The Obligation of Expending Superfluous Goods

779. On the obligation itself. A grave obligation of religion is incumbent on clerics of expending on pious causes the benefice goods which remain over after honorable support.¹

1. That clerics are held under grave obligation to expend superfluous goods for pious uses is established from the will of the Church explicitly prohibiting that any beneficed persons whatsoever increase their relatives or household members from the revenues of the Church, unless they are poor, to whom for this reason they may distribute ecclesiastical things, which are God's, as to the poor.²

The very nature of the goods demands that the Church impose this obligation on beneficed clerics: for goods are offered by the faithful to God in order that they may be spent for his worship; but they are accepted by the Church in the name of God and must be administered as goods of God; therefore the Church accepts those goods with the obligation of administering them as goods of God for the end on account of which they have been given by the faithful.

2. That smallness of matter is given in this precept is manifest; but what matter expended for profane uses is grave must be determined by the judgment of prudent persons, with account taken of the revenues of the benefice and of the person of the beneficed cleric. Yet that is certain, that a much greater quantity is required here for grave sin than in theft, since clerics do not take what belongs to another, but badly spend what is their own.

¹ Cf. Benedict XIV, De synodo, l. 7, c. 2; Hollweck, Das Testament des Geistlichen (Mainz: Kirchheim, 1901), p. 27 ff.

² Council of Trent, sess. 25, c. 1, De reform.

780. On honorable support. 1. To determine honorable support, attention must be paid to the quality of the person; wherefore honorable support is not equal in all: for a bishop requires more than a canon, a canon more than a pastor, a weak and unhealthy man more than a robust and healthy man, a noble cleric more than a cleric of lower condition.

In order that a cleric proceed with a safe conscience in this matter, let him attend to the practice of others who stand in the same grade and are of timorous conscience.

2. To suitable support belong not only food, clothing, and habitation, but all those things which are customarily expended under the title of moderate support. Therefore from benefice goods a cleric can:

a. Exercise fitting hospitality, not only toward poor travelers, but also toward friends and visitors.

b. Pay both his own debts and the debts of his relatives, even though contracted for a profane end, if neither he himself nor his relatives can pay them from elsewhere.

c. Aid his relatives and household members who are poor, so that they can live decently according to their state.

d. Supply to a relative the means for learning letters or other arts.

e. Endow poor sisters, so that they can honorably marry according to their state.

f. Support his offspring, both legitimate offspring whom perhaps he had begotten before entrance into the clerical state, and spurious offspring whom he begot afterward.¹

¹ Laymann, l. 4, tr. 2, c. 3, n. 3 ss.; Ballerini-Palmieri IV, n. 432 ss.

781. From the virtue of religion. 1. This obligation arises from the precept of the Church; and since this precept is imposed on clerics from the motive of religion, they commit the sin of sacrilege against religion if they spend superfluous goods for profane uses.

a. The benefice goods themselves indeed lose their proper holiness when they pass from the ownership of the Church into the ownership of clerics, and they become profane goods; but the Church transfers the action which it commands to that virtue from whose motive it commands it. But, account being taken of the origin of these goods and of the intention of pious faithful persons desiring that their donations be spent for the worship of God and for pious causes, the Church from the motive of religion enjoins on clerics the precept that they not spend them except for pious uses.

b. There are those who say that clerics are held to expend superfluous goods from justice.¹ But this obligation would arise either from this, that clerics do not acquire ownership in benefice goods, or from this, that the Church obliges clerics from justice to expend them; but from neither source does an obligation of justice arise: for clerics acquire true ownership in superfluous goods; and that the Church has added an obligation of justice cannot be demonstrated by a sufficient argument.²

2. If it is established that a cleric has badly spent superfluous goods, these things must be noted concerning the obligation of the cleric and of those who illicitly accepted the goods:

a. The cleric is not held to restitution of those things which he badly spent, because in spending he did not injure justice.

b. The donee is not held to expend on the poor those things which he illicitly received from the cleric, even if he himself (although in bad faith) induced the cleric to make the donation, because neither he nor the cleric violated justice, unless by unjust means he induced the cleric to make the donation.

c. The heir or legatee who received ecclesiastical goods from a cleric is likewise not held to expend them on pious causes, unless he prevented the cleric from making a will or by unjust means induced him to make a will in his favor, because the obligation of expending superfluous goods is not real but personal, which does not pass to heirs.³

Note. The things just noted hold concerning goods which are certainly ecclesiastical. But for the most part it will be difficult to demonstrate whether the goods of clerics, especially those left by inheritance, are truly ecclesiastical. What must be presumed in doubt was said above (n. 381 c).

