Article III: On Masses Owed for a Stipend

We think that the many things which have been prescribed concerning this matter can be set forth summarily in this way.

— I. The Undertaking of the Obligation. These things are not lawful:

1. by celebrating several times in the day, to accept a double or triple stipend, except for the three Masses on the Nativity of the Lord; or by one Mass to satisfy an obligation of justice, such as a pastor has, and to say another for a stipend. For the other Mass only some remuneration from an extrinsic title is permitted (c. 824, §2), for example, of singing, of the hour, of a distant place. But it does not matter which Mass is said first;

2. to receive a stipend for a Mass which is already owed from justice (c. 825, 2° and 3°), or which in any way is applied to another first intention; but "as many Masses must be celebrated and applied as stipends, even small ones, have been given and accepted" (c. 828);

3. to retain an alms for a Mass applied before it has been requested (c. 825, 1°), unless the offerer, having been warned, ratifies the matter.

In this way we reconcile with the absolute prohibition of the Code the opinion admitted by St. Alphonsus, l. 6, c. 3, n. 337, and rejected by R. P. Cappello, op. c., I, n. 604, which permits that for a person already deceased, to whom it will profit to be aided more quickly by a Mass, a priest who foresees that a stipend is going to be offered may already offer the Mass and afterward receive the stipend. Yet if we wish to speak accurately, money given in this way will no longer have the character of a stipend of the Mass, but rather of a remunerative donation for the benefit received of Masses celebrated. Wherefore the offerer seems to have to be warned that he should ratify the matter;

4. to accept one stipend for the celebration alone, another for the application of the same Mass, "unless it is certain that one offering was offered for celebration without application" (c. 825, 4°);

5. to receive so many burdens of Masses to be celebrated personally that you cannot satisfy them within a year (c. 855).

Therefore he who can say within a year 300 Masses for a stipend is forbidden to bind himself to celebrating more than 300 Masses personally. Nor, since the law does not distinguish, does it matter if an option is given of saying them over several years. Yet the express consent of the offerers, who know the quantity of Masses already accepted, seems able to permit this: no injury is done to one who consents;

6. by means of stipends really, or even in appearance, to trade or conduct commerce (c. 827). What trading or commerce is was explained above, n. 21. Those devices have the appearance of trading which, although they do not fall under the strict definition of trading, nevertheless are imbued with the color of trading because of profit studiously sought from the collection and distribution or exchange of stipends.

For, since in every trading or commerce these two things are discerned: acquisition, and a profitable sale or quasi-sale intended through the acquisition itself, the very appearance of trading seems to require both elements at least in some imperfect way. Now the acquisition will be the studied collection of stipends, made in order to obtain profit from paying out or distribution, which will be a quasi-sale, although the proper character of gainful or artificial trading is in part lacking.

And so he trades by means of stipends who collects stipends of greater price so that, having obtained Masses with a smaller stipend, he may profit from them; or who collects stipends so that he may profit from the exchange of money. But he commits the appearance of trading who collects stipends so that, having obtained the consent of celebrants, he may be able to retain part for himself. He conducts commerce by means of stipends who collects stipends so that he may convert them into books which, with profit, he hands over to priests for money, or so that he may transfer them to another place where the use of a smaller stipend prevails. But if he hands over books without profit, still that collector of stipends commits the appearance of trading. These things, therefore, cannot be done without an indult of the Holy See.

But he who, from stipends not studiously collected, retains a part for himself or for a good work neither trades nor exercises commerce, although this is forbidden by a direct prohibition;

7. to demand a stipend beyond the tax established by the Ordinary or by custom, or, unless you are moved by reason of particular friendship or mercy, to be content with less, if the local Ordinary has forbidden smaller stipends to be accepted. For exempt religious themselves are held to observing these taxes and statutes.

It is lawful to increase the tax for an added extrinsic labor of singing, etc.

— II. The Gravity and Execution of the Obligation. 1. The priest must celebrate the Masses thus promised under grave obligation. Yet he who omits one out of a hundred promised for the same intention does not seem to Lehmkuhl, II, 269, 1, and Cappello, I, 668, certainly to sin gravely, because he lessens one series by a modest part; which, however, others do not admit.

