The Seventh and Tenth Commandments

The Seventh Commandment is, ‘‘ Thou shalt not steal,”¹² and therefore directly and explicitly it forbids theft, but implicitly it commands us to observe justice in our dealings with others. The Tenth Commandment is, ‘‘ Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods,’ and so it forbids internal sins against justice. The subject-matter, then, of these commandments is the virtue of justice, of which we have now to treat.

¹ Exod. xx 15.

² Exod. xx 17.

THE word “ justice” is used in a variety of senses, but here it is used in its strict meaning to designate the moral virtue which inclines its possessor to give to everyone his due or his right.

The habit of giving to everyone his due from principle because it is right and proper is obviously a virtue, and it is 5 a moral, not a theological, virtue, for its immediate motive is not God, but the natural honesty and uprightness of so acting. Justice is a moral virtue which resides in and perfects the will, not the intellect, like prudence; it inclines the will to wish and to execute what is right. Justice inclines the just man to give his due to everyone irrespective of who he may be. It does not consider the relation in which that other stands to God, or to one’s self, as charity does; nor precisely what it is becoming in the just man to do, so that his actions may be worthy of himself, as does temperance, for example; it only considers what is owing to another, what is his due; and because it is the right thing that everyone should have his own, justice inclines to give it to him.

What is due to another in justice and is therefore his strict right must be distinguished from what a man has a claim to on some other ground. A poor man who cannot support himself has a claim on our help, but out of charity, not out of justice. He is our brother; he is a child of our common Father in heaven; he is destined to be a fellow-citizen with us for ever in the kingdom of heaven; the bond of mutual love which binds all such in one body, and makes them one big family, requires that all who can, should, out of their abundance, assist those who are in want. But this does not cause the abundance of one to belong to a needy neighbour in justice; it only prescribes that as much as is required to succour him in his necessity should be given him out of charity. A sufferer who is in pain has a claim on my sympathy and pity, not that it would be unjust to deny him my sympathy, but because pity and compassion require it of me. But when ten pounds are due to another in justice, those ten pounds belong to him; they are his property; he has a right exclusive of all others to all the benefit that can be derived from them, because they are his. Because they are his he can dispose of them as he pleases; he can put them in the bank, or spend them, or give them away; he would wrong no one even if he threw them into the sea, Anyone who steals them, or to whom he lends them, must, if he would be just, restore them to the owner, because justice requires that all should have their own.

We may divide the species of justice into individual or commutative and social justice.

Commutative justice regards the relations between man and man in their private and individual capacity. It supposes a perfect distinction of rights between them, and prescribes that these should be duly observed and respected. It exists between physical and moral persons alike, or between a physical and a moral person, provided that their rights are perfectly distinct from each other.

Social justice regulates the mutual relations between the individual and the society or State to which he belongs. As a member of society the individual has certain duties toward it; he must contribute his share to the common burdens; he must be ready to defend the common weal at the call of authority; he must obey just and equitable laws. This duty of rendering to the State what is its due is called legal justice. On the other hand, the State has its obligations toward its subjects; it must distribute burdens, honours, and rewards equitably without showing favour to particular classes and persons; not indeed with absolute arithmetical equality all round, but according to respective merits. The virtue which should regulate the distribution of burdens and rewards among its subjects by the State is called distributive justice. To such as have committed crime and injured the common weal the State metes out condign punishment according as vindictive justice demands.

There is a difference of opinion among Catholic writers as to whether legal, distributive, and vindictive justice, which we have grouped together under the name of social justice, are really subordinate species of the virtue, or whether commutative justice is the only species that may in strictness be so called. Whatever view be taken we must allow that in commutative justice alone is there a perfect distinction between debtor and creditor; it alone observes arithmetical equality in satisfying its obligations; it alone binds to restitution after being violated. In social justice, on the contrary, there is no perfect distinction between the State and its subjects; social justice does not prescribe the observance of arithmetical equality, nor does its violation bind to restitution, except when by the same act commutative justice has also been infringed.

That which in justice is due to me is my right, as it is called. I have a right to my life, to my good name, to my property; and anyone who deprives me of these rights is guilty of injustice. Rights, then, are the subject-matter of justice, and in this, its strict sense, a right may be defined as a moral power of having, doing, or exacting something.

It is said to be a moral power to distinguish it from the mere physical capacity of brute force, which confers no rights of itself. It is a moral power which may not without injustice be interfered with. It is the power of having and possessing as one’s own something which man values and which serves his convenience and wants; or of doing something, of giving scope to his bodily or mental activity; or of exacting some service as due to him from another.

A right is in re or ad rem. A right in re is a right which one has to something determined and already his own. In order that one may have a right in re the object must already exist; it must not be merely possible or future; it must be determined and separate; it must belong to the person by a title of justice so that it is his. If one of these conditions is wanting but notwithstanding someone has a claim in justice that something should become his property, he has a right ad rem to it. Thus a farmer has a right in re to his harvest after he has gathered it; before it has grown he has only a right ad rem. 'The right of a servant to his wages is ad rem until they are paid; after they are paid his right is in re.

A right in re seems to be practically equivalent to ownership (dominium). Ownership is absolute or qualified. Absolute ownership is the unlimited power of disposing of a thing for one’s own benefit. The absolute owner of a horse may use him, sell him, give him away, or kill him, without violating justice; he may do what he likes with his own. If ownership is limited in some way so that the owner has not a right to all the uses to which the object may be put, the ownership is qualified. Qualified ownership of the thing while its use belongs to someone else is called direct; qualified ownership of the use of what belongs to someone else is called indirect ownership.

According to English law, a subject is incapable of absolute ownership of realty; he is only capable of a qualified ownership therein, although to all intents and purposes an estate in fee simple is equivalent to absolute ownership. A qualified property of many different kinds may be had in realty, and both an absolute and qualified property of many different sorts may be had in movables. The various kinds of property, especially in immovables, are recognized and determined by law, which enforces the rights and obligations annexed thereto. In different systems of law there will be different kinds of property recognized. It will be sufficient for our purpose merely to mention ususfructus, usus, habitatio, servitus, of the Roman and canon law.

In. English law the quantity of interest which a man has in lands and tenements is called an estate, of which there is a great variety: equitable and legal estates; estates of inheritance and not of inheritance; estates of freehold interest and less than freehold, such as estates for years, estates at will, and estates at sufferance.

WE will here consider the various objects which can be owned by men, and to the exclusive use of which they can lay claim as being due to them in justice. We saw above that God has reserved to himself the dominion of human life; he is the God of life and of death, so that an injury is done to God by suicide or by unjustifiable homicide. Not even the State can have the absolute ownership of human life; it can never directly kill the innocent, although, as far as the common good demands it, the State may take the life of malefactors, and may require that each and all should be ready to defend the common weal even at the risk of life itself. No one, then, but God has the absolute ownership of human life or of man’s limbs and members.

Each one, however, has a qualified ownership in the faculties which God has given him. His activities of mind and body have been granted to man that by using them in a proper way he may do good and avoid evil, and thus secure the end of human existence. A man, therefore, is under the obligation imposed by God of making use of his mental and bodily faculties, and he has a consequent right to do so, as far as he does not thereby injure others.

When man by his labour has produced something which serves his wants and convenience, he has a right to the fruit of his toil; this is his property, and he cannot be deprived of it without injustice. This applies to what he has produced with his own toil, out of his own material, with his own resources.

A man’s reputation, then, inasmuch as it is the fruit of his merit and industry, is his property, and he cannot be unwarrantably deprived of it without injustice. He may, however, surrender it himself for good reason; he may write his confessions, like St Augustine, for the purpose of self-humiliation and for the instruction and edification of others; otherwise he must have a care of his own good name, without which he can do little good, and may do great harm to others,

Similarly, by the law of nature a book, design, or composition belongs to the author, and a new invention to the inventor. These things and others of the same kind are the fruit of the author’s or inventor’s thought and labour, and anyone who stole them and published them without their owner’s consent would commit a sin against justice.

Among modern civilized nations these rights are protected by municipal laws and international agreements, and, inasmuch as these determine the vague and uncertain prescriptions of the natural law, they bind in conscience.

The exclusive right of printing or otherwise multiplying copies of books, etc., is called in English law copyright. It extends not only to books, but to every volume, part, or division of a volume, pamphlet, sheet of letterpress, sheet of music, map, chart, or plan separately printed; to engravings, prints, sculpture, models, busts, paintings, drawings, photographs, designs, dramatic and musical representations.

Copyright is protected throughout the British dominions and the principal countries of Europe, which form the Copyright Union. On certain conditions copyright is now protected in the United States of America, and foreign authors may acquire copyright within the States by complying with those. conditions.

English law grants copyright for the author’s natural life and for fifty years longer.

In the United States the original terms run for twenty-eight years; it may, however, be renewed for a further term of fourteen years, making forty-two years in all.

In the same way patent right, or the right of the inventor to reap the benefit of a new contrivance, is protected in England on certain conditions for fourteen years, which protection may be extended for a further period of seven or fourteen years if the inventor has not yet reaped the full benefit of his invention, and such patent is for the public benefit. The period to which patent right extends in the United States is seventeen years.

There is a controversy among theologians as to whether the natural law of itself forbids the reissue by another without the author’s consent of a book which has once been published. Some deny this on the ground that by being published, apart from the prescriptions of positive law, a book becomes public property, and anyone who buys a copy may make what use of it he pleases. He is merely disposing of what is his own. The contrary opinion, however, seems better grounded, for the author in publishing a book makes over indeed to the buyers of it certain advantages, but there is nothing to prevent him reserving the right of issuing it again to himself. The buyer of a copy may make the contents of the book his own and work them up again in any form of his own that he chooses; he buys the material part of the book, paper, binding, etc., and may make what use of them he pleases; but he does not purchase the right to issue the book again, and he violates justice if he does so against the author’s wish. The same holds with regard to patent right.

This controversy is of little practical importance, for sufficient protection is provided in most civilized countries by positive law.