¹ Navarrus, Roncaglia, Laymann, etc.

² Cf. Lehmkuhl I, n. 900.

³ In Austria the civil code, sec. 761, establishes that the goods of a cleric dying without a will are divided into three equal parts, of which one yields to the Church, another to the poor, and the third to relatives.

782. As to the mode of expending, a. it is not required that a cleric immediately spend those goods on pious uses, because this is prescribed by no law; but he can spend them in that way which he judges more apt and more useful for the end. For sometimes it will be more useful to preserve the goods for accomplishing some notable work which redounds to the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

Nevertheless when necessity urges, namely if the poor are present who are placed in extreme or grave necessity, it is not lawful to preserve the goods, but aid must be brought to those in need. In like manner they must be spent during life when there is danger lest after death they be carried off by the fisc or by friends and relatives.

b. Nor is a cleric held to spend them on the poor or for the utility of that place where the benefice is situated, unless poor persons are there placed in extreme or grave necessity, because no reason appears why, outside the case of necessity, they must be distributed to the poor of that place.

783. On pious causes.¹ 1. Pious causes are called all those works which either by their nature or by the disposition of the faithful serve a supernatural end.

Any end is called supernatural which intends religion or the worship of God and of the saints, or Christian charity or the spiritual or temporal utility of the neighbor, according as suits the character of the Christian religion.

2. Works of three kinds can be distinguished with the end (of the work) considered:

a. Some which by their nature have a supernatural end, such as the sacrifice of the Mass, prayers, churches, religious houses, confraternities, etc.

b. Others which by their nature have a merely natural and profane end, such as a theater, a society instituted for performing gymnastic exercises, etc.

c. Others which by their nature are indifferent to a supernatural and temporal end, such as the support of the poor, both of those who lack the necessities of life and of those who lack the necessities of their state, schools, hospitals, orphanages, etc.

Works which by their nature are indifferent are converted into pious causes by the pious intention of donors or founders; but works which by their nature are profane cannot be converted into pious causes by the intention of donors or founders.

3. In order that some disposition (donation, legacy, testament) be judged to have been made for pious causes, both things are required: that the end of the one operating (donating, etc.) be supernatural, and that the work at least from the end of the one operating become supernatural.

a. If the work in whose favor the disposition is made is pious by its nature, the disposition is judged to have been made from a supernatural motive.

b. If the work by its nature is ambiguous and the intention of the one operating is not established from elsewhere, attention must be paid to these things:

a. If the whole work has been committed to the administration of the Church or at least subjected to her governance, it must certainly be reckoned among pious causes.

b. From the fact that some work, for example a hospital, is administered by laypersons alone with every intervention of the Church excluded, it does not yet follow that there is question of a profane cause, unless it is established that it was erected from a merely philanthropic motive.

c. In doubt whether there is question of a pious or profane cause, favor must be given to the pious cause.

Note. Ecclesiastical penalties are treated in the separately issued fascicle.

¹ Since mention of pious causes occurs rather often, as when restitution is said to be made to pious causes, or when there is discussion of the value of a testament and legacy to pious causes or of expending superfluous goods on pious causes, it is helpful to define the notion of a pious cause.

I. Certain authors — I know not who, that I may use the words of Paul Comitolus, a most elegant and most learned Jesuit — have endeavoured to bring into the Christian commonwealth, after a thousand five hundred years, a new and perilous opinion, by which they attribute to those who obtain ecclesiastical benefices an absolute dominion of the fruits perceived therefrom. Which opinion assuredly is stabbed by its very novelty. The opinion which defends that ecclesiastics are bound by the bond of justice to distribute superfluous things to the poor is of its own nature perspicuous, propped by the prescription of fifteen centuries, fortified by the authority of Councils, canons, holy Fathers, and Pontiffs, and by unconquered weights of reasons.