There were also those who said that the obligation of one Mass is not grave if the stipend is not grave. And Ballerini, IV, 1012, does not judge this opinion improbable. In the appended note, Palmieri would rather gather the gravity from the precept of the Church, because, as he himself says, if it arose from contract, a small sum of money would have to be restored under grave obligation, which cannot be admitted. All these things seem to us to rest on a confusion by which the contract concerning the celebration and application of Mass is assimilated to sale. The obligation of celebrating one Mass is grave because the priest from justice has bound himself to a matter of great moment. Nor does one who violates the obligation have to restore a small sum of money under grave obligation, but to take care that the Mass be said.

2. The obligation does not cease even if, without fault of him who is burdened with the duty of celebrating, the alms already received have perished (c. 829). And this from natural law itself, as R. P. Arendt, S.J., lucidly proves in a special dissertation.

We restrict that severity to him who was held by a personal obligation of celebrating, by himself or through others. For this is general, that if someone, from another's onerous obligation, has obtained that to which he had a right, he must now execute his own obligation absolutely, in whatever way the profit received has perished.

But if there were question of one who was only a mandatary (of whom in c. 837), who merely had to transmit stipends and had never acquired the stipends, he would be held to nothing if those stipends had perished by a fortuitous event while with him. For these had not entered his patrimony; and the obligation of mandate must be said to cease by impossibility of execution.

3. He who accepts a sum for Masses to be said, the number of which was not defined, must compute his obligation according to the tax of the place in which the offerer was dwelling, "unless another intention of his is legitimately presumed" (c. 830).

4. Masses must be said at the time expressly prescribed; if it was not expressly prescribed, the celebrant must say as soon as possible the Masses whose cause urges; but others within a moderate time.

This can be estimated according to the rules of the decree Ut debita, May 11, 1904, so that one promised Mass ought to be said within a month, then for two Masses of the same intention three days beyond a month can be counted; ten Masses offered by the same person are to be completed within a month and a half; but six months are deputed for one hundred Masses to be said. All these things are to be taken not mathematically but morally.

But a delay of one or another month beyond the lawful time is considered grave.

5. The offerer is presumed to have requested only the application of the Mass; "yet if the offerer has expressly determined some circumstances to be observed in the celebration of the Mass, the priest, accepting the alms, must stand by his will" (c. 833).

And so in itself the priest is permitted to choose the quality of the Mass according to his devotion; yet the circumstances which he has tacitly admitted by receiving the alms he will have to observe. And many circumstances, for example, of a privileged altar, of black vestments, of a votive Mass, are such that, since they are not burdensome, they ought not to be compensated by a greater stipend. And although a Mass with black vestments or of the feria with the proper prayer of the deceased is no longer required for gaining the indulgence of a privileged altar, "nevertheless we are admonished by the decree of the Holy Office (Section on Indulgences), February 19-20, 1913, that this is laudably done, when it is lawful and fitting, for the sake of piety toward the deceased" (Periodica, VII, 121).

6. Toward the end of any year, whoever by any title are obliged to burdens of Masses are to hand over to their Ordinaries the burdens of Masses for which satisfaction has not yet been made, according to the manner to be defined by them (c. 841, §1). In Masses "after the manner of manual," the obligation runs from the end of the civil year within which the burdens ought to have been fulfilled; in manual Masses, after a year from the day of the burden undertaken, without prejudice to a diverse will of the offerers (c. 841, §2).

The diverse will of the offerers, when there is question not of Masses which, as Masses after the manner of manual, have proceeded from a pious foundation, but of manual Masses, could grant a time greater than a year; in which case the burdens will not have to be handed over. Masses after the manner of manual are made from founded Masses, because they can no longer be celebrated by the persons obliged, and are to be handed over to Ordinaries. But they admit that this time can be taken morally and that some Masses can be retained at the end of the year, lest a priest lack stipends (Cappello, op. c., I, p. 712).

7. Local Ordinaries and religious Superiors who entrust Masses to be celebrated to their own subjects or others must take care, as far as they are able, that they are celebrated as soon as possible (c. 844).