We saw above that no one except God can have an absolute property in man’s life or members. No man, then, can become the chattel of another so that he may lawfully be disposed of like a brute beast. Christian teaching has banished such an idea from Christendom at least. On the other hand, there is no difficulty in admitting that one man may make over his services to another for as long as he pleases. Theoretically, therefore, there seems no reason for saying that slavery is against the law of nature. We here understand by the term the state of perpetual subjection of one to another so that he owes that other his life service in return for board, lodging, and clothes. Practically, great abuses usually accompanied slavery, and we must allow that it is out of harmony with the spirit of the Gospel. Chiefly through the wise and gradual action of the Church, it has ceased to exist as an institution among civilized nations. However, we must not forget that penal servitude is still the just and recognized punishment for grave crime. Merely looking at the question from the point of view of the strict law of nature, we must acknowledge that a state of slavery arising from contract, or birth, or in punishment for crime, or as the result of a just war, is not in itself immoral.

Animals and the earth, together with all that they produce, may become man’s absolute property. God has imposed on him the obligation of maintaining himself and those who are dependent upon him, and he has-a consequent right to make his own whatever is necessary and useful for that purpose, if it has not been appropriated by someone else. He has a right to provide not only for his immediate wants, but for the future also; not only for himself, but for his offspring. In other words, nature herself gives man the right of private property. This right is not given by the State; it is anterior to the State, and its preservation and defence is one of the chief reasons for the existence of the State. It may indeed be regulated by the State, as far as is necessary for the common good, but it is beyond the power of the State to do away with it.¹ No Catholic is at liberty to deny the lawfulness of private property and its necessity in the general conditions of the modern world.

Socialists, indeed, advocate the nationalization of the land and of all the means of production and exchange as a sovereign cure for the economic evils of the world. The plan militates against the right of private property; it is unworkable, and even if it could be introduced it would be no cure for existing evils, and would introduce other new ones. The fuller treatment of this, a practical question in our days, scarcely belongs to moral theology; it is not in the confessional that such questions are treated. The student should consult books on ethics, or special works written on socialism or collectivism.

¹ Leo XIII, on the Condition of Labour, May 15, 1891.

None but an intellectual being endowed with intellect and will can own property. For such alone, or persons as distinct from things, are the subjects of rights; persons alone can freely dispose of objects which are necessary or useful for the attainment of man’s destiny. Persons alone can suffer a formal injury by the wilful violation of their rights against their will, and so they alone are capable of having rights and holding property.

God, who is the Creator of all things, is also their universal Lord and Master. He can do what he pleases with his own; however he may treat his creatures, they cannot complain of God’s injustice toward them. He is bound only by the laws of his own infinite Goodness and Wisdom.

Other pure spirits whom God has created might conceivably have rights of ownership, but as they have no use for material things with which we are specially concerned, we need not further consider them in this connection.

All men, even imbeciles, who will never have the use of reason, and infants still unborn, are subjects of rights and capable of holding property. For they all require many things for their support, preservation, and defence, for the perfect development of all their faculties, mental and bodily, and for the orderly and secure attainment of their end. As, then, they are under the obligation of striving for the attainment of their end, and they have the right to do so, they have also the right to the necessary means. This reasoning is not invalidated by the incapacity of infants and imbeciles to use their faculties and administer their property. Their rational nature gives them their rights; their capacity to use them is not a necessary condition of their existence. A man who is asleep retains his rights, though he cannot then exercise them. Besides, whatever defect there might be in the title of infants and imbeciles to the rights of men is supplied by the provisions of positive law, which confers rights of property independently of the knowledge or acceptance of the owner.

Inasmuch as man is a social animal, and develops his faculties in the society of his fellows, whose help he constantly needs, nature herself has given him the right to form private societies, companies, or corporations, for the furtherance of common ends, independently of that larger public society which we call the State, and to which all belong. As Leo XIII teaches: “‘ Private societies, then, although they exist within the State, and are severally part of the State, cannot nevertheless be absolutely and as such prohibited by the State. For to enter into a society of this kind is the natural right of man; and the State is bound to protect natural rights, not to destroy them; and if it forbid its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence; for both they and it exist in virtue of the like principle—namely, the natural tendency of man to dwell in society.¹

The State, of course, has the right of control over such societies as are founded for civil purposes, and they are subject to the just laws which the State may make in their regard. English law acknowledges both corporations aggregate, consisting of more than one person united for the purpose of pursuing a common end, and corporations sole, consisting of but one person like the sovereign or the rector of a church. A corporation is a moral entity, a fictitious person, with rights of its own, distinct from the rights of the physical persons who compose it. As far as property is necessary for the attainment of its end, a corporation has the right of ownership, though this right is subject to the control and regulation of the supreme authority. Leo XIII in his encyclical on labour warmly approves of workmen forming their own unions and societies for the defence of their rights and the furtherance of their welfare.

¹ Encyclical on the Condition of Labour, May 15, 1891.

Apart from positive law, a minor is capable of owning property in his own right just as if he were of full age. Considerable rights over a child’s property were granted to the father by Roman law. The minor had, indeed, complete ownership of what he earned by military service or by any public office, but the usufruct of what came to the son in other ways belonged to the father. Similar rights are commonly granted to the father by those modern systems of law which are derived from the Roman. According to English law, however, the father as such has no rights over any property which belongs to his child. During the child’s minority, if no trustee or guardian of his property has been appointed, the father or mother will usually be appointed guardian, and in that capacity they are bound to administer the property for the benefit of the child, nor may they use it for their own profit.

On the other hand, English law gives no right to children to share in their father’s property except in case of intestacy, differing in this also from the Roman and derived systems. The parent may by our law leave his property to whomsoever he will, unless, of course, it is entailed. As to entailed property, a tenant in tail in possession may now under the Law of Property Act, 1925, in certain circumstances bar an entail and dispose of it as a fee simple, not only by deed but by will.

When an intestate, whether husband or wife, leaves a surviving spouse and issue, the survivor of husband or wife takes (a) personal chattels absolutely; (b) £1,000 net free of Death Duties and costs, with 5 per cent. interest thereon from death till payment or appropriation; (c) a life interest in half of the rest of the intestate’s estate. Subject thereto the property is held on the statutory trusts for the issue.

If the intestate die leaving no husband or wife surviving, but only issue, then the issue take the whole of the estate on the statutory trusts. These statutory trusts provide for equal division of the estate per stirpes.

A child who has the means is under a moral obligation of supporting his parent when he is incapable of supporting himself, and this obligation is enforced by English law.

Moreover, if a minor living with his parent is earning wages the parent is not bound to support him free of cost, and until he is sixteen it would seem that the parent is justified in taking his earnings. Even after that age it may well be that an elder son or daughter who is in receipt of wages is bound to help to support younger brothers and sisters if the family is numerous. Apart from these obligations a minor acquires a full right to what he earns, and may enter into a contract with his parents for the payment of the cost of his board and lodging, reserving what is over of his wages for himself. If a minor works in his father’s house no contract for wages will be presumed; he is supposed to forgo them, or his keep is supposed to be an equivalent, unless an express contract for wages is entered into between them.

Minority ceases on the completion of the twenty-first year of the minor’s age, or by emancipation. A minor is emancipated from his parents’ control by marriage, by entering into religion, or when an adult child leaves the paternal household and enters the army or ordinary service as a domestic servant or labourer.¹

¹ Eversley, Law of the Domestic Relations, p. 599.

The fact that a woman marries does not of itself take away or lessen her natural capacity to possess property. Her husband is indeed the head of the family, and is presumed to be better able to administer family affairs than his wife. Moreover, the law of England used to give the husband very extensive rights over his wife’s property. For in general any freehold estate of which the wife was seized at the time of the marriage, or of which she became seized afterwards, became vested in her husband and herself during the coverture, and the husband was entitled to the profits, and had the sole control and management. By marriage a husband became possessed of his wife’s leaseholds in her right. He was not only entitled to the profits and management of them during the joint lives, but he could dispose of them as he pleased by any act during the coverture. The personal chattels of the wife became in general the absolute property of the husband.¹

By degrees inroads were made on the rigour of the common law, and means were found to secure separate property to a married woman. By the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882 great changes were introduced, so that now a woman married after the first day of January, 1883, possesses as her separate estate all her property, whether acquired before or after the marriage. All women who were married before the above date similarly possess as their separate estate all property which comes to them after that date. Practically, therefore, during her life and that of her husband a married woman has rights of property as if she were single.

Furthermore, she has a right to support for herself and her children, even those of a previous marriage, at her husband’s expense, according to her condition in life, and she may effect an insurance on her own or on her husband’s life for her separate use.

¹ Stephen’s Commentaries, 2, p. 277.

A married woman can now make a will and leave her separate property according to law to whom she pleases. In conscience she must of course take account of the needs of her surviving relatives and of other legitimate claims on her remembrance. If she dies intestate, all her personalty goes to her husband; her realty also goes to him for life, afterwards to the only child, or to the eldest son or his issue if he be dead, or to the daughters equally.

The Right of the Church to Possess Property

We have already seen that not only physical persons but corporations or societies can also own property. The Church is a perfect, independent, and visible society founded by Christ our Lord, and endowed by him with all the rights and privileges which are necessary to enable her to attain her end. This end is the sanctification and salvation of souls by the preaching, propagation, and exercise of the Christian religion. It is obvious that for the support of the Church’s ministers and missionaries, for the building and upkeep of churches, for the decent and proper exercise of religious worship, and for numerous other purposes, ample revenues and lands are required, and, inasmuch as the Church has the obligation and the right to work for the end for which she has been founded by God, so she has the right to the necessary means. This reasoning is confirmed by the condemnation by the Popes of several false propositions bearing on the Church’s right of ownership¹ (Can. 1495).

¹ Props. 10, 32, 33, 36 of Wyclif; and Prop. 26 of the Syllabus.

The general truth that the Church has a right to own movable and immovable property is certain, and does not depend for its validity on the question as to who is the definite owner of Church property. This was a disputed question, some theologians maintaining that God is the immediate as well as the ultimate owner, inasmuch as Church property is said to be given to God; others taught that the universal Church or the Pope is the owner; others, again, that the corporations constituted by individual churches, dioceses, religious congregations, and orders are the real owners of the ecclesiastical property belonging to those institutions. This last opinion is commonly accepted nowadays, and it seems more in keeping with the intention of the donors of such property, which is usually the benefit of a particular religious institution for the honour of God, and in this sense they make their offering to God (Can. 1499, sec. 2).

