Chapter — Koch–Preuss
Chapter V: The Precept of Contributing to the Support of Church and Pastor
- The Church claims the right, independently of the civil power to exact from the faithful whatever is necessary for divine worship, for the decent support of the clergy, and for all other purposes implied in her divine mission.1
1 C. I. C., can. 1496.
To this right corresponds, on the part of the faithful, the duty of paying public worship to God and of providing the means necessary for that worship and for the support of those engaged in it. “Know you not,” says St. Paul, “that they who work in the holy place eat the things that are of the holy place; and they that serve the altar, partake with the altar? So also the Lord ordained that they who preach the gospel, should live by the gospel.”2
2 1 Cor. IX, 13 sqq.
“As there was special provision made by God for the support of the priests and the maintenance of religion under the Old Law, so under the New Law our Lord commanded that His ministers should be supported by those to whom they ministered. The faithful then are bound by divine precept to contribute according to their means to the support of their pastors.”3
3 Thos. Slater, S.J., Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, p. 580.
- The manner in which this obligation must be met is determined by the Church for every age and country.
The historians of ecclesiastical discipline trace the custom of paying tithes to the very beginning of the Christian era. Thomassin finds its first recorded manifestation in the conduct of those among the early Christians who sold their property and gave the proceeds to the Apostles for their own support and that of the poor.4 Origen derived the precept from Holy Writ.5 St. Caesarius of Arles admonished his diocesans to “give the tithes of their harvest each year to the Church and to the poor,” adding that good Christians should not be content with obeying this precept, but should dedicate the surplus of the remaining nine-tenths of their crops to the needy.6 The law enjoining the payment of tithes can be traced back to the Council of Macon (585), which decreed a revival of the “ancient custom” according to which the tithe was paid by all under pain of excommunication.7 Under the Carolingian régime the tithe attained its full development as a fiscal obligation. Gratian’s Decretum, published about the middle of the twelfth century, contains some twenty texts on the subject. In course of time, however, the tithe as a legal tax became odious and was no longer enforced. In France it was suppressed after the Revolution by a series of laws, beginning with that of Sept. 21, 1789.8 In the countries where it is still enforced as a true tax of obligation, says Villien, “when one gives what he can, no more is demanded.”9
4 Ancienne et Nouvelle Discipline de l’Eglise, P. III, l. 1, c. 1.
5 See Migne, P. G., XII, 640 sqq.
6 Villien, History of the Commandments of the Church, p. 327.
7 See the text in Villien, op. cit., pp. 329 sq.
8 Villien, op. cit., p. 355.
9 Op. cit., p. 355.
The new Code of Canon Law provides that, “so far as regards tithes and the payment of tithes and first-fruits, the peculiar statutes and praiseworthy customs of each country should be observed.”10
10 C. I. C., can. 1052.
Regarding statutes, can. 1507 says: “The taxes to be paid throughout each ecclesiastical province for the various acts of voluntary jurisdiction, or for the execution of Apostolic rescripts, or on the occasion of the administration of the Sacraments or sacramentals, should be determined by a provincial council or at a meeting of the bishops of the province; but no decision taken by them shall go into force until it has been approved by the Holy See.”
- The obligation, then, of contributing to the support of church and pastor is a dictate both of religion and of justice, and consequently grave; but it is not easy to determine when a mortal sin is committed in particular cases by failure to comply with this duty. Archbishop Kenrick says: “All must be convinced that each individual Catholic is in duty bound to contribute something on his part towards the necessary support of the clergy; but as long as this obligation is not enjoined and defined by any definite law, we would not venture to condemn any one as guilty of mortal sin who neglects to contribute a fair share, provided there is no danger that the clergy suffer want and provided others are not unduly burdened on this account. However, those who, in the circumstances just described, refuse to give anything out of avarice, seem to be guilty of grave fault and unworthy of sacramental absolution, because they transgress the law of Christ our Lord concerning the support of the ministers of the gospel and endanger their own salvation and that of others.”11
11 F. P. Kenrick, Theol. Mor., 2nd ed., Malines 1860, p. 142: “But all ought to be persuaded that it is necessary for each person to contribute something for his part, lest priests lack necessary support; but so long as the burden is not imposed and defined by any certain law, we do not dare to condemn of mortal sin one who omits to contribute a fair portion, whenever there is no danger that the priests lack it for this reason or that the other faithful are burdened excessively. Those, however, who through avarice refuse to give anything in the circumstances which we have indicated seem gravely guilty and unworthy of sacramental absolution; for they violate the law of Christ the Lord concerning the support of the ministers of the Gospel and expose themselves and others to the danger of salvation.”