We interpret this canon, rather obscure, in this way. Since local Ordinaries and Superiors have many subjects to whom they entrust Masses, the faithful not rarely hand over a great number of Masses to them with that intention, that they may be celebrated more quickly than by individual priests. Yet nothing indicates that the lawful time is in itself to be defined otherwise. The same persons, besides, are accustomed at the end of the year to receive burdens for which the space of time has already elapsed. This is another reason for taking care that those burdens be fulfilled as soon as possible. Yet since they ought not to transmit the burden of these Masses to others, and so preserve too many to be fulfilled, they are merely warned that they "take care as far as they are able." For it can happen that, because of too great an abundance, the Masses cannot be discharged so quickly.

8. He who is held not indeed by the obligation of celebrating but of distributing Masses should distribute the Masses as soon as possible; but, unless something else is clear, the time of lawful celebration has its beginning from the day on which the priest about to celebrate them has accepted them (c. 837).

Here there is question of the administrator of a pious cause, or an heir or executor of a testament, who, as the first offerer, has Masses to be distributed; but not of him, for example, a Superior, who has already undertaken in himself the burden of celebrating by himself or through others. For it cannot be in this one's judgment that, by delaying distribution, he increase the lawful time.

— III. Transmission of the Obligation. 1. The severity of recent decrees, especially of the decree Recenti decreto, May 22, 1907 (Periodica, III, 138 or II-III, 322), having been moderated, the Code permits Masses to be handed over to well-regarded priests, whom either the transmitter himself has known to be "above every exception," that is, altogether worthy, or the testimony of their own Ordinary has commended (c. 838).

Those above every exception are the same as excellent persons, or those upon whom suspicion cannot fall. This is properly said of a witness who is eminently suitable (cf. Reiffenstuel, Ius can., II, 20, 10-11). Transmission permitted to approved priests is prohibited from being made to booksellers or merchants who collect alms of Masses and repay to priests not the money itself but books and other merchandise (cf. Sacred Congregation of the Council, September 9, 1874; decree Vigilanti studio, May 23, 1893). But it is not disapproved that stipends which abound be entrusted to a good priest to be distributed to poorer priests. But in order that they be handed over to a pious work, for example, an institute for spreading good periodicals, it is necessary that there be certainty about an indult by which either retention of part of the stipend, or exchange with religious newspapers, is permitted, although because of the appearance of trading or the dangers of abuses, these things were prohibited by the decree Ut debita of the Sacred Congregation of the Council, May 11, 1904.

But the bishop does not seem able by synodal statute to prohibit what c. 838 expressly permits, that Masses be handed over to other approved priests outside the diocese, nor to attach a condition unknown to common law, for example, the consent of the Ordinary "lest stipends be transferred outside the diocese." We say this about stipends of which priests have free disposition. For if there is question of stipends offered to a church, for example, a secular sanctuary which is a place of pilgrimages, the local Ordinary could use his jurisdiction in those churches to command that stipends accepted there not go beyond the boundaries of the diocese. But insofar as they are executors of pious wills (c. 1515), they can indeed impede those transfers which they judge imprudent or alien to the mind of the donor; yet they cannot directly prohibit stipends from being carried outside the diocese.

But sometimes, in an indult for the reduction of founded Masses, provision is made that Masses to be celebrated outside the diocese not be handed over beyond a third part; or bishops are permitted to forbid transfer beyond the disposition of the Code. Thus in the month of March 1922 the Sacred Congregation of the Council indulged to the bishops of the Netherlands that they could prohibit priests from transmitting Masses outside the diocese without their consent (cf. Periodica, XII, p. 37 ff.).

2. He who has handed over to another for celebration Masses committed to his faith remains obliged "until they have obtained testimony of the obligation accepted by the same persons and of the stipend received" (c. 839).

And so concerning the execution itself of a legitimately transferred obligation, contrary to what was provided by the decree Ut debita, no solicitude is now imposed by positive law upon him who transfers the burden.

3. Manual offerings are to be transmitted entire, "unless either the offerer expressly permits something to be retained, or it is certain that the excess above the diocesan tax was given with consideration of the person" (c. 840, §1). They are to be transmitted entire at least in this way, that the celebrant by the celebration acquires a right to the whole stipend.