The administration and management of Church property belong to those ecclesiastics who have been lawfully placed over the churches, dioceses, institutes, etc., to which the property belongs; and the Pope as the supreme head of the Church on earth has the supreme administration, or the altum dominium, as it is called.¹

¹ Can. 1519-1521, etc.

The profits derived from ecclesiastical property should, according to the Church’s law and natural equity, be devoted to those purposes for which the donors gave the property. If this cannot be done because the object for which the property was given no longer exists or for some other legitimate cause, it is for the Pope to make the needful dispositions so that the intention of the donors may be carried out as far as possible (Can. 1514).

No immovable ecclesiastical property, or even movable when it is of considerable value, may be alienated without the leave of the Holy See, and the penalty of excommunication is incurred by all who attempt to do so or to receive the same without the requisite permission. The Pope for good cause may of course alienate Church property, as he has not infrequently done, especially in times of upheaval, as after the Reformation in England and after the French Revolution (Can. 2347).

We do not propose to treat here of the capacity of religious to own property; that question will be best considered when we treat of the state of religious. Here we only inquire into the property rights of the secular clergy.

The property of the clergy is divided by theologians into four kinds. What they possess as private persons, whether it has been given or bequeathed to them or they have inherited it, is called their patrimony. Quasi-patrimony is what they have obtained by the exercise of their ministry in stole fees, stipends, and casual offerings. Ecclesiastical goods are derived from the revenue of benefices. Savings are what a cleric has acquired by living sparingly and which he might have spent by living according to the ordinary standard.

Of these different kinds of property, patrimony and quasi-patrimony belong to the cleric; they are his private property, of which he has the ownership just like anybody else, for he is not deprived of the right to possess property by becoming a cleric. What he saves also from what he might have spent lawfully on his support belongs to him, for the labourer is worthy of his hire; he has a strict right to a decent living from the revenues of the Church, and what he saves from the sum required for this belongs to him as his own.

There is a difficulty concerning the profits derived from his benefice if the cleric has one. He may, of course, use the income derived from this source for his maintenance according to his rank; but supposing that a balance remains over, what must he do with that? Ecclesiastical law prescribes that he must employ it for pious purposes, and must not squander it or enrich his relations with it. He is bound under pain of sin to give it to the support of religion, or to the poor, or for educational or other pious causes. If he does not do this, he certainly sins against obedience; but does he also sin against justice, and is he therefore bound to make restitution ? This is a disputed question among divines. The more probable opinion is that he does not sin against justice and so is not bound to restitution; for the income derived from his benefice is his own property, and he may do what he pleases with his own, unless there be some free disposal of his property. law which restricts his In this case there is such a law, which must be observed, but which for all that does not make an act which it prohibits unjust; it only makes it unlawful (Can. 1473). . 2. In English-speaking countries there are few well-endowed benefices, so that in general the clergy have to be supported by the offerings of the faithful. As Leo XIII says in his Constitution Romanos Pontifices, May 8, 1881, the offerings of the faithful were not regarded as ecclesiastical property where religion and the clergy were sufficiently provided for from other sources. In Britain, however, the offerings of the faithful are almost the only means available for the maintenance of divine worship, the building and repair of churches and schools, the support of charitable institutions and of the clergy. Hence it becomes a matter of importance to be able to decide what offerings belong to the clergy as their own property, and what constitute ecclesiastical property and belong to the Church. Of the latter property the clergy are only the administrators, and they are bound to render an account of their administration to their superiors and to God. Rules for settling what offerings are private and what ecclesiastical property were drawn up by the Second Provincial Synod of Westminster, approved in the year 1856; and Pope Leo XIII sanctioned those rules and ordered them to be observed wherever his Constitution Romanos Pontifices should be in force. I here give Father Guy’s version of the rules: “ (1) Offerings of the faithful for the propagation and ornament of religion, for the support of the clergy, the relief of the poor, and other pious uses, are considered as made to God and the Church, and the administrators or guardians of them, whether ecclesiastics or laymen, are to be deemed merely dispensers of them, under an obligation of rendering an account to God of their stewardship. As here now it is required among the dispensers that a man be found faithful in those things which concern the rightful administration of Church property, it seems proper that in this synod we should treat this matter more fully, inasmuch as having been occupied with matters more important in the First Provincial Council, we deferred the consideration of this subject to a more convenient opportunity. _“* (2) Every effort must be made to determine, if there be any doubt, the intention and purpose of the donor or testator of each fund, and that the proceeds of it may be rigidly applied to the use prescribed by him.

“‘(3) If this intention cannot be ascertained from any trustworthy document, rules or canons by which a safe judgement may be formed in such cases should be observed.

(4) Whenever a church or school or any other building intended for religious uses is erected or provided, either wholly or in part, from money contributed by the faithful, or granted by any society administering the alms of pious Catholics, every edifice of this kind is to be considered as belonging for ever to the place where it stands.

“‘(5) The same judgement must be passed on buildings erected by any benefactor, unless it is clearly proved that he made a declaration that in erecting such an edifice he did not intend it for the advantage of the faithful of that place, but that he wished to confer a benefit on some particular order. The rules laid down in this and the preceding number as to rights in foundations are in the case of Regulars to be applied to new foundations only. ** (6) But the Bishop shall not be allowed on this account to take away a mission lawfully entrusted to any religious order. These rules regard merely a case in which a religious body either cannot or will not retain the care of a mission—for example, if a superior remove it to some other place, or for any other reason it there cease to exist altogether, and not for a time only. “ (7) If, however, any mission be founded altogether or for the most part by funds belonging to any religious body, which for good reasons may wish to leave entirely and go elsewhere, we recommend that a distinct agreement be made between the Bishop and the superiors of the order as to what has to be done; so that on the one hand just rights may not suffer, and on the other no scandal may arise nor grievous loss of souls ensue. (8) Much less is it lawful for any cleric, or even for the Bishop himself, to alienate Church property, as is evident from almost numberless decrees of canon law. If, however, on account of reasons approved of by the canons, such an alienation become necessary, the priest can never act in this matter without the authority of the Bishop, nor the Bishop without the precautions required by canon law.

“‘(9) In every mission where money is contributed by the faithful in the ways hereafter described it is to be accounted Church property, and not a donation to the priest. For from this money he must provide not only for his own decent support, but for the expense of religious worship, for the maintenance of the fabric, for payment of debts, where there are any, and for other wants. Wherefore, if any priest leave a mission during the course of the year, he has not a right to his proportion of the yearly income until the amount justly due for expenses be deducted. In like manner, what he has provided for the use of the church from the income of the - church—for example, wax candles, wine for the most holy Sacrifice, sacred furniture—these he should leave behind him, without any compensation, unless he can clearly show that the supply is excessive. “

(10) All are aware that there are now in operation different methods of raising money for the support of missions. The following in particular we do not disapprove of, till the charity of the faithful shall provide in a better way. They are:

(a) Letting of seats or places in the church to certain persons or families at a fixed rent to be paid to the church.

(b) Church collections made at the Offertory. (c) According to a custom prevailing generally in England, payment of a fixed sum, according to the part of the church which they occupy, by those who do not rent seats, yet are not content to occupy what is called the free space. (d) Sermons by some distinguished preacher of the word of God, after which the alms of the congregation, whose number is often swelled by a concourse of strangers, are collected for the general or particular use of the church or for some special purpose. (e) Collections which are either made from house to house, by persons appointed for the purpose, or by societies and confraternities lawfully appointed, or which are gathered from tens or hundreds as is done in the excellent society called the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, or contributions made by the more wealthy portion of the congregation at fixed times or yearly. “

(11) Although it is certainly much to be desired that many of these methods of maintaining the Church were done away with, yet experience has taught that it is as yet impossible altogether to dispense with them. Wherefore, in those places where one or more of these methods prevail, they ought to be so kept on that no innovations be introduced without the authority of the Bishop. Especially the free space should not be diminished nor narrowed without consulting him. But whatever money comes to the mission by these means, it should be considered as belonging not to the priest personally, but to the general wants of the mission. Therefore, whatever furniture, either sacred or domestic, he acquires from these sources, or whatever he expends in keeping in repair the church or other buildings in any way belonging to it, in this expenditure he is not making provision for himself, but is providing for the mission from mission property. ‘

(12) As soon, therefore, as any priest enters on a mission, an inventory of all property belonging to the mission should be placed in his hands by the dean or by someone deputed by the Bishop. The missionary is bound to keep the furniture and buildings in good repair, yea, rather to improve them, that he may deliver to his successor as much at least as he received himself. Should he provide for the renewing of what is grown old and mean, or procure something new and more elegant to ornament the place, a distinction must be made as regards the sources from which the expense is defrayed.

(a) If the priest has procured these things from his own property, or from the gifts of friends well disposed towards him, or in fine, from that portion of the income of the church which he might have expended on his own decent maintenance, they are to be considered as his own property, provided he has kept all that he received in good order. (b) But if these things were procured out of the general revenues of the church, or by gifts and collections from the congregation, or by money granted by the Bishop or the administrators of the temporalities of the diocese, they are to be deemed entirely the property of the mission, nor is it lawful for the priest on any account to claim them. “*

(13) It is also to be generally understood according to a rule of canon law that things adapted for ecclesiastical purposes given to a missionary are, unless there is proof to the contrary, given to the mission; but things adapted for personal use are presumed to be given to the priest personally, as are also such church things as are given by a flock to a priest as tokens of gratitude or affection. ‘

(14) Retributions for Masses are the property of the priest. In like manner, where it is the custom, which is a very ancient one in England, of making presents to each priest at Easter and Christmas, these gifts of right belong to them. But the priest should be on his guard lest he incur the suspicion of avarice, by receiving anything on account of his administering the sacrament of Penance.

“‘(15) As to the application of money derived from stole fees, there is no uniform practice throughout the whole Church. For though the Church detests all filthy lucre in extorting or exacting money for the administration of the sacraments, yet the Council of Lateran, held under Innocent III in the year 1215, prescribed that the laudable customs in accordance with which offerings were made by the faithful to the ministers of the altar, on occasion of the administration of the sacraments, should be observed. The proceeds derived from this source should be ordinarily considered as belonging to the priests; though they are distributed in different ways in different places. That distribution seems to be the best which is most conducive to alleviate the burthens of the mission. “

(16) Whilst, therefore, we forbid anything to be asked for and much more anything to be exacted before the celebration of baptism and matrimony, and even after the celebration as a right, we leave it to the prudence of Bishops to determine in their diocesan synods what seems best adapted to the customs and state of places. Especially should they most vigilantly correct all abuses, if any exist, as to the amount or to the exaction of these offerings, by enforcing everywhere an equitable arrangement.”

