Section I. To Whom Restitution is to be Made

Restitution is compensation for an injury inflicted, and so in general it must be made to him who suffered the injury. This will in general be the lawful possessor of the property taken or damaged, to whom, therefore, restitution must be made if he is known for certain. If the property was taken from a child, or from a servant who merely held it for his master, it may be restored to the father of the child or to the master. If it belonged to a corporation, it should be restored to those who administer its affairs.

Incase of doubt as to whom the property belongs, diligent inquiry should be made, and if the doubt cannot be resolved, the property should be divided among those who are the probable owners if they are few in number. If they are many and uncertain, restitution may be made to the poor or to religious purposes of the place where the injury was committed, for the true owners may in the circumstances be presumed to wish that this should be done. If the property cannot well be devoted to local charitable or religious purposes, it may be spent elsewhere on such causes. When shopkeepers and others are bound to restitution for defrauding their customers, the persons injured are not altogether unknown, and restitution can best be made by restoring to future customers what has been unjustly taken away.

If the true owner is altogether unknown and cannot be discovered, property which has been obtained without injustice may be retained and treated as property found, in which the finder has a qualified ownership.

If the property was obtained through wrongdoing, it must be surrendered, the common good requiring that nobody should benefit by his own theft or fraud. Theologians are practically agreed on this, and that restitution must be made to the poor or to religious purposes; but when they inquire further into the reason for the doctrine they are divided in opinion. Some maintain that it is grounded on the positive law of the Church which expressly provided that what has been unjustly obtained by usury or simony must be given to the poor or to pious causes, and the same decision has been extended to similar cases. On this ground they explain the action of the Church, which sometimes grants compositions for just cause to debtors whose creditors are uncertain. Other theologians with greater probability teach that the doctrine rests on natural law, which the Popes interpreted and applied to gains made by usury and simony. For natural law requires that nobody should benefit by his own wrongdoing, so that restitution must always he made of ill-gotten goods. If restitution cannot be made to the individual owners, partly by interpreting their personal wish, partly because if the property is usefully expended on the poor in their behalf they will benefit spiritually by it, partly because inasmuch as the community is wronged by theft, restitution must be made to the community, and this is done by choosing the poor or religious objects; the obligation is satisfied by restoring to these, SEcTION How Much is to be Restored