Is this prescription of positive law alone, which, already from Urban VIII and Innocent XII, Constitution Nuper, December 23, 1697, was sanctioned, and afterward several times and now by c. 840, §1 is confirmed, or also of natural law? There are those who think that in itself it is lawful that you offer less, though a just stipend, to the priest, and retain the excess, because this is the common norm admitted concerning him who executes through another an obligation undertaken. Thus Busembaum himself in c. 3, dub. 1 De Eucharistia. Others think the same in itself lawful for a priest, but not for a layman transmitting, because in a priest, but not in a layman, the intention of the offerer is fulfilled, who was deputing the alms for the congruent support of a priest. Thus Suarez, Sacr., I p., d. 86, s. 3, toward the end. But this assimilation of one transmitting an alms with the executor of any obligation seems false to us. For he who offers the alms of a Mass to one accepting it by no means, at least in itself, simply says to him: "Take care that so many Masses be celebrated"; but he intends to join such an alms with the Masses which will be said. He admits no other title besides celebration by which that money can be kept. Nor does he destine it immediately to the support of the priest, but only through the mediation of celebration; that is, he does not give the money except as a stipend of a Mass. Nor is the thing indifferent; for from a more abundant alms he can hope for a better or more intense application of the fruit for himself (cf. Sacred Congregation of the Council, in the Cause of Montevideo and others, January 10, 1920, among the observations of the secretary, A. A. S., XI, 1920, p. 72). And so with the much more common opinion today, we hold that the alms is customarily offered in such a way that, already in itself, the distributor or priest who transfers the obligation undertaken to another can retain for himself no part of the stipend received by any title.

He who has secretly retained part of the stipend has sinned against justice and is held to restitution. Thus we say with St. Alphonsus, l. 6, n. 321, and we prove it both from the nature of the offense, which contains the malice of theft, and from the obvious sense of the decrees of the Holy See. Already Alexander VII condemned proposition 9: that a priest can satisfy through another "by conferring a smaller stipend on him"; and Benedict XIV, Constitution Quanta cura, declared that collectors of Masses who retained part of the stipend for themselves were not immune from theft. Wherefore at least concerning those who are not priests (for the collectors in themselves were not priests), the matter can no longer be doubted. Yet there were those who thought that the obligation of restitution is not certainly clear. Thus Ballerini, IV, 1017; more expressly Noldin, III, 191, and even now, Arregui, Summarium, n. 567, 5. But cf. the strong reasons, both historical and intrinsic, which R. P. Arendt opposes to these in the booklet De laesione iustitiae commutativae in missae manuali stipendio alteri celebranti diminuto (Prato, 1914). That injustice primarily injures the offerer himself of the stipend. Wherefore c. 840, §1 admits that it can be expressly permitted by the offerer that something be retained. Yet restitution can also be made to the celebrating priest; indeed to him occult restitution is to be made, so that the will of the offerer, not revoked, may obtain its effects.

But he does not violate justice who, by title of donation, obtains from the celebrant part of the stipend or even the whole stipend which he had to hand over. And in itself the matter stands the same whether the celebrant wished to offer the Mass gratis or for a partial stipend. Yet the danger of abuse is much greater in a partial donation than in a complete donation. Wherefore partial liberality could be prohibited where full liberality was admitted, and must be proposed and admitted more cautiously than complete liberality.

Canon 840 itself permits that the excess above the diocesan tax be retained if it is certain that the excess was given with consideration of the person, so that it is not a formal part of the stipend.

4. "In Masses after the manner of manual, unless the mind of the founder stands in the way, the excess is legitimately retained, and it is enough to remit only the manual alms of the diocese in which the Mass is celebrated, if the rich alms partly holds the place of the dowry of the benefice or pious cause" (c. 840, §2).

For the founder is judged not only to have prescribed Masses, but also to have wished to benefit the service of some church and therefore its beneficiaries. Yet the Code does not simply permit that the richer alms of a founded Mass be retained in part whenever Masses are celebrated elsewhere or by another than ought in itself to have been done, but attaches this condition: "If the greater alms is, as it were, a partial dowry of the benefice or pious cause." But then it does not require that the customary alms of the place where the Masses were founded be assigned, but declares it sufficient that the alms of the diocese where the Mass will be celebrated be paid. This can give place to cunning devices. Yet it does not seem able to be a frequent abuse.

