Case 1. An Ingenious Verger

Titius, the verger of a certain church, lets seats to the faithful for the parish priest. Caia had rented one of the principal seats, but she passed the summer season in distant regions. According to custom, other members of the faithful occupied Caia’s seat in her absence. Julia comes to Titius seeking a seat to be rented during the summer; he denied that any was vacant except Caia’s seat, which she could have, in Caia’s absence, upon payment of a fourth part of the whole annual price and without Julia’s name being put in place of Caia’s. Titius retained for himself the money paid by Julia as the fruit of his industry, as he says. But when the parish priest discovered Titius’s transaction by accident, he proposed the theological question whether he had acted justly. Hence it is asked:

1. What is a right which constitutes the object of commutative justice?

2. How are the fruits of a thing distinguished, and to whom and by what right do they belong?

3. What are ecclesiastical goods, and are the offerings of the faithful to be numbered among them?

4. What is to be said of the case?

1. What is a right which constitutes the object of commutative justice ?

A right is a moral power of having, doing, or exacting something.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. i, p. 343.

2. How are the fruits of property distinguished, and to whom and by what right do they belong?

Fruits of property are natural, industrial, mixed, and civil. Natural fruits of the soil, for instance, due alone to its natural fertility, belong to the owner of the soil. Industrial fruits, due to man’s labor, belong to the laborer. Mixed, or partly natural, partly industrial, should be divided equitably between the laborer and the owner of the soil or other property which produces the fruits. Civil fruits, such as rent and interest, belong to the owner of the property rented or borrowed. These rules follow from the nature of the right of property, and so they belong to the natural law.²

2 The same work, pp. 374, 401.

3. What is ecclesiastical property, and are the offerings of the faithful ecclesiastical property?

Property which belongs to the Church, or to a religious corporation, or to a pious institute founded by ecclesiastical authority, is called ecclesiastical property. The private property of clerics is not ecclesiastical property. Whether the offerings of the faithful are ecclesiastical property or the private property of the clergy depends partly on the intention of the donors, partly on Church law, which for Britain and the United States of America is contained in the Second Council of Westminster, d. 8, according to the constitution of Leo XIII, Romanos Pontifices, May 8, 1881.³

3 The same work, p. 363.

4. The case. Titius, the verger of a certain church, let out the seats to the faithful for the parish priest. Caia hired one of the first, but as she was absent in the summer months her seat in her absence used to be given to others. Julia wanted to hire a seat for the summer months and Titius let to her Caia's on condition that Caia's name was not removed and that Julia paid what was equal to a fourth part of the annual rent of the seat. Titius kept this sum for himself as the fruit of his industry.

Titius has no right to the money, and he should hand it over to the parish priest. According to the Second Council of Westminster, bench rents form a part of the property of the Church, and so whatever Caia's seat brought in either from Caia herself, or from Julia, or from anybody else, was Church property, and could not be appropriated by Titius without sacrilege.