This passage from Kenrick is quoted in Sabetti-Barrett’s Compendium Theologiae Moralis, the manual of moral theology now most widely used in our seminaries, with the following statute of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore appended as a warning to the clergy not to be too exacting in their demands: “Rumor has it (oh, that it were groundless and false!) that in some places are found priests who, when no grave fault is apparent, deny the benefit of sacramental absolution to those of the faithful who refuse to contribute to collections a share to which it is not clear that they are obliged under pain of mortal sin, nay, who even (what is far more contemptible) refuse to assist the sick and the dying and to bring them the Sacraments.”12
12 Conc. Plen. Balt. III, n. 292; Sabetti-Barrett, Comp. Theol. Mor., 27th ed., p. 333. The passage reads as follows in the original: “Report has it—would that it were groundless and false!—that in some places priests are found who, where grave fault does not appear, deny the benefit of sacramental absolution to the faithful who are unwilling to give an offering to collections to which it is not established that they are bound under grave sin; indeed, they even refuse—what is far more detestable—to assist the sick and those near death and to provide the sacraments. . . .”
“Much depends,” says Father Slater, “on the degree of necessity in which a pastor is placed, and on the means of the parishioner.”13 Entrance into the church during divine worship should be absolutely free to all, regardless of any contrary custom existing before the promulgation of the Code.14 No priest is justified in refusing the consolations of religion to the dying on the ground that they have neglected the duty of supporting their pastors during life. The priest is bound to his flock by such exalted ties that his actions must not even be suspected of material motives.
13 Slater, Manual of Moral Theol., Vol. I, p. 581.
14 C. I. C., can. 1181.
- Sabetti-Barrett’s Compendium in this connection asks and answers two practical questions, to wit: a) May priests who do not receive sufficient support from their parishioners collect alms outside the limits of their parishes? Answer: No, unless they have obtained permission from their own bishop. For the Baltimore Council says: “Since grave inconveniences may arise from the practice of unattached and unknown priests going about collecting alms from the faithful, it has pleased us strictly to forbid any priest, without the written permission of his Ordinary, to collect alms outside the congregation entrusted to his care, or in any other diocese without the permission of the Ordinary of the same.”15
15 Conc. Plen. Balt. II, n. 119; III, nn. 294 sqq.
b) The question whether a priest may leave the altar during Mass to take up a collection, is answered by the same authors negatively, in view of the prohibition contained in the decrees of the Second and Third Plenary Councils of Baltimore.16
16 Sabetti-Barrett, Compend. Theol. Mor., p. 333; Conc. Plen. Balt. III, n. 293: “Most grave are the words of the preceding Council by which it condemned the perverse manner of acting of those priests who withdraw from the altar during the very solemnities of Mass and go around the sacred building asking alms from each of the faithful. But such obstinacy of some and such sloth in observing even the strictest laws appears that we, who have been appointed guardians of ecclesiastical laws, are constrained to promulgate anew and inculcate with a loud voice the decree of our predecessors. Therefore, we reprove the noted most shameful abuse, injurious to the Church and her sacred rites, which provokes the blush and indignation of Catholics but the derision and contempt of non-Catholics, and we decree that it is to be utterly rooted out. In this matter the conscience of each bishop is burdened.”
In collecting the customary revenues from the faithful the clergy should carefully avoid anything and everything that might arouse a suspicion of avarice or render the Catholic religion odious to the faithful or contemptible to non-Catholics.17
17 H. Noldin, S.J., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. II, p. 749.
READINGS.—Thos. Slater, S.J., A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, pp. 580 sq.—H. Noldin, S.J., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. II, pp. 748 sq.—J. B. Ferreres, S.J., Compendium Theol. Mor., Vol. I, pp. 382 sq.—J. Wernz, S.J., Ius Decretalium, Vol. III, nn. 142, 214.—Sabetti-Barrett, Compendium Theol. Mor., pp. 332 sqq.—F. P. Kenrick, Theologia Moralis, 2nd ed., Vol. I, Malines 1860, pp. 140 sqq.