II. Although, that at the outset I may unteach beneficiaries, the opinion of the younger authors avails them little, nay nothing. For it is agreed among all, both theologians and canonists, that the precept of charity urges ecclesiastics under the interdict of eternal damnation to the almsgiving of superfluous things. But that they descend into eternal fire on account of a precept violated, whether of justice or of charity — what, I ask, does it profit them, as Dominic Soto, Bellarmine, and the other theologians advert? Hence it is that I shall despatch this controversy in few words. I should fill a volume if I wished to transcribe hither all the testimonies of the Fathers and Councils which call those beneficiaries thieves, robbers, savage plunderers, who squander the patrimonies of Jesus Christ and of his poor in fostering luxury, ambition, and display, in enriching blood-relations, in making gifts to little matrons, in frequenting theatres, comedies, and games, in feeding dogs. These things are obvious and well known.

III. The most learned Pontiff Benedict XIV in his Diocesan Synod, page 154, no. 5, writes these things: It is likewise certain that, before the said division of ecclesiastical goods, a bishop, to whom the administration of the same belonged, ought to have bestowed faithfully the part assigned to individuals, and could not without a violation of commutative justice defraud the poor of that fourth part of the proceeds which according to the discipline of that age was destined for the relieving of the needs of the poor; which burden indeed, flowing from that virtue of justice, still even now lies in those places in which the aforesaid division has not yet been made, upon bishops, abbots, and other beneficiaries, with whose ecclesiastical revenues those are mingled which were attributed to the poor, or to the fabric of the Church, according to the ancient institution. Wherefore if they have usurped anything from these for themselves, they are unjust detainers of another's property, and are bound to restitution.

IV. At present the goods of beneficiaries here are undivided. Therefore beneficiaries are bound by the bond of justice to distribute superfluous things to the poor. And in the first place, from the very beginning of the division carried out, the administration of the portion of the poor always remained with bishops and beneficiaries. Never was a portion of the ecclesiastical revenues assigned to the body of the poor. Never did the poor obtain the administration and dominion of their own portion. But bishops and beneficiaries, either by themselves or by the work of ministers, distributed this portion, which was now greater, now less, according to the greater or lesser abundance of revenues. This is evident from the decrees of very many Councils, which I have reported in Vol. I, dissertation 6, chapter 18. In several places the poor were described in the tables or registers of the Churches, and were called matricularii.

V. Hence it is clearly established how chimerical is the comment which the patrons of the opposite doctrine feign for themselves. These reckon that the ecclesiastical revenues are a certain living, stable, and permanent tribute, divided into four parts, and consisting down to the present time, obnoxious to no vicissitude. They reckon that the portion of the poor, drawn from the living stock and separated in fact, has come into the dominion of the poor. How vain that comment is, no one does not see. The ecclesiastical revenues at the beginning were committed to the trust of the bishops and possessed in common, and were divided by the bishops through the work of ministers to individuals as need was. Charity growing cold and the avarice of ecclesiastics prevailing, some bishops, the poor being neglected and the worship of the Churches and the clergy, converting the sacred proceeds to their own and their blood-relations' profane uses, swallowed all things down their own throats. Then by the decrees of Councils a partition of the sacred revenues was commanded. To the clergy and to the worship of the Church portions were separately consigned; but the portion of the poor, mingled with the goods of the beneficiaries, was taxed each year by the beneficiaries themselves and bestowed upon the poor. The sacred revenues were subject to those changes to which all temporal things are subject. In the course of time, according to the increase or decrease of the revenues which were daily conferred by the faithful of Christ, the portion of the poor grew or was diminished. From the first time of the division down to this our age innumerable benefices have been instituted — bishoprics, chaplaincies, and so forth. Most ample estates, farms, rent-charges, and vast goods have been given to the Churches. When was the portion of the poor deducted from these? What steward or dispenser, besides bishops and beneficiaries, was to be appointed? It is evident therefore that the portion of the poor has always and always again remained mingled with the goods of the beneficiaries.