These provisions seem to be in harmony with Canons 1182, 1519-1528, etc., of the new Code, and so it would seem that they are still in force.

TITLE is a cause sufficient to confer property in a thing. There are several kinds of title, some derived from the natural law, others due to positive law, and others which have their effect from the will of private persons. They may be reduced to title by occupation, by accession, by prescription, and by contract. On account of its importance and the abundance of material we will treat of contract in a separate Book; the other three titles must be considered here.

Occupation is the taking possession of some material thing with the intention of making it one’s own. It will be a lawful title to ownership of property if the thing occupied had previously no owner, and actual possession is taken of it with the purpose of making it one’s own. If these conditions be fulfilled, it seems useless to investigate further how occupation is capable of conferring property. Whether the fact of occupation sanctioned by the community is sufficient, or whether we say that by occupation a man’s labour is mingled with the thing, and thus the connection of ownership is set up, is really immaterial. It is a title universally acknowledged and is derived from Nature herself.

As is clear from the definition, there cannot be occupation without actual, or at least constructive, taking possession of the thing, whether it be movable or immovable; it is not sufficient merely to see the thing at a distance, nor is it enough to take hold of it with the intention of seeing what it is, without any idea of retaining it for one’s own.

Most things of value, especially the land, have owners already, and so a title to ownership by occupation can only arise with reference to certain classes of property which are not of very great importance. In moral theology this title is at the root of ownership derived from finding lost property, treasure-trove, and the capture of fish and wild animals. Here English law only partially agrees with what seems safe in conscience.

The finding of things of value without an owner confers ownership in the things found if they be taken possession of with the intention of making them one’s own. Whether they ever had an owner or not is immaterial in conscience, provided that they have none at present. English law, indeed, grants property which belonged to someone who died intestate and without heirs to the Crown, under the name of bona vacantia, and when such property is claimed by the Crown, its title of course prevails. If the Crown does not claim the property, the first who should occupy it would seem to be safe in conscience if he kept it. The same doctrine may be applied to wreck found, which positive law requires to be delivered to the receiver of the district, and this officer, if no owner appear within a year, sells the same and pays the proceeds into the Exchequer.

Any money, coin, gold, silver, plate, or bullion, found hidden in the earth or other private place, the owner thereof being unknown, is called treasure-trove. By English law it belongs to the Crown, but if the Crown does not claim it, the finder would be justified in keeping it.

One who finds property that has recently been lost may be bound in charity to take possession of it and try to discover the owner, but there is no obligation to do so in justice. If, however, he take possession of it, he is bound in justice to take reasonable care of it, and to use ordinary diligence to discover the true owner. On the true owner being discovered the finder has a right to be compensated for any expenses he has been put to in consequence of keeping the property, but he must deliver it up to the owner. As English law does not grant prescription in movables, this doctrine will hold even though the owner be discovered after the lapse of years; if the property still remains intact or in its equivalent, it belongs to the original owner and must be restored to him. The finder of lost property acquires thereby a qualified property in it which is valid against all save the true owner, and if the true owner cannot be discovered within a reasonable time, the title of the finder becomes absolute, and he may use it as his own.

Animals are either domestic, tamed, or wild. The property in domestic animals such as dogs, sheep, kine, pigs, always remain with the owner, however much they may stray, as long as they are not so utterly lost that there is no hope of finding the owner. Such animals always belong to their original owner as long as he can assert his ownership over them, in the same way as his household furniture belongs to him. Wild animals which enjoy their natural liberty and go where they please belong as a general rule to him who first captures or kills them. Such a one makes them his own by occupation, for before he took them they belonged to no one. English law has modified this general rule to some extent, for if a trespasser capture or kill a wild animal on another person’s land, it belongs to the owner of the soil on which it has been started and killed; if a trespasser start an animal on one person’s property and kill it on another’s, it belongs to the owner of the former. These rules of positive law give the owner of the property at least the right to vindicate his claim, which cannot then be lawfully resisted by the trespasser.

Animals which have been tamed, such as pigeons, bees, young pheasants that have been hatched under hens, belong to their owner as long as they retain the habit of returning to his premises, but if they lose that habit and recover their natural liberty, they belong to the first who takes them, like wild animals. Animals which are enclosed like deer in a park, rabbits in a warren, or fish in a pond, belong to the owner of the enclosure, as long as he can exert his control over them. If they recover their natural liberty, they are primi occupantis.

A poacher may be guilty of sin by damaging the property of another by trespassing on it, and from the fact that he exposes himself to grave personal risk or to the danger of violently resisting lawful authority if he is caught. By the mere fact of capturing wild animals he does not commit a sin against justice, unless he kills so many in a particular property that the right of killing game therein is seriously lessened in value, and the owner in consequence suffers considerable loss, because, for example, he cannot let it at so high a price.

Accession is the increase of property either by natural production or by the union of one thing with another. When this takes place, legal and moral questions arise as to the owner of the increase. There are two leading maxims which settle such questions, Res fructificat domino and Accessorium sequitur principale, ‘The maxim Res fructificat domino seems to follow necessarily from the nature of property and ownership, for he who has the absolute ownership of something has a right to reap the benefit of all that it is, of all its activities, and of all that it produces. And so if the field is mine, I have a right to the grass, wood, or other commodity which it produces. If the tree is mine, I have a right to the fruit; if the mare is mine, I have a right to the foal; in the latter case the maxim Partus sequitur ventrem is also applied.

Jurists and theologians divide fruits into natural, industrial, mixed, and civil. Natural are such as grass, which grows without human labour and care; industrial are the product of industry, as a book or a new invention; mixed are partly natural, partly industrial, as a crop of wheat or potatoes; civil are such artificial fruits as rent from houses and land, interest from money lent. In all these cases the maxim may be applied, Res fructificat domino. In the case of mixed fruits, if the material belongs to the labourer the whole produce will belong to him; if the material, the field for example, belongs to someone else, then the owner of the field and the labourer whose labour aided in the production of the crop have each their right to a portion of the produce. Whether the crop be divided, or a money equivalent be paid to one or the other, is immaterial, With regard to improvements made on land or in houses, the general rule is that, Quidquid solo inaedificatur, plantatur, seritur, solo cedit. However, first of all by custom, and in modern times by statute, an outgoing tenant has a right to compensation for the improvements he has made on his holding, provided that certain conditions have been fulfilled.

When one thing is added to another, the general rule is that what is accessory becomes the property of the owner of what is principal. And so the owner of land has the property in gradual increments made to it by alluvion; an island formed in a river belongs to the owner of the bed. If a river suddenly changes its course, or the sea suddenly retires, the rule does not hold; the ownership remaining as before. If wood belonging to another has been used in a building, the property is transferred to the owner of the building, with the obligation of making compensation for the wood. Similarly a painting on another’s canvas belongs to the painter, but he must pay for the canvas. When a new form has been introduced into the material, as by baking bread, making wine or oil, the product belongs to the workman, but compensation must be made for the material. The ownership is then said to be acquired by specification, When liquids or solids belonging to different owners have been mixed, they should be separated if possible, and each owner will retain his separate property. If this is impossible, the former owners still retain their right to a proportionate part of the whole or to its value.

As the term is used here in moral theology, prescription is a title by which the ownership of property is gained or lost through adverse possession during the time and in the manner laid down by law.

In English law the term prescription is only used with reference to incorporeal hereditaments—i.e., rights and profits annexed to or issuing out of land. Of these the chief are advowsons, tithes, commons, ways, offices, dignities, franchises, pensions, watercourses, lights, annuities, and rents. Land and movables cannot be claimed by prescription. However, the Statute of Limitation, 3 & 4 William IV, c. 27, and the Real Property Limitation Act, 1874, have the same practical effect as Prescription Acts, with regard to real property, and it will be convenient to consider them here as such.

The mere possession of property belonging to another even for a lifetime would not of itself transfer the ownership to the possessor. But as it is so much easier to prove possession than ownership, and because those who have been in peaceful possession of property for a long time should not be liable to be unwarrantably disturbed, and, moreover, in order that owners of property may look after their rights, the legislature has authority to confer a right to property, in consideration of long and peaceable possession. This is what both ecclesiastical and civil laws of prescription do, and these laws avail not only in the external forum, but also in the forum of conscience.

In order that ownership of property may be transferred by prescription, certain conditions are requisite either from the nature of the case or by positive law. Theologians usually reckon five such conditions—viz.: (a) the property must be such as the law allows to be prescribed; (b) there must be good faith in him who prescribes; (c) consequently there must be some sort of title; (d) there must be possession (e) for the time required by law.

(a) As prescription depends for its validity on positive law, there can be no prescription which the law does not recognize. English law does not recognize any title to movables by prescription, as we have already seen. Ecclesiastical law acknowledges a right of prescription to both movables and immovables. Inasmuch as laymen cannot hold benefices, they cannot gain a title to them by prescription, though clerics may do so. .(b) Good faith is the second condition required for prescription, English law does not expressly require good faith, but it is certainly required in conscience. He who prescribes must not know that the property which is in his possession belongs to someone else; if he knows this, he can never become its owner by prescription. This was defined by the Fourth Council of Lateran, c. 41, and the reason is plain.¹ For as soon as anyone is conscious that he has something which belongs to another, he is bound to restore it to the owner, and the longer he keeps it against the owner’s will the more grievous sin of theft does he commit. Positive law could not by prescription transfer another’s property to one who was in bad faith, for such a law would not be for the common good, but would foster crime. The user, then, by which property is acquired by prescription must be without the consciousness of wrongdoing; in one who frees his property from a servitude by prescription, there will be good faith if he put no obstacle in the way of the other’s enjoying his right; he is not required to warn him that prescription is running against him. If during the time required for prescription a doubt about the right to the property occurs to the possessor, he must make all needful inquiries, and satisfy his conscience that at least no one else has a certain title to the property in question.

