Morals of the Church
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Section — Marc, Institutiones Morales

§ 1. On the Subject of Ownership in General

¶857.
  1. Principle. Every and only intellectual nature is the subject of ownership. For intellectual nature alone can enjoy the faculty of disposing at will of some thing as its own. - Besides, ownership draws with itself the right of warding off those who, against one's will, would seize what is one's own. But only an intellectual nature can be unwilling.

Hence you will deduce: Infants are not incapable of ownership, nor even the insane; for the use of reason is necessary only for the exercise of right, but not for having radical ownership, as founded in the powers of the soul, which precede the use of reason; otherwise everyone who has given himself to sleep would become incapable of ownership. - Civil law agrees, which attributes to an infant even before his birth the right of possessing. French Code, 906; German, 1923, 2, 2109, 2178.

The Commandments of GodJustice and Rights (Seventh and Tenth Commandments)Ownership and PropertyWho May Own Property