VI. What we have said is confirmed by a most clear reason repeated from an evident fact. The Pontiffs, Councils, and Fathers of every century exalted their voices against bishops and beneficiaries, because they neglected to succour the poor. They always reproved them as dilapidators of the patrimony of Christ and of the poor. Consult all the Councils and Fathers from antiquity down to this time: nowhere will you find even a slight vestige that any steward or dispenser of the portion of the poor, distinct from the beneficiaries, was rebuked as guilty of infidelity in his administration and dispensation. But they always reproached bishops and beneficiaries with an unfaithful administration of the portion of the poor: these alone they accuse and disapprove; to these alone they commit the care of the poor as to fathers, and command; to these alone they forbid that they grow rich from the patrimony of the poor, or make their blood-relations rich, or convert the revenues of Christ into luxury and display. This same thing teach the Fathers and Doctors of a later age — Peter Damian, Gratian, Bernard, Raymond, Thomas, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, Alensis, Antoninus, Bernardine, Paludanus, and the rest commonly. What of this, that adversaries have never been able to indicate an administrator of the portion of the poor distinct from beneficiaries, or that a portion of the poor separated from the goods of the beneficiaries exists or has existed? That some have babbled that the portion of the poor came to the hospices is a manifest chimera. What Father, what Council ever reproved or rebuked the hospices, because they do not distribute the revenues of beneficiaries and bishops to the poor? Let us run through all the benefices, whether episcopal, or parochial, or capitular, for more than six centuries. I challenge adversaries to produce documents of the boasted division of even one benefice. Let beneficiaries exhibit the division of the ecclesiastical revenues which they now perceive, and we forthwith absolve them from the debt not only of justice but even of charity of distributing alms. For if the division be just, they have nothing superfluous to lay out. But they ought to bring forward authentic documents. What? Could a brother exclude a brother from the portion of the common patrimony owed to him, unless he evinced by documents, and indeed clear ones, that a division had been made, and that he had long had his own portion? Exceedingly ridiculous would they render themselves, if they obtruded a division carried out in the fourth or fifth century, when the benefices of today were not yet instituted. No otherwise than if a brother should exclude the rest of the brethren from the division of the common patrimony, because by the law of nations a division of all goods was introduced so many ages ago.

VII. It remains therefore evident and explored that the portion of the poor is mingled with the revenues of bishops and beneficiaries, and that beneficiaries alone are bound with the burden of administering the same. This being posited, I frame this argumentation. Adversaries themselves with one mouth confess that, the division of the goods of the Church being taken away, beneficiaries are bound by the bond of justice to lay out superfluous things upon the poor. The boasted division is chimerical. Therefore they are necessarily compelled to concede that today beneficiaries are bound out of the debt of justice to dispense superfluous things to pious uses and to the succour of the poor.

VIII. The argumentations are inevitable, the weights of reasons unconquered. But avarice, ambition, and pride so madden the mind that they do not suffer it even to see the noonday light. There is added the authority of certain casuists, who commonly oblige beneficiaries out of the debt of charity to lay out superfluous things, and pronounce them guilty of eternal damnation for the violation of that precept; nevertheless there have not been wanting probabilists who free beneficiaries even from the precept of charity. Lessius, Baunius, and others have so relaxed the common doctrine that they teach that beneficiaries are held by ecclesiastical precept alone to dispense superfluous things. Diana himself, Vol. IV, tract 7, resolution 10, says: I do not favour this opinion; and since it is against the common one, I think it altogether to be repudiated. Even lay Christians themselves are bound by the natural precept of charity to dispense superfluous things to the poor. And do Lessius and Baunius free beneficiaries themselves from this precept? If you desire more, consult Vol. II, dissertation 6, chapter 26 and following.

I have already shown that they have ownership of certain goods; and indeed the ownership of immovable goods given to the Church resides with the Church, as St. Augustine discusses tract. 6. in Ioan., for the Bishop cannot alienate them, nor even lease them, except under certain conditions. Say the same of consumable goods, for which the same reasoning holds Authent. Praeterea, C. de sacrosanctis Ecclesiis.

But they have ownership of the stipends given them for their own particular ministries, as for Masses, etc.; the same of the distributions (as they are called) which they receive for personal services, as is gathered from cap. un. de cler. non residentibus, in 6.

It is also certain that they have ownership of that part designated to them, namely one of four. For it was the ancient custom that the goods of the Church be held in common and possessed by the Clergy, distributed by the Bishop, as is gathered from Can. 38. Apost. Afterwards, as the number of clerics grew and the dishonesty of dispensers increased, this arrangement was instituted by Sylvester in the Roman Synod, cap. 4., that the total income of the Church be divided, with the first part for the Bishop; the second for the other clerics; the third for the poor; the fourth assigned to the fabric. So it appears also in 12. quaest. 2.

