Morals of the Church
Library › Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology › Volume I › Book II. On the Exercise of the Christian Life, or on the Cultivation of the Virtues › Treatise II. On the Cultivation of the Moral Virtues › Dissertation I. On the Precepts of the Decalogue › Part VII. On the Seventh and Tenth Precepts of the Decalogue › Section I. On Commutative Justice Itself › Chapter II. On Commutative Justice in Contracts › Article II. On Contracts in Species

Section — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

§ VIII. On Census

¶1.

The word census is taken both for an annual pension, and for the right to it, and for the title by which that right is created. Now a right to an annual pension can be created either by testament or by contract, and indeed by contract both gratuitous and onerous. We speak chiefly of the onerous census contract.

Census and Annuities

925.

I. Notion. A census contract is a contract by which a right of receiving an annual pension is acquired. He who acquires the right to the pension is called the censuista; he who ought to satisfy that right is called the censuarius.

Census and Annuities

926.

II. Division. A census contract, or at least census or pension, is divided by theologians:

  1. Into reservative and consignative, or constituted. Reservative is when someone transfers ownership of his thing to another and acquires for himself, as it were reserves, the right of receiving from it a revenue or annual pension. Consignative is when someone transfers neither any direct nor useful ownership, but assigns to another, upon some thing or upon his own person, the right of receiving an annual pension from it.

  2. Into real, personal, and mixed, according as it is founded on a fruitful or useful thing, on a person, or on both.

  3. Into pecuniary and fructuary, according as the pension to be paid consists in money or in fruits.

  4. Into perpetual, temporary, and life-long, according as the right to the pension is acquired either in perpetuity, so that it passes to heirs, or for a determined time, or for as long as the life of the censualist, the censuary, or another person will endure. Therefore note that a pension can also be bought for the benefit of another or others.

  5. Into redeemable and irredeemable, according as, with the price restored or repeated, it can be removed by both or by either one; or cannot be removed by either, against the will of the other.

Census and Annuities

927.

III. Morality. The census contract is licit. This is clear from the nature of the contract, which involves nothing other than the buying of a right to a pension. Nevertheless justice must be observed in the price, which indeed is established by legitimate authority, or is clear from common estimation, as was said concerning every buying and selling. If a pact of redeeming the census is added, let those things be applied which were said in n. 900 about buying with a pact of redeeming (St. Alphonsus, III, 839, 843-845). For the rest, consult civil law.

Census and Annuities