they commit the care of the poor as to fathers, and command; to these alone they forbid that they grow rich from the patrimony of the poor, or make their blood-relations rich, or convert the revenues of Christ into luxury and display. This same thing teach the Fathers and Doctors of a later age — Peter Damian, Gratian, Bernard, Raymond, Thomas, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, Alensis, Antoninus, Bernardine, Paludanus, and the rest commonly. What of this, that adversaries have never been able to indicate an administrator of the portion of the poor distinct from beneficiaries, or that a portion of the poor separated from the goods of the beneficiaries exists or has existed? That some have babbled that the portion of the poor came to the hospices is a manifest chimera. What Father, what Council ever reproved or rebuked the hospices, because they do not distribute the revenues of beneficiaries and bishops to the poor? Let us run through all the benefices, whether episcopal, or parochial, or capitular, for more than six centuries. I challenge adversaries to produce documents of the boasted division of even one benefice. Let beneficiaries exhibit the division of the ecclesiastical revenues which they now perceive, and we forthwith absolve them from the debt not only of justice but even of charity of distributing alms. For if the division be just, they have nothing superfluous to lay out. But they ought to bring forward authentic documents. What? Could a brother exclude a brother from the portion of the common patrimony owed to him, unless he evinced by documents, and indeed clear ones, that a division had been made, and that he had long had his own portion? Exceedingly ridiculous would they render themselves, if they obtruded a division carried out in the fourth or fifth century, when the benefices of today were not yet instituted. No otherwise than if a brother should exclude the rest of the brethren from the division of the common patrimony, because by the law of nations a division of all goods was introduced so many ages ago.

VII. It remains therefore evident and explored that the portion of the poor is mingled with the revenues of bishops and beneficiaries, and that beneficiaries alone are bound with the burden of administering the same. This being posited, I frame this argumentation. Adversaries themselves with one mouth confess that, the division of the goods of the Church being taken away, beneficiaries are bound by the bond of justice to lay out superfluous things upon the poor. The boasted division is chimerical. Therefore they are necessarily compelled to concede that today beneficiaries are bound out of the debt of justice to dispense superfluous things to pious uses and to the succour of the poor.

VIII. The argumentations are inevitable, the weights of reasons unconquered. But avarice, ambition, and pride so madden the mind that they do not suffer it even to see the noonday light. There is added the authority of certain casuists, who commonly oblige beneficiaries out of the debt of charity to lay out superfluous things, and pronounce them guilty of eternal damnation for the violation of that precept; nevertheless there have not been wanting probabilists who free beneficiaries even from the precept of charity. Lessius, Baunius, and others have so relaxed the common doctrine that they teach that beneficiaries are held by ecclesiastical precept alone to dispense superfluous things. Diana himself, Vol. IV, tract 7, resolution 10, says: I do not favour this opinion; and since it is against the common one, I think it altogether to be repudiated. Even lay Christians themselves are bound by the natural precept of charity to dispense superfluous things to the poor. And do Lessius and Baunius free beneficiaries themselves from this precept? If you desire more, consult Vol. II, dissertation 6, chapter 26 and following.