The time during which a predecessor in title held possession of the property may be reckoned together with the period during which the present possessor has held it in order to complete the time required for prescription, if possession was always held in good faith. Even if a predecessor in title was in bad faith, this will not prevent a successor from gaining a title by prescription, provided that the latter possesses the property in good faith for the full time required by law.

(c) Inasmuch as good faith is required, as we have seen, and this cannot exist without some colourable, supposed, or at least presumed title, the third condition requisite for prescription is some sort of title. The quality of the title affects the period of time required for prescription by ecclesiastical law,as we shall see; no special title is expressly required by English law.

(d) No prescription can be had without uninterrupted, open, and peaceable possession. The prescription must be nec vi, nec clam, nec precario. It is precisely the possession for the period required that furnishes the ground for the transference. of ownership by prescription. When the term is up the property is vested in the possessor, who acquires also a right to all the fruits, if any, which he has meantime reaped from the property; for what is accessory follows the principal.

(e) Different systems of law require different periods of time for prescription, and the time varies with different kinds of property.

A great change in the ecclesiastical law of prescription was made by the new Code, as is clear from Canon 1508, which is as follows: ‘‘’ The Church accepts for ecclesiastical property prescription as a mode of acquisition and of freeing one’s self from burdens as it exists in the civil legislation of each nation respectively, with the exceptions laid down in the following canons.” Canon 1509 exempts certain classes of property from prescription, Canon 1510 lays down that sacred things in the possession of private persons can be prescribed by private persons, but that sacred things which are not in the ownership of private persons can only be prescribed by a moral ecclesiastical person against another moral ecclesiastical person. In general one hundred years are required to prescribe against the Apostolic See, and thirty years are required to prescribe against other ecclesiastical moral persons, according to Canon 1511.

The term required by English law for the acquisition of rights by prescription varies according to circumstances. At common law, time immemorial was required to establish a prescriptive right, but the Prescription Act, 1832, provided that with respect to rights of common, and all other profits or benefits to be taken and enjoyed from or upon any land, where there shall have been an enjoyment of them by any person claiming right thereto without interruption for thirty years next before the commencement of any action upon the subject the prescriptive claim shall no longer be defeated by showing only that the enjoyment commenced at a period subsequent to the era of legal memory. It is also provided that the time during which the adverse party shall have been an infant, idiot, non compos mentis, or tenant for life, or during which any action as to the claim shall have been pending and diligently prosecuted, shall be excluded in the computation of the period of thirty years. But where there has been an enjoyment for sixty years the claim is to be absolute and indefeasible.

Rights of way and other easements, or any watercourse, or the use of any water, to be enjoyed upon, over, or from any land or water, and also as to the access or use of light to and for any dwelling-house, workshop, or other building, are prescribed after twenty or at least forty years, instead of thirty and sixty respectively. An uninterrupted enjoyment of lights for twenty years constitutes an absolute and indefeasible right to them.

¹ Can. 1512.

Prescriptive rights may be extinguished by abandonment, express or implied; and after a period of twenty years’ nonuse, or sometimes even after a shorter period, abandonment will regularly be presumed. They are also extinguished by operation of law when the dominant and servient tenements come into the possession of the same owner in fee.

As we have seen, the right to-real property is by the Real Property Limitation Act, 1874, extinguished after twelve years’ adverse possession. The Limitation Acts which affect the ownership of real property differ from other Limitation Acts which concern personal property or a right of action in that the latter only bar the remedy after the lapse of the time fixed by law; they do not take away the right; the former, on the contrary, extinguish the right.

The conditions for prescription in the United States are in general the same as in England, except that as a rule a period of twenty years is necessary and sufficient to acquire both land and incorporeal hereditaments, and also to extinguish those rights. In some States squatters who have cultivated plots of land in good faith may become owners of them by prescription in a shorter space of time than twenty years.

The subject of prescription is a thorny one in English law, and it would be imprudent for a confessor not otherwise specially skilled to venture to determine questions of right by prescription. What has been said will, it is hoped, enable him to judge how far conscience may follow the law, and when a penitent should be recommended to consult a lawyer.

THE wide term injustice may be used to designate any violation of justice, whether it be legal, distributive, or commutative. Sins against legal justice are committed by doing anything against the common good of the society to which one belongs, or by neglecting to do what the common good requires to be performed. Such sins may be committed by rulers and by subjects, more frequently, however, by the former, inasmuch as the common good is specially entrusted to their care and guardianship. As the separate members of a society constitute that society, it is obvious that there is not a perfect and adequate distinction between a society and its members, In legal justice, therefore, which regulates the relations which ought to subsist between men and the society to which they belong, there is something wanting to the complete distinction of persons required in order that the obligations of strict justice may subsist between them. A violation, then, of legal justice is not a sin against justice in the strict and full sense.

Distributive justice prescribes that the ruler divide common burdens and emoluments among his subjects. according to their capacity and merits. Before they are assigned to each one, no one has a strict right to any determinate share of them, and so a distribution of burdens and favours which is not according to merit is not against strict justice. A ruler who in his distribution of offices and burdens shows undue favour to some to the detriment of others’ sins indeed against strict justice if he thereby cause damage to the community, for strict justice and the implicit agreement which he made on assuming his office forbid him to do that. If, however, no special injury accrues to the community through his showing undue preference for some of his subjects, he commits a sin which is called acceptation of persons, but he does not sin against strict justice. On the other hand, one who violates particular or commutative justice deprives another of his strict right. Such a sin is called an injury, which may be defined to be the violation of the strict right of another against his reasonable will.

Such an injury is formal if it is committed knowingly and - wilfully, otherwise it is material.

A personal injury is committed against rights which are intrinsic to the person, such as the right to life, liberty, good name, and honour. A real injury is committed against the property of another.

Personal injuries are treated of elsewhere under the Fifth and Eighth Commandments; here we consider more especially real injuries done to the property of another.

There are three different species of real injuries—robbery, theft, and simple damnification. Robbery, besides injury to property, includes also a personal injury, which consists in violence offered to another by forcibly depriving him of what is his. Simple damnification is the causing of damage to the property of another without taking away any of that property. Theft is the secret taking away of the property of another against his reasonable will. . No action is an injury unless it is against the reasonable will of the injured person, scienti et volenti non fit injuria, according to the twenty-seventh rule of law in the Sixth Book of the Decretals. The reason is obvious; because a person may as a rule renounce his rights, and then an action contrary to them ceases to be a violation of justice. It is no longer a depriving another of what is his; it has ceased to belong to him. There are, however, some rights which are inalienable, and actions against these will be contrary to justice even if the party wronged give his consent. No one can validly renounce his right to life, and so the private killing of another, even with his consent, except in lawful self-defence, is always murder. Similarly, marital rights of married people are inalienable, and, even if the husband consent, a wife’s adultery is always adultery. The maxim, then, must be understood of rights which the owner can validly forego, and it asserts that no injury is done by acting against rights which the possessor with full knowledge and with perfect freedom does forego.

THEFT, as we have seen, is the secret taking away of what belongs to another against his reasonable wish.

Not only the taking away, but also the keeping of what belongs to another against his reasonable wish is theft, as when a borrower fails to return what has been lent him on the day appointed, to the disappointment of the lender. Moreover, the use of, or any unlawful dealing with, the property of another against his wish is theft, as when a tramp makes himself at home for the night on another’s premises, or when a passenger travels on the railway or tram without paying his fare.

In order that a sin of theft may be committed, the owner of the property must be unwilling that it should be thus dealt with by the thief; there is no theft committed by using another’s property if the user knows that the owner would not object. Moreover, he must be reasonably unwilling, and so a man who is in danger of dying from starvation, or who is in extreme necessity of any other kind, may take or use what is necessary to save life, even if the owner be unwilling that he should do so. The reason of this is that, by the primary intention of our Creator and Lord, material things were created for the preservation of human life, and no rights of ownership can prevail against the higher claim of one who is in extreme necessity.

The sin of theft is of itself grievous, as is clear from the fact that it is against justice and charity; and St Paul classes it among the sins which shut the kingdom of heaven to the sinner. However, like other sins of injustice, it is sometimes venial on account of light matter, and a practical question here arises as to when theft is a mortal sin, and when it is only venial. The same question is put in other words when we ask, What amount must be taken to constitute a mortal sin of theft? .

Theologians are agreed that we must distinguish between the absolute sum, the taking of which is as a general rule 1 x Cor. vi 10. necessary and sufficient in all cases to constitute grave matter, and the relative sum, which will be sufficient for grave matter, regard being had to the loss of the owner. The general principle on which the quantity required for grave sins depends is the damage caused by the theft. For it is a grave sin to cause grave damage without a just reason; but in the case of very rich persons or companies we must consider not only the personal and particular damage done to them by theft of what belongs to them, but also the harm done to society. It may well be that a rich millionaire would not be appreciably worse off for the loss of a hundred pounds or of ten times that sum. The damage done to him by a thief taking a hundred pounds would be relatively less than if sixpence were taken from a day labourer. However, we must also consider the harm done by theft to the community and to the security of property. The malice of sin is not measured merely by the harm done to the individual; the harm done to society and other considerations also enter into the estimate. We must, then, besides considering the damage done to the owner of stolen money, weigh also the harm which theft does to society, And if grave harm is caused to society by stealing a certain sum of money, if the security of property would be seriously imperilled unless the theft of a certain sum were forbidden under pain of mortal sin, that sum will be the absolute quantity required for a mortal sin of theft, What the precise sum is must be left to the judgement of experts, who will consider all the circumstances of time and place, for, as values are perpetually changing, the sum required for a mortal sin of theft will also change. Under present circumstances, in civilized countries where similar conditions of commerce prevail, the common opinion of theologians fixes one pound sterling as the absolute sum required for a grave sin of theft. This will serve, therefore, as a measure of the gravity of theft from very rich people, or from companies with large resources.

However, a mortal sin of theft may be committed by stealing a much less sum than one pound if the theft cause great harm to the owner of what is stolen. The loss of a day’s wage or of a sum which is sufficient for the support of a labourer and his family for a day, is a serious loss for a workman, and so, as the common opinion holds, the theft of such a sum from a labouring man is a grave sin. Something between this and the absolute sum will be grave matter if stolen from persons whose wealth is between the two extremes.