— Corollaries or Scholia. It is helpful to illustrate the doctrine handed down by certain cases. In solving these, the rule of c. 827, concerning every appearance of trading to be kept away from the offering of Masses, must always be kept before the eyes, besides the principle of justice concerning fulfilling the will of the offerer.

1. It is lawful to ask another that he be willing to celebrate gratis and yield the whole stipend to the transmitter. Nor, because of a particular cause of consoling someone's affliction or of a good work, is a priest forbidden to ask part of the stipend from the celebrant, provided the concession is not made a condition without which the Mass would not be transmitted: for then the character of true liberality would be absent; and provided Masses are not collected with the mind of obtaining in this way parts of stipends: for then an appearance of commerce would be introduced.

2. Priests can exchange intentions of Masses among themselves, retaining their respective stipends even when unequal, since then each renounces the whole of the other's stipend, and abuse is more difficult. Yet a studied capture of a richer stipend would have to be reproved, namely if frequently, by seeking out rich stipends, you acquire profits of this kind for yourself.

3. A pastor who entrusts to another the singing of a Mass whose celebration is placed among parochial rights, for example, in the funerals of the dead, does not have to hand over to the celebrant except the customary alms for a Mass which is sung at such an hour; the rest he licitly retains as pertaining to stole fees.

4. He to whom Masses are legated, which the testator has taxed above the customary alms, if he fulfills the burden through another, can easily keep the excess by title of legacy.

5. But if Masses have been legated not to a definite priest, but to a church, the Sacred Congregation of the Council, June 25, 1874, judged that the alms, from the mind of the founder, cannot be separated from celebration. Much less will this separation be permitted if not even the church itself was determined: then it is clear that the testator wished favor to be given to the celebrant alone.

6. It is not lawful for rectors of churches to take anything from manual stipends by which provision may be made for the beauty and ornament of the church; the same is lawful for paying the expenses of celebration, if the Church has no other revenues destined to this end, provided as many Masses are celebrated as have been prescribed by the offerers. But from perpetual foundations it is lawful to deduct the expenses of utensils (cf. A. S. S., XXI, p. 299 ff.).

Nor does a rector of a church seem able to be prohibited from asking from outside priests who desire to celebrate in his church that they pay the expenses of celebration (cf. St. Alphonsus, l. 6, n. 322, end; d'Annibale, III, 190 [17]).

7. For churches which receive Masses in too great a quantity for them to be able to be celebrated there in due time, c. 836 sets down this rule: "The faithful are to be warned by a notice placed in an open and obvious place, that the Masses offered will be celebrated either there, when it will conveniently be possible, or elsewhere."

8. He who demands a greater stipend without a title of extrinsic labor or something similar is presumed in the external forum to be simoniacal; but in the internal forum he will be guilty of scandal, of a violated law obliging from religion, and also of injustice, since he asks beyond what is just (Bucceroni, II, p. 157), but not of the sin of simony unless he wished to sell sacred things, as if he asks more on account of a privileged altar or a miraculous place.

9. He who had promised Masses for a stipend is not in itself freed by occult restitution of the money, since the offerer of the stipend is nevertheless frustrated of the Masses to which he had acquired a right, nor is money equivalent to Masses. But either an occasion must be offered to the same person of obtaining Masses, or condonation must be obtained from the Holy See, which can supply the defect from the treasures of the Church.

— IV. Annotation of Masses. 1. The rector of any church or pious place in which alms of Masses are customarily received must accurately note, in a special book, the number, intention, alms, and celebration of the Masses received. And Ordinaries, whether of places or major Superiors of exempt clerical religions, must review books of this kind each year by themselves or through others (c. 843).

2. Moreover the local Ordinaries themselves and religious Superiors who entrust Masses to be celebrated to their own subjects or others must enter in order in a book the Masses which they have accepted with their alms. "Indeed all priests, whether secular or religious, must accurately annotate what intentions of Masses each has received and for which he has satisfied" (c. 844).