Therefore, where this distribution still prevails, the Bishop has his fourth part in ownership; but where all things are held in common, he has ownership of those things that befit his state. All of this the holy Doctor has, more or less, loco citato.

The question, then, is: whether he is the owner of that part of the revenues that is superfluous, and so is bound to give to the poor only out of charity; or also out of justice, because their ownership resides with the poor.

The first opinion is that of Cajetan here, that other Ecclesiastics besides Bishops are not bound to dispense anything to the poor out of justice, and so are owners of everything. But Bishops ought out of justice to give to the poor that part which by the judgment of the wise is found not necessary for them, because it is too ample.

The second opinion denies to Bishops, and to all Ecclesiastics, ownership of the part of the income that is superfluous, and accordingly teaches that they are bound out of justice to give it to the poor. Thus Alensis 3. part. quaest. 36. m. 5. art. 2. Richar. 4. dist. 45. art. 3. quaest. 1. Palud. in 4. dist. 24. quaest. 3. art. 3. Antoninus 3. part. tit. 15. cap. 1. §. 19. Gabriel. in 4. dist. 15. quaest. 8. concl. 5. Maior. 4. dist. 14. quaest. 17. Petrus a Soto lect. 3. de Sacerd. vita, Michaël Medina lib. 7. de recta in Deum fide, cap. 27. Thomas Vuald. lib. 1. doctrinalis fidei antiquae, l. 4. cap. 42. and others cited by Couar. in can. cum in officiis, de testam. And it is the common opinion of the Canonists, vigorously defended by Nauar. tract. et Apolog. de reddit. Eccl.

The third opinion holds that Bishops and the others have ownership of these revenues. Thus D. Thom. here, and quodlib. 6. art. 12. Adrian. de restit. quaest. 12. Sylvester. verb. clericus, 4. quaest. 20. et verb. restitutio, 3. quaest. 5. Gerson in suis moral. tit. de avaritia, Sotus lib. 10. de iustitia, quaest. 4. art. 3. Driedo lib. 2. de libertate Christiana, cap. 4. Ioan. Arbotaeus in Theoph. disp. 10. quaest. 3. puncto 7. Tannerus disp. 6. quaest. 3. num. 3. dub. 22, where he asserts that the part of the poor is owed by justice when it is set apart.

As for D. Bonaventure, he seems clearly to favor this opinion in the Apology for the Poor, fourth response, cap. 1, toward the end, where he compares Ecclesiastics, in giving their superfluities to the poor, with the religious, and says they bear some obligation, though not an equal one, because they are indeed not bound by so strict a law to give those things to the poor; for it is not of perfection to give to each his own. But he refers us to part 1 of the third response, where he plainly follows the second opinion.

I assert, with the second opinion, that all Ecclesiastics are bound by justice to give their superfluities to the poor.

It is proved first by the holy Doctor by a universal argument, in the fourth response of cap. 1: for by the law of nature all things were common; afterwards, when things were usurped by the powerful, it was agreed by the law of nations that the rich should possess what they had acquired, provided they bound themselves to dispense their superfluities to the needs of the poor. This clearly pertains to justice.

It is proved by the holy Doctor in the third response of cap. 1, from the most weighty arguments of D. Prosper in de vita contemplativa, lib. 2. cap. 9, where he says: The holy men knew that the goods of the Church were nothing else than the vows of the faithful, and the prices of sinners, and the patrimony of the poor: they did not claim them for their own uses as their own property, but dispensed them as entrusted to the poor.

Hence the first argument is drawn: the goods of the Church are said in the decrees of the Fathers to be given to the Lord God, as appears in 12. quaest. 2. cap. Qui Christi, and 12. quaest. 1. cap. Res Ecclesiae, while Ecclesiastics are said to have only their administration. This argument the holy Doctor repeats in the third response, cap. 1, toward the end.

Valentia responds that the meaning is that those goods were given over to the worship of God; otherwise they would not be owners of any necessary portion.