Matter which in itself is grave may become light on account of special circumstances. Thus although grave necessity does not excuse theft, yet it may lessen the sin and cause to be venial what would otherwise be mortal. In the same way, less unwillingness on the part of the owner may lessen the sin. A father is less unwilling as a rule that a little of his money should be taken by a member of his family, especially if it is for a good purpose, than by a common thief. On this ground some divines say that in thefts from parents a double quantity is required for grave matter. Also when a number of small thefts are committed, which in the aggregate amount to grave matter, a larger sum is required for a mortal sin than when it is all taken at once. For the loss is not felt so keenly, and so the owner is not so unwilling.

That small thefts may coalesce and constitute grave matter is certain, for by a number of small thefts grave harm may be done, and the opposite opinion is implicitly condemned by the 38th proposition condemned by Innocent XI. Small thefts coalesce if the intention of the thief is to take a considerable sum, but for some special reason he takes it in small quantities at different times. Similarly, if a number conspire together to steal from another, they will all commit grave sin if grave damage be inflicted, even though each one only obtains a small sum. Also, when the proceeds of pilferings are hoarded, grave sin will be committed when grave matter is reached, or even if the proceeds be spent and do not coalesce by accession as in the preceding case, the different pilferings will coalesce and constitute one moral act of injustice if the interval be not notable—not over two months—as some theologians say. On the other hand, small thefts committed at wide intervals of time, and which do not coalesce on account of any of the reasons given above, do not constitute one moral act, and remain so many venial sins of theft.

The theft of something of small money value, but whose loss is very keenly felt for reasons of affection or association, will be a venial sin against justice, but a mortal sin against charity, if it was foreseen that its loss would cause very serious pain to the owner.

WHEN other sins have been committed they are blotted out and reparation as far as possible is made for them by sincere sorrow and repentance. But when commutative justice has been violated it is not sufficient to be sorry for the injustice done; reparation must be made for it by putting, as far as possible, the person injured in the same condition as he would have been if the injury had never been inflicted. This reparation for an injury that has been done to another is called restitution. There is a strict obligation in justice to make restitution as far as is possible to another whom one has injured; for justice requires that each one should have his own; but one who has been injured is deprived of his own so long as restitution has not been made; and so, in order that each one may have his own, in order that that equality may be preserved which justice prescribes, restitution is of strict obligation whenever commutative justice has been violated. It is an obligation of justice, and so it is a grave one, unless the matter be light.

(St. Thomas, II-II, q. 57 ff.; St. Alphonsus, Theologia Moralis, book III, nn. 486-961; Homo Apostolicus, tract 10.)¹

¹ Cf. Crolly, Disputationes theologicae de Iustitia et Iure, ad normam iuris municipalis britanici et hibernici conformatae; Waffelaert, De virtutibus cardinalibus, tract II, De Iustitia; Marres, De Iustitia; Pothier, De Iustitia; Vermeersch, Quaestiones de Iustitia; Van Gestel, De Iustitia et Lege Civili; Sweens, Institutiones theologicae de virtute cardinali Iustitiae; Van Egeren, Notationes de virtute Iustitiae; Duynstee, Burgerlijk Recht en Zielzorg.

The seventh and tenth precepts of the Decalogue command commutative justice, prohibit its violation or injustice strictly so called, and, when it has been violated, impose reparation or restitution; moreover, the seventh precept regards external acts, the tenth internal acts, at least directly. Therefore we shall speak first of commutative justice itself, then of injustice and restitution. But so that this whole matter may be clearer, it is useful both very briefly to recall to memory the things which elsewhere we discussed at length concerning justice taken more generally, and also to discuss in appendices the matter akin to commutative justice, that is, distributive justice and legal or social justice.

I. Notion of justice taken more generally. Justice taken more generally is a moral virtue inclining a man to render to each one his right (n. 377).

II. Conditions required for justice taken more generally. "The notion of justice consists in this, that there be rendered to another what is due to him according to equality" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 80, single article); from these words it follows that three conditions are required for justice, namely alterity, debt, and equality (n. 379).

III. Division of justice taken more generally. Justice taken more generally is divided into commutative, distributive, and legal or social justice.

1. Commutative justice is: justice inclining an individual man to render to another individual his right, that is, a strict right, or a right founded in the devinction or quasi-devinction of some thing to some individual (n. 380).

2. Distributive justice is: justice inclining the prince to render to the members of society their right, that is, the goods which belong to them, with capacity, merits, and necessity considered (n. 381).

3. Legal justice is: justice inclining both subject and prince to render to society its right, that is, to promote the common good (n. 382).

Social justice, of which Pius XI speaks in the Encyclical Quadragesimo anno, since it regards the common good almost exclusively, belongs to legal justice.

IV. Fuller exposition; this is especially set forth by a fuller exposition both of the object of justice, that is, as is clear from the definition handed down, right,¹ and of its subject.

1. Notion of right. The word right is taken in different senses, for example for a moral and inviolable faculty in regard to something, that is, in regard to some thing or some action, whether one's own or another's; for a law granting some moral faculty in regard to something; for a body of laws, as when someone is said to study law; for the sentence of a judge, who therefore is said to declare the law; for the place in which sentence is pronounced, whence someone is said to appear in court.

Now right, insofar as it is the object of justice, is a thing due to someone according to some equality; namely the material object is the thing due, and the formal object is the character of debt. Moreover, under the name of thing we also comprehend an action or omission.

2. Source of right. The remote source of every right is law, whether natural or positive, and ultimately the eternal law, which is the origin of all laws according to these words of St. Alphonsus: "The will of God alone, as being most holy, most wise, most upright, is the one source of every law, of every rule, and of the measure of honesty" (Dichiarazione del sistema, n. 18). The proximate source of right is the moral faculty itself, on account of which some thing is due to someone. I said moral faculty, by which is understood some power with respect to some thing.

3. Division of right. Right, insofar as it is the object of justice, is divided:

a) By reason of origin, into natural right and positive right, according as it flows from natural law (n. 82) or from positive law (n. 89).

b) By reason of subject, into individual right and social right, according as it belongs to man as an individual, or as part of a whole, or as a member of society.

c) By reason of the title in which it is proximately founded, into right founded in the title of devinction or quasi-devinction² of a thing to some person, and this is the object of commutative justice; into right founded in the title of capacity, dignity, merit, or necessity, on account of which some good, for example an office, ought to be granted by the whole, that is, by the prince, to some member of society, and this is the object of distributive justice; into right founded in the ordination of subjects and of the prince to society, and this is the object of legal justice.

d) By reason of efficacy, into strict right and less strict right, according as it is founded in the title of devinction or quasi-devinction of a thing to some person, or in another of the titles just assigned.

Strict right, that is, the object of commutative justice, is distinguished into ius in re, or real right, and ius ad rem, according as a thing has already been bound to someone, or someone has a right that a thing, still bound to another, be bound to himself. This right is sometimes called ius in personam, insofar, namely, as some person, from commutative justice, is obliged to render some thing to someone (St. Alphonsus, III, 486).

4. Subject of right. A rational being, and it alone, is the subject of right. For right is a thing due to someone according to some equality. But something can be due only to a rational being.

The Minor is proved. Something can be due only to him who has a moral faculty in regard to something. But a moral faculty in regard to something belongs to a rational being, and to it alone.

The subsumed Minor is proved. A moral faculty belongs to him, and to him alone, who can and ought to direct himself to the ultimate end; for such a one and such a one alone enjoys the faculty of choosing means to the ultimate end, a faculty, I say, of which others ought to take account. But a rational being, as free, and it alone can and ought to direct itself to the ultimate end; irrational beings, as lacking liberty, cannot direct themselves. Therefore a moral faculty belongs to a rational being, and to it alone.

Corollary I. Even infants and the insane are capable of rights. This is clear: 1. from Sacred Scripture: "For as long as the heir is a little child, he differs nothing from a servant, although he is lord of all; but he is under tutors and governors until the time predetermined by the father";³ 2. from the consent of all nations and laws; 3. from the fact that nothing prevents some thing from being destined to the special utility of someone and therefore owed to him, even if in the use of the thing he must be directed by the reason and will of another.

Corollary II. Not only physical persons, but also moral persons, can be the subject of right, or at least be regarded as if they were the subject of right;⁴ concerning these we shall speak specifically later.

Corollary III. The capacity of acquiring a right can be restricted by authority, both civil and ecclesiastical, and this both directly, for example if someone is deprived of the usufruct of his own thing (n. 764), or is rendered incapable by reason of a solemn vow of poverty; and indirectly, insofar as certain things are placed outside commerce. The state in which someone exists deprived of the capacity of right is called civil death.

And with these things having been premised concerning justice taken more generally, let us proceed to the treatment of commutative justice, speaking, as we have already noted, first of commutative justice itself, then of injustice and restitution. We shall add a double appendix, the former on distributive justice, the latter on legal justice.

¹ Cf. Lijdsman, C.SS.R., Introductio in Ius Canonicum, vol. I, n. 1.

² By quasi-devinction I understand the power which belongs to a private person, so that some thing may be bound to him (ius ad rem).

³ Gal. 4:1-2.

⁴ It is disputed: 1. whether and 2. in what precise sense a moral person can be called the subject of right. Cf. Brinz, Pandekten, III, § 432-454; Ihering, Der Geist des Romischen Rechts; Vermeersch, Quaestiones de Iustitia, XIV; F. C. von Savigny, System des heutigen Romischen Rechts, II, § 85-103; d'Annibale, Summula Theologiae Moralis, I, n. 43; Waffelaert, Etude de theologie morale sur l'obligation en conscience des lois civiles, p. 157-184; Cathrein, Moralphilosophie, II, p. 394-395; Gierke, Das Deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, cited by Duynstee, n. 22.

We shall speak first of commutative justice generally, then of commutative justice in the matter which is especially regarded by it, that is, in contracts.

We must treat: 1. the nature and division of commutative justice; 2. the objects of commutative justice, that is, strict rights; 3. the modes of acquiring strict rights.

The objects of commutative justice are strict rights, especially rights in things, or real rights (n. 757). We shall speak: 1. of strict rights considered in themselves; 2. of the different subjects of strict rights, especially of ownership; 3. of the modes of acquiring strict rights.