That this burden is a matter of conscience is evident in itself, lest because of our negligence we ourselves violate grave obligations, or, oppressed by some accident, prepare inextricable difficulties for successors.

— V. Penalties. By more than one earlier decree penalties latae sententiae were established. The Code does not confirm these; but it wills that those who have committed an offense against the prescription of c. 827, by which every appearance also of trading is kept away from the offering of Masses, or of c. 828, by which as many Masses are commanded to be celebrated and applied as stipends have been accepted, or of c. 840, §1, which commands that one transmitting Masses transmit entire the manual offerings of Masses accepted, be punished by their Ordinary according to the gravity of the fault, not excluding suspension, or deprivation of benefice or office, or, if there is question of laypersons, excommunication (c. 2324).

— VI. Indults. The Holy See can condone faults in the external forum and remit several obligations, since it can compensate not a few defects from the treasures of the Church.

For the same reason, it can in advance indulge certain things which otherwise would be prohibited, especially when it is not always clear that there is question of natural law. And when the prohibition is of positive law, its intervention bars the excesses whose danger is usually the cause of the law.

— VII. On Gregorian Masses and the Gregorian Altar. 1. In his Dialogues, l. 4, c. 55 (P. L., 77, 410 ff.), St. Gregory relates that on the thirtieth day the soul of the monk Justus, for whom he had commanded that the sacred rite be celebrated through thirty strictly continuous days, was freed from purgatorial flames. Hence there prevailed the pious use of the Gregorian thirty, which is subject only to these conditions: that in an uninterrupted series through thirty days Mass be offered by one or several priests for one and the same soul. Through thirty days, I say, so that on the Nativity of the Lord only one Mass can be computed for the same thirty. But not long ago, March 15, 1884 (A. S. S., XVI, 509), the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences affirmed that confidence concerning the special efficacy of Gregorian Masses is pious and reasonable. This efficacy is explained in Nouvelle Revue Theologique (t. 21 [1889], p. 121) by the special intercession of St. Gregory. Hence it follows that a priest derogates from an obligation of justice who, having undertaken the special burden of thirty continuous Masses, interrupts the same, unless he has done this from an indult of the Holy See, which can supply the defect. Thus an interruption of three days at the end of Holy Week does not stand in the way of the virtue of the thirty; thus by decree of May 26, 1918, the Sacred Penitentiary made the faculty that on June 29 of that year priests could interrupt the thirty in order to celebrate Mass for the intention of the Supreme Pontiff for peace. But, with the intervention of apostolic authority set aside, the priest who says disconnected Gregorian Masses deprives the offerer of the stipend of a reasonable hope of special fruit. But if, as usually happens, that burden has been compensated by a greater stipend, he keeps that increase for himself without title (cf. decree of the Holy Office, December 11, 1912 [A. A. S., V, 32-33]).

What, then, remains to be done by him who, distracted, has interrupted the series?

Although other counsels also are suggested, if the Gregorian thirty was to be executed from justice, as Gregorian, the truly secure way will be of having recourse to the Sacred Penitentiary. Yet Cardinal Gennari also thinks it sufficient that he take care that Mass be said at the Gregorian altar of the City, or at an altar privileged after the manner of Gregorian.

For they judge the special efficacy of thirty Masses to be connected likewise with one Mass which is said at the Gregorian altar which exists at Rome in the church of Monte Celio. For, besides the common character of a privileged altar, it is said to have a special power for the souls of purgatory, the persuasion concerning which, approved by the same decree of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, seems to bear the same explanation. You may say the same of Gregorian altars after the manner, which after the decree of the Holy Office, December 11, 1912, are no longer newly conceded (cf. Gennari, Questioni teologico-morali, n. 417).

— I. 1. From the present discipline, priests, as such, must celebrate several times in the year; and bishops and religious Superiors must take care that priests celebrate at least on individual Sundays and feasts of precept.

2. Because of the necessity of the Church, the proper Ordinary can prescribe celebration to a priest not impeded, by conferring on him an office with which celebration is required. The Supreme Pontiff and a religious Superior can impose the same directly and simply, or prescribe application.