This, however, is frivolous, for the necessary part for the ministers is understood; for the title stands: Who serves at the altar, let him live from the altar. Moreover, it presses the point that they are said to be not owners, but universal administrators. I urge this: for D. Bernard calls the Pope himself by that name in the book de consid.

From this the second argument is also brought out: always in the Church, among holy men and the Fathers, it has been understood that goods of this kind pertain especially to the poor, to widows, etc., as appears from Clem. lib. 2. Constit. Apostol. cap. 29. cap. 30, and 12. quaest. 1. cap. Praecipimus, and cap. ex his.

Valentia responds that by this alone is indicated that the strictest precept of almsgiving presses.

On the contrary: because, when by the intention of the givers they are applied to this use, it is no longer a precept of mercy, but of justice.

The third argument is drawn: for in various decrees they are said to be dispensers, not owners, as in 16. quaest. 1. cap. Decimae, and 23. quaest. 7. cap. Quod autem, and Extra de donationibus, cap. 2.

Valentia responds that either immovables are meant, or utensils; if revenues, it is understood for that time when some part has been set apart for the uses of the poor; or if they speak universally, the meaning is that the precept of Almsgiving presses.

Against this, however: for they plainly deny ownership, and assert mere administration.

I urge further: for in other decrees they are called murderers of the poor, plunderers, etc. if what is left over to them they do not give to the poor, as in dist. 42. cap. Ordinamus, and 12. quaest. 2. cap. Gloria, §. Amico, and often elsewhere.

Valentia responds that these things are said by way of exaggeration; as also of avaricious Laymen.

But in truth the things laid down in the decrees are defined for practice, and decreed as statutes, not for sermons.

It is confirmed further: for those goods were bequeathed under this condition: therefore they have no force unless the condition is fulfilled, as appears in the Civil Law, Cod. de Donationibus, which are sub modo, or under a condition, and in the Canon Law cap. Verum, extra de conditionibus appositis.

Valentia responds that this is not firm enough, for otherwise Ecclesiastics who do not give their superfluities to the poor would not be owners of any portion. But those goods do not seem to have been given under that express condition, as appears from the form of the ancient donations, such as those of the Emperor Constantine, Tom. 1. Conciliorum.

But in truth it suffices that the donations were given according to the formula commonly understood by holy men, as D. Bonaventure used to say.

It is confirmed: for by the Canon Law they are even forbidden to make wills: therefore they are not owners; nor does it avail to say they can do this by dispensation; for dispensation is then made by the authority of the Apostolic See, as Tanner noted, disp. 6. quaest. 3. num. 82.

Valentia heaps up many things, quite frivolous, to defend his opinion.

For first he vainly proclaims our opinion harsh and groundless. But it is not harsh, since it is what is commonly accepted in the Church, nor is it said without foundation.

He objects secondly from the Council of Trent, sess. 23. cap. 1. de reform., where it is decreed that Ecclesiastics having the care of souls who do not reside shall not make their fruits: therefore it supposes that those who do reside make their fruits. It is confirmed: for those who do not attend the offices do not acquire distributions, cap. unic. de cler. non resid. in 6, where it is decreed.

It is answered that this concludes, at most, that they make their fruits and acquire distributions according to the rite of the Church, such that what must be spent according to their state is in their ownership.

He objects thirdly: the ministers of the Church ought not to be in a worse condition than the other ministers of the commonwealth; but these become owners of the whole stipend: therefore.

It is answered that they have these goods as Ecclesiastics, and therefore are not of a worse condition, but of a higher state of perfection, as the holy Doctor admonishes in both places, where he compares Laymen with Ecclesiastics.

He objects fourthly certain absurdities. First, the poor could steal from avaricious clerics who do not dispense alms. Secondly, those who pay tithes could reserve a part so that the poor be rendered indemnified. Thirdly, an action in court would be given to the poor against clerics who do not dispense. Fourthly, why has the Church permitted the right of the poor not to be observed?

These things are frivolous, and are resolved in one word: for neither is it free to anyone to make justice for himself; nor does the Church fail, since it has added very many decrees on this matter.

Hence Azor. p. p. lib. 12. cap. 8. quaestio 3. Malder. 2. 2. quaest. 32. art. 6. dub. 2. Bassaeus V. eleemos. num. 6. say that the Bishop is bound to seek out the poor, that he may relieve them.