There are some who judge labor to be the only legitimate mode of acquiring strict rights, and therefore that ownership and income or proceeds which have not been gained by labor are to be attacked and abolished. Pius XI declares these things to be erroneous in the encyclical Quadragesimo anno,¹ and it will be clear from the things to be said concerning the other modes of acquiring rights. Nor is the Apostle rightly appealed to for confirming the said error when he says: "If any man will not work, neither let him eat."² "For the Apostle pronounces sentence against those who abstain from work, although they can and ought to labor, and he warns that time and the powers either of body or of mind are to be used diligently, and that others are not to be burdened when we can provide for ourselves. But the Apostle by no means teaches that labor is the only title for receiving food or proceeds."³

Therefore diverse modes of acquiring strict rights are distinguished: primitive or originative, and derivative or translative. Primitive modes are those by which either a thing, or right, which belonged to no one is acquired, or a thing which belonged to someone is transferred into the ownership of another independently of the act of the prior owner. Of the former kind are occupation, production, to which we reduce specification, and accession; of the latter kind are prescription, and in a certain way also possession, and finally legal succession. Derivative modes are those by which a thing, or right, which belonged to someone becomes another's dependently on the act of the prior owner; here belong testament, or testamentary succession, and contract.⁴ We shall speak of each, with the exception, however, of contract, which we shall treat in a special chapter.⁵

¹ Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1931, p. 197.

² 2 Thess. 3:10.

³ Encyclical cited, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1931, p. 197.

⁴ Most authors, however, call primitive those modes by which a thing which belonged to no one is acquired; derivative, those modes by which a thing which belonged to someone is acquired.

⁵ We proceed thus because contract, although it is a mode of acquiring a strict right, nevertheless ought rather to be considered as the matter of commutative justice.

The word injustice can be taken for a violation of commutative, distributive, or legal justice. Injustice taken thus generally is defined: the violation of another's right. Nevertheless injustice is especially understood of a violation of commutative justice. Of this alone we shall speak here, adding those things which regard the reparation of the said violation, that is, restitution. We shall speak first about injustice in common; then about restitution in common; then about injustice and restitution in particular cases.

Injustice and restitution can regard: 1° goods of fortune; 2° goods of the body; 3° goods of the soul; 4° the good of modesty and chastity; 5° the good of reputation; 6° the good of honor; 7° the good of secrecy. Each must be discussed.

Goods of fortune can be injured both by theft and by mere damaging. An unjust or unfulfilled contract and the taking away of a thing from a legitimate possessor can be added. It suffices to speak of the first two, because enough has been said about the others in their own place. For the rest, all these modes of injuring goods, as such, do not differ in species.

"1. It is lawful to capture by force or fraud Blacks and other savages who are hostile to no one. 2. It is lawful to buy, sell, and make other contracts concerning Blacks and other savages hostile to no one, captured by force or fraud. 3. When Blacks and other savages unjustly captured are mixed with others who can justly be sold, it is lawful to buy all, or, as they say, the good and the bad. 4. Buyers of Blacks or other savages are not bound to inquire concerning the title of their servitude, whether they are slaves justly or unjustly, although they know that very many of them have been unjustly captured. 5. Possessors of Blacks or other savages hostile to no one, captured by force or fraud, are not bound to manumit them. 6. Captors, buyers, and possessors of Blacks and other savages hostile to no one, captured by force or fraud, are not bound to compensate their damages. 7. It is lawful for possessors of Blacks and other slaves by private authority to expose them to manifest danger of death, to wound, burn, or kill them. 8. It is lawful to baptize Blacks and other Infidels capable of the doctrine of faith without instruction in the mysteries of faith necessary for salvation; likewise to leave the same baptized persons without that instruction. 9. Masters of Blacks and other slaves are not bound to prevent them from living in concubinage. 10. It is lawful to retain captives in servitude after Baptism, whether or not they are slaves justly. 11. It is lawful to buy Blacks from Heretics mediately or immediately, and after purchase or donation, or any other contract, for them to remain their slaves, and likewise to sell to them. To 1. It is not lawful. To 2. It is not lawful. To 3. It is not lawful. To 4. They are bound. To 5. They are bound. To 6. They are bound. To 7. It is not lawful. To 8. It is not lawful, except in the article of death. To 9. They are bound. To 10. In the negative, if unjustly. To 11. In the negative, with bad faith existing." S. I. C. 20 March 1686.

"From olden time Cambodian Christians have bought Laotians and others from neighboring peoples for their service, and they do this even if there is a founded doubt, indeed sometimes if they know certainly, that those slaves were stolen away in their own country. First of all a distinction must be made whether the captive Laotians who are sold by kidnappers were taken away from their legitimate master, or rather, being free and of their own right, have fallen into the unjust servitude of kidnappers. In the first case it is not lawful to buy them; for although they are unjustly held by the kidnappers, nevertheless it is wrong to buy the goods of another taken by theft, against the master's will. In the second case, again and likewise, a distinction must be made whether the Laotians refuse to sell themselves to Christians, or consent. If they refuse, they can by no means be bought, for the captives themselves are masters of their own liberty, although it has been unjustly stolen from them by kidnappers. But if, after they have been fully taught that liberty belongs to them by right, from which they have fallen only by the injury of others, voluntarily and of their own accord, and from their free and proper will, as masters of their own affairs, they offer themselves to Christians, that they may be received by them and detained in servitude, with this prudent plan: that, freed from the more grave and hard servitude of kidnappers, from which it had not been given to them to emancipate themselves in another way, they may obtain a milder servitude among Christian buyers, among whom also they will easily be able to persuade themselves that they can come to the knowledge of the worship of the true God and profess it with inestimable advantage to their souls; in those circumstances indeed it will be possible to permit Christians, with regard also had to the favor of the faith, that they can acquire captives of this kind for themselves at a just price, and reduce and retain them in their own servitude, provided that they have this mind: that they treat them according to the precepts of Christian charity, and take care also to imbue them with the rudiments of faith, so that, if it can be done, they may be brought over freely and happily into the liberty of the children of God, which is in the Catholic Church alone, with no coercion however being made, but only by opportune persuasions and exhortations, through their conversion to the true faith." S. I. C. 11 Dec. 1776.

In the Instruction of the S. C. de P. F., 30 July 1867, these things are established:

"1. In the sale of ecclesiastical goods, let an estimate of the same first be made in writing by upright experts; let all those having an interest be heard; let there be certainty concerning the evident necessity or utility of the Church. Let them be sold in favor of the higher bidder and not for a lower price than that which was estimated by the aforesaid experts. Let the price be paid in full by the buyer in the act of stipulation, and let it be placed in a productive, safe, and lawful investment; but if this is not at hand, let the price be deposited in some public chest, or with some person of proven uprightness and suitability, with security nevertheless received and drawn up in writing, to be most carefully kept by the Patriarch or Bishop of the church to which the goods sold pertain.

2. In exchanges, let an estimate of the properties first be made in writing by upright experts; let all those having an interest be heard; let there be certainty concerning the evident utility of the Church; and in the stipulation of the contract let a return on both sides to the original rights be expressly reserved in case of eviction. But if the value of the ecclesiastical property exceeds the value of the property which is received by the church in exchange, that amount of money which is necessary for equalizing the contract is to be paid to the church in the act of stipulation, and placed in an honorable, safe, and lawful investment; and meanwhile let it be deposited, as above, in a public chest, or with a person of proven uprightness and suitability.

3. In entering emphyteutic contracts, let an estimate of experts first be made; let all those having an interest be heard; let there be certainty concerning the evident utility of the Church; let the canon to be paid by the emphyteuta not be less than that which was established by the experts; let the stipulation be committed to writing, to which a description of the property and a topographical map of the same are to be added; let the emphyteuta furnish a mortgage inscription upon another suitable property of his own, or at least, this failing, the surety of suitable persons for the security of the canons of three years; and in the stipulation itself let him issue an obligation valid for himself and his heirs and successors, never to use any present or future law or privilege of redemption of the canon, and that all improvements cede to the soil.

4. If there is question of pledging the goods of the Church, or of contracting debt, it is necessary that first all those having an interest be heard, and that there be certainty concerning the true and grave necessity of the Church. If this truly intervenes, care must be taken that that debt, as soon as it will be able to be done, be discharged by the church itself; and for this reason there is to be imposed on it, in individual cases, the obligation of extinguishing the contracted debt by annual installments to be predefined by the Bishop himself. To that effect certain determinate revenues of the same church will have to be assigned, and on each occasion deposited in a public chest, or with an honest and suitable person, so that they can be invested at their time.

5. But when it happens that money of the Church is to be invested, two things must first most diligently be taken care of: first, that any usurious stain be far distant from contracts to be entered; second, that provision be made for the indemnity of the Church. Therefore let its money not be placed except with honest and suitable persons, who furnish a mortgage inscription, or at least suitable surety; and let all contracts of this kind be committed to public records according to the received custom of the regions.

6. Finally, in leases of ecclesiastical goods, care must be taken that the aforesaid leases be made at a just price, and that the payment of the annual return not be made in advance to the prejudice of successors. But it will not be lawful to lease ecclesiastical goods beyond three years; yet the Ordinary, if he has obtained from the Apostolic See a special faculty concerning the alienation of ecclesiastical goods, can permit the aforesaid leases to be made even beyond the aforesaid time, provided that it does not exceed nine years." Cf. Zephyrinus Zitelli, Apparatus Iuris Eccles., Rome, 1866, p. 53.

"Whether goods belonging to a religious family or to another pious Institute, which nevertheless in the civil forum are registered as the property of a private person, can be alienated without previous permission of the Holy See? Resp. In the negative." S. C. EE. and RR. 17 Feb. 1866. Cf. Commentary on the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis, nn. 83, 84.

"Whether a Christian faithful person who knowingly and willingly destroys and ruins the walls, doors, and implements of an idol temple, and for that reason is seized by the Heathens, ought or can repair the damage, at least under another title? - Resp. He is bound to restitution, under the title of justice." S. I. C. 21 Sept. 1842.

"Whether a simple condition added in a promissory note concerning restitution of money to be made in no other way than in sound money loses its force even in the forum of conscience through a subsequent civil law invalidating it? - Resp. Regularly in the affirmative, unless peculiar circumstances stand in the way, concerning which recourse must be had in particular cases, with the same diligently set forth." S. Poenit. 21 Jan. 1873. Cf. Acta S. Sed. Vol. 7, p. 209 ff.