3. Pastors must sometimes sacrifice for their sheep.

4. A beneficiary must celebrate and apply Mass so that he satisfies the letters of foundation.

5. A voluntary promise can oblige from religion, if it is a vow; from fidelity, if it is a simple promise; from justice, if it is a contract.

II. Founded Masses are those whose stipends are received from the revenues of foundations. But a foundation designates temporal goods given to some moral person in the Church with the perpetual or at least long-lasting burden of performing a pious work, for example, of celebrating Masses. The written consent of the local Ordinary or major Superior of exempt religious is required for a foundation to be accepted; the goods are first to be kept according to his prudent judgment and as soon as possible to be placed fruitfully. Copies of the documents are to be placed in the archive of the curia of the Ordinary or Superior and of the moral person to whom the foundation pertains. A little table of the burdens of the Church is to be kept with the rector; and the burdens to be fulfilled and fulfilled are to be annotated in a book for this. Burdens are to be executed accurately according to the will of the testator; nor can perpetual transfer of burdens from one altar or church to another, or reduction of Masses, be made without an apostolic indult. An accidental change of the will of the testator seems permitted to the Ordinary. Burdens remaining at the end of the year are to be handed over to the Ordinary.

III. A stipend, by which provision is made at least in part for the support of the minister, and which is not paid as the price of the Mass but as a real prestation in a legitimate contract, by which prestation having been performed, the priest obliges himself to the application of the Mass, is paid and accepted without the stain of simony.

To remove all avarice, 1. these things are forbidden: except for the three Masses on the Nativity of the Lord, on the same day to satisfy by one or several Masses an obligation of justice and of stipend; to retain a stipend for the application of a Mass before it has been requested, unless the offerer, having been warned, ratifies the matter; to accept one stipend for celebration alone, another for application, unless it is certain that the other was offered for celebration alone; to receive so many personal burdens that you cannot satisfy them within a year; by means of stipends really, or in appearance, to trade or conduct commerce; to demand a stipend beyond the established tax; or, against the prohibition of the Ordinary, to be content with less.

2. The obligation of celebrating from a stipend is grave; nor does it cease even if the alms received have perished while with him who is held by the burden of celebrating. For a sum received, Masses, unless something else is demonstrated, are to be said in that number which the tax of the place where the offerer was dwelling has defined. Masses are to be said at the time expressly prescribed; or as soon as possible, if the cause urges; and by him who undertook the burden of celebrating, always within a moderate time, so that for two Masses of the same intention, three days beyond a month can be awaited. An undue delay of one or another month is considered grave. The quality and place of the Mass to be said in themselves remain in the power of the celebrant. Ordinaries and Superiors who entrust Masses to others to be celebrated must take care, as far as they are able, that they are celebrated as soon as possible. They are also to be distributed as soon as possible by the distributor, especially since in itself the time of celebration begins from the distribution having been made. Toward the end of the year, the remaining burdens of Masses are to be handed over to the proper Ordinaries. For Masses which are celebrated after the manner of manual, that is, elsewhere and by others than the documents wished, since they draw their origin from a foundation, the civil year is considered in itself; for others, the year from the day of the burden undertaken, without prejudice to a diverse will of the offerers.

One obliged can transmit Masses to priests above every exception, even outside the diocese, unless, as regards Masses received in churches subject to him, the Ordinary has forbidden this (response of the Sacred Congregation of the Council, February 19, 1921); but the transmitter remains obliged until he has obtained testimony of the accepted obligation and of the stipend received. Except with the express assent of the offerer, manual offerings are to be transmitted entire; and he who has secretly retained part of the stipend has violated justice and must restore: thus the truer opinion. The excess which certainly was given with consideration of the person can be retained. In Masses after the manner of manual, in itself it is enough to remit the alms of the place where they will be celebrated, if the rich alms partly holds the place of a dowry.

3. Obligations of Masses and their execution are to be annotated accurately by all priests; and the books of the rector of a church are to be reviewed each year by the Ordinary, by himself or through another.

Those who offend are to be struck by grave penalties by Ordinaries. But the Holy See can condone faults and remit obligations which it has the means of compensating from the treasures of the Church.

He who, distracted, has interrupted the series of a Gregorian thirty should have recourse to the Sacred Penitentiary, unless he otherwise compensates or supplies the defect.