Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article Sixth. On the Ownership of Clerics
380. Declarations. The goods of clerics are of three kinds:
- Patrimonial goods, which come to clerics from paternal inheritance or from any other profane cause, for example, donation, contract, industry, or another mode of this kind common with seculars, for example, by teaching letters.
Of these goods clerics have perfect ownership equally as laymen: for by no positive law is natural right now limited in this matter with respect to clerics.1
- Quasi-patrimonial or quasi-ecclesiastical or casual goods, which clerics acquire from ecclesiastical functions and offices, such as stipends of Masses and sermons.
To these goods belong: a. stole fees; b. salaries which are received by assistants of pastors, military chaplains, professors of religion in gymnasia; stipends for the office of teaching theology in universities or seminaries, whether they are paid by the Church or by the government; distributions which are given to canons, fruits of a lay benefice; c. offerings of the faithful which are given to the pastor himself; d. pensions which, whether by the government or by the Church, are conferred upon retired or sick clerics.
Of these goods clerics likewise have perfect ownership: for there is no reason for affirming that they have limited ownership; and indeed neither those who bestow goods of this kind nor the Church have limited this ownership in any way.
- Ecclesiastical or beneficial goods, which clerics receive from ecclesiastical benefices.
a. From beneficial goods there are distinguished goods simply ecclesiastical, such as beneficial lands, which pertain to the Church; beneficiaries have their administration and usufruct. Here there is no question of beneficial lands, but of the fruits which clerics receive from them.
b. To ecclesiastical or beneficial goods also belong: alpha. salaries which are paid by the government to pastors, canons, or bishops; for the Church considers these as ecclesiastical goods, because they are paid by the government in place of goods of the Church that were taken away.2 Likewise, beta. supplements which are paid out to pastors by the community for suitable support, because by public authority they are substituted in place of ecclesiastical goods.
c. The notion of ecclesiastical good is to be taken strictly, that is, only for those goods which come from an ecclesiastical benefice properly so called, and is not to be extended to goods which a cleric acquires for himself from some ecclesiastical office (as of vicar general, rector of a seminary, professor of sacred theology), even if these goods are drawn from ecclesiastical goods.3
These ecclesiastical goods are either necessary, parsimonial, or superfluous. a. Those are called necessary which clerics need for honest support. b. Those are called parsimonial which clerics could consume by living honorably, but which by living more sparingly they set aside from the revenues of the benefice. c. Those are called superfluous which remain over after honest support.
1 Cf. Benedict XIV, De synodo dioec., l. 7, c. 3.
2 S. Poenitent., 19 Jan. 1819; 19 Aug. 1821; 9 Aug. 1824.
3 Cf. Hollweck, Das Testament der Geistlichen (Mainz: Kirchheim, 1901), p. 32 ff., who calls these goods ecclesiastical; on the contrary, Hilgenreiner, Professorengehalt eines Geistlichen (Linz. Quartalschrift, 1902), p. 349 ff.
381. On the ownership of clerics in ecclesiastical goods. 1. In ecclesiastical goods necessary for suitable or honest support, clerics have perfect ownership; for from the Council of Trent beneficiaries make the fruits received from benefices their own,1 but by these words the acquisition of ownership is signified.
a. Therefore clerics can take honest support from the revenues of the benefice even if they have other goods; for benefices were chiefly instituted for this end, that those who serve the Church may also be supported by the Church.2 But if a cleric lives from his own patrimony, he can receive as much from ecclesiastical goods and dispose of it at will.
b. What support is suitable must be defined not by a certain rule, but by prudent judgment. In rendering this judgment account must be taken of alpha. the person, for more things are necessary to one than to another; beta. the custom of the place; gamma. the office and quality of the benefice. Moreover, under suitable support are also comprehended alms to be given, hospitality, honest recreations, moderate donations, a quantity reserved for future events, and decent support of blood relatives if they need it, so that prodigality and avarice may equally be absent from an ecclesiastical man.
c. With respect to goods left by a cleric, concerning which it is not established by what title they were acquired, it must be distinguished in this way: if it is established that the cleric acquired other goods besides the revenues of the benefice, he must be presumed to have consumed the beneficial goods for his support, but reserved the others for blood relatives. But if it is not established that he acquired other goods besides beneficial goods, he must be presumed to have left ecclesiastical goods until something else is proved.3
In parsimonial ecclesiastical goods clerics likewise have perfect ownership: for they are goods set aside from necessaries; but in these they had acquired perfect ownership; therefore also in those they have perfect ownership, since they do not lose the ownership which they had acquired.
Even in superfluous goods clerics acquire true ownership; yet they are bound under grave obligation to distribute them to the poor or to other pious uses.
a. That clerics acquire true ownership in superfluous goods is the opinion of St. Thomas,4 which St. Alphonsus holds sufficiently probable.5 And indeed ecclesiastical goods are offered by the faithful to the Church with this pious intention, that they may be dedicated to the honor of the saints. But it must be said that the Church acquires true ownership and free disposition of those goods, so that it can validly dispose of them for any use whatsoever, but licitly only for a pious and religious use, since that alone corresponds to the nature of the goods and the intention of the faithful.
b. While the Church, with benefices having been constituted, gives a part of these goods to clerics, it transfers true ownership in these goods to them, but at the same time also the obligation which inheres in them, namely of not spending them except for pious uses. That clerics have true ownership in superfluous goods is clear from the Council of Trent, which teaches concerning ecclesiastical goods generally and without distinction that clerics make their fruits their own.
c. Therefore clerics have in ecclesiastical goods, even superfluous goods, true ownership, but ownership burdened with a charge which the nature of the goods demands, namely of distributing them to pious uses. Whether clerics are bound to this distribution from justice is disputed; but because the opinion which denies an obligation of justice has true probability, clerics who spend superfluous goods badly cannot be obligated to restitution, either themselves or their heirs. But concerning this matter it will be said below.
Note. It is altogether fitting that a cleric distribute even goods which are not ecclesiastical, at least in part, to the poor or to pious causes; for the people easily take scandal if all non-ecclesiastical goods are given to blood relatives who are not in need.
1 Sess. 24, c. 12, De reform., and elsewhere often.
3 Cf. Schmalzgrueber, in tit. De pecul. cler., n. 15.
4 Summa, II-II, q. 185, a. 7; Quodl., 6, a. 12, ad 3.
5 L. 3, n. 492, compared with Quaest. ref., q. X.