"It is necessary to hold as a basis that Churches, monasteries, convents, as well as ecclesiastical properties, must not be guarded more castrorum; if consequently material resistance cannot be opposed to force, nevertheless moral force can be opposed to it, and the aforesaid things can be protected with analogous protests, according as the Sacred Canons prescribe in similar conjunctures; to keep oneself in a merely passive manner, and to yield only to imminent coercion..." S. Poenit. 20 July 1855.

"Whether Ordinaries, Parish Priests, Beneficiaries, and the other administrators of Ecclesiastical Goods, if they are required under grave penalties, can hand over to the Government an inventory of the respective revenues? - Resp. It is permitted, but with a protestation put forth in writing in the individual acts by the respective administrators concerning the necessity of the handing over in order to avoid greater evils, and for the protection of the rights of the Church. But the mind of the Most Holy Lord is that Ordinaries, before or after the handing over, if it can be done, make a collective protestation concerning the foregoing, reverently indeed, but with evangelical liberty." S. Poenit. 10 Dec. 1860.

"Whether Parish Priests and other Ecclesiastics, to whom damage has been inflicted by the abolition of Tithes made by the Government, can accept compensations proposed by that Government? - Resp. They can, according to the oracle of the Most Holy Lord, under the title of mere compensation for the damage inflicted on them by the Government because of the impeded exaction of Tithes, receive pensions assigned by the Government; nevertheless with a protestation first made, either by the Ordinary of the place in common, or by any one of the said Parish Priests or Ecclesiastics in particular, that by a receiving of this kind the abolition of Tithes made by the Government is in no way recognized or approved, and with the debtors of the same Tithes cautiously admonished that by force of the law enacted by the Government they are not freed from the burden of paying the same." S. Poenit. 10 Dec. 1860.

"Whether those who seek absolution ought, before they are absolved, to repair those damages which the Pontifical Government has suffered in the present vicissitudes of affairs? - Resp. It suffices that in mind they be prepared to stand by the commands of the Holy See to be issued concerning this." S. Poenit. 10 Dec. 1860. Cf. Gury-Ballerini, Vol. 2, n. 1092 ff.; Scavini, bk. 4, App. 32, Milan, 1874.

"1. To whom belongs the right of succeeding to the inheritance of a professed Regular dying outside the Cloisters, who obtained an Apostolic Indult of remaining outside the Cloisters for a time, retaining the habit or having laid aside the clothing of his Order? 2. To whom belongs the right of succeeding to the inheritance of a professed Regular who, having in the unhappy time passed been cast out of the monastery by public way, and stripped of the clothing of his Order, was prevented by reasonable cause from returning to his monastery and reassuming the clothing of his Order in the subsequent time of tranquility? 3. To whom belongs the right of succeeding to the inheritance of a professed Regular who obtained an Apostolic Indult of acquiring inheritances and legacies, and of disposing of those acquired, and especially if the disposition was for pious causes and in favor of Religion? - Resp. To 1. Concerning an inheritance of this kind judgment must be made according to the dispositions of common Ecclesiastical Law, namely, that it belongs to the proper Religion of the deceased. To 2. If the religious of whom there is question did not enjoy an absolute Indult of perpetual secularization, as in the preceding case. But if he did enjoy it, a distinction must be made among the goods left by him: namely, the goods which belonged to the Religion and which, leaving the Cloister, he himself had brought out with him, or which had come to him in any way, as also the goods, if he had any, coming from those, remain with the same Religion. But as regards the other goods acquired by such a Religious outside the Cloisters otherwise than from goods belonging to the Religion, judgment concerning them must be made according to the Constitution Officii nostri of Gregory XIII. To 3. If the said Religious legitimately used the Apostolic Indult of disposing of goods, as in the case, namely with a disposition everywhere legitimate of the same goods having been made, the right about which there is question belongs to him in whose favor the disposition was made." S. C. EE. and RR. 26 June 1829.

"... General Responses... 1. A monk, even furnished with an Apostolic Indult of perpetual and absolute secularization, cannot dispose of goods without the special good pleasure of the Apostolic See. 2. If he lacks the said Indult of disposing, or has not legitimately used it, a distinction must be made among the goods left by him, namely, the goods which belonged to the Monastery and which, leaving the cloister, he himself had brought out with him, or which had come to him in any way, as also the goods, if he had any, coming from those, remain with his Monastery. But as regards the other goods acquired by such a Monk outside the cloisters otherwise than from goods belonging to religion, judgment concerning them is to be made according to the Constitution Officii nostri of Gregory XIII, where the said Constitution is in force. 5. The right of succeeding to the inheritance of a professed Monk dying outside the cloisters, who obtained an Apostolic Indult of remaining outside the cloisters for a time, retaining the habit or having laid aside the clothing of his Order, belongs to his Monastery." S. C. EE. and RR. 4 Jan. 1862. The cited Constitution of Gregory establishes that goods of Regulars living outside the cloisters, from whatever source they came, under the name of spoils, pertain to the Apostolic Camera.

"1. Whether pensions which are paid from the public treasury to Regulars living outside the Cloisters are to be held as Ecclesiastical pensions, so that by their nature they are subject to spoil? And, in the negative, 2. To whom belongs after their death the right of receiving unpaid installments of the said pensions, if professed Regulars obtained an Apostolic indult of remaining outside the Cloisters, whether for a time or in perpetuity? 3. To whom belongs the same right, if professed Regulars of this kind obtained an indult of making a will and disposing? 4. To whom belongs the aforesaid right, if there is question of Regulars who emitted only simple vows? - Resp. To 1. In the negative. To 2. If the Indult was temporary, it belongs to the proper Religion of the deceased; if perpetual, to the S. C. of Spoils according to the Constitution Officii nostri of Gregory XIII. To 5. The right about which there is question pertains to him in whose favor the disposition was made, if the Regular legitimately used the Apostolic Indult of disposing of goods; insofar as he did not legitimately use the same Indult, the resolution given in the second is to be observed. - To 4. It belongs neither to the Religion nor to the S. C. of Spoils, but to his heirs, coming either ab intestato or from a testament." S. C. EE. and RR. 6 June 1836.

"... In order to cut off all causes of doubt and controversy concerning this matter, by the counsel of Our Venerable Brothers, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church set over the affairs and consultations of Bishops and Regulars, by Our Apostolic authority we decree and command these things which follow. I. Cardinal Bishops are bound, as regards sacred utensils, by the law enacted in the Constitution of St. Pius V beginning Romani Pontificis, except however suburbicarian Cardinal Bishops, and likewise except Cardinal Abbots Nullius who dwell in the Roman Curia, whose sacred utensils, in view of the cited Constitution Aequum est of Urban VIII, Our Predecessor, will pertain to the Pontifical sacrarium. II. The derogatory clauses of the Constitution of St. Pius V, whose beginning is Romani Pontificis providentia, remaining firm, in the Letters in the form of a Brief beginning De benignitate Sedis Apostolicae, customarily to be appended, in the other Brief, which begins Cum fel. rec. Urbanus VIII, let the clause be removed by which the same Pian Constitution is declared saved, and in its place let those things which follow be substituted: But if you have presided over abbatial, cathedral, metropolitan, patriarchal churches, or any others which by Apostolic concession and dispensation you have obtained in title, administration, or commendam, we vehemently exhort you, just as Benedict XIV, Our Predecessor, in his Constitution beginning Inter arduas, exhorted Cardinals, that in disposing of the aforesaid things you have those churches before your eyes and prefer them to the rest. But those things which we have prescribed in this article, we extend to individual Cardinals who before the publication of the present Letters obtained the announced faculty of making a will and disposing, just as if they had been expressed in the respective indults. III. The sacred utensils which, by force of the Constitution of St. Pius V beginning Romani Pontificis, are owed to cathedral churches, we declare to be these: namely, miters, chasubles, copes, tunicles, dalmatics, sandals, gloves, albs with cinctures, linen amices, and things similar to these; likewise missals, graduals, books of plainchant and music, pontifical books, another book whose title is Canon of the Mass; likewise chalices, patens, pyxes, monstrances, thuribles, vessel of holy water with sprinkler, basin with ewer, vessels of the sacred oils, and cruets together with basins and bell, candlesticks, images of peace, archiepiscopal crosses, candlesticks with cross for the use of the altar, pastoral staff, faldstool, and other sacred things, whether vestments, ornaments, or vessels, if there are any, even those by their nature suitable for profane use, provided that not accidentally but permanently they have been destined for divine worship and sacred functions; except rings and pectoral crosses, even with sacred relics, and all those utensils of whatever kind which are legitimately proved to have been acquired by the deceased Bishops from goods not pertaining to the church, nor is it established that they were donated to the church. Therefore we will that Bishops are held and bound to make, in authentic form, an inventory of sacred utensils, in which, according to the truth of the matter, they express when they were acquired, and by a special note describe those which they acquired for themselves from the revenues and proceeds of the church, lest otherwise all those things be presumed to have been acquired from the revenues of the church. But as regards sacred utensils of Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church pertaining to the sacrarium of the chapel of the Supreme Pontiff, we will that no account be taken of the quality and nature of the revenues by which they were acquired; and besides those things which are enumerated specifically in the Constitution of Urban VIII beginning Aequum est, we will that the following be understood as expressed only by general words: sandals, gloves, linen amices, albs with cinctures, likewise pyxes, monstrances, vessel of holy water with sprinkler, vessels of sacred oils, and cruets with basins and bell, finally pastoral staff, faldstool, candlesticks, images of peace, thurible, and things similar to these, except rings and pectoral crosses, even with sacred relics. IV. When a Bishop has ruled two or more churches successively, we will that the sacred utensils be divided proportionally among the cathedral churches, account being taken of the fruits and the time, according to the Constitution of St. Pius V beginning Romani Pontificis. V. But where some Bishop has presided at the same time over two or more churches united, or conceded in perpetual administration, which have a Chapter and their own distinct cathedral church, we declare that a division of the sacred utensils must be made in equal parts to the individual cathedral churches, insofar as the revenues of the same united churches, or churches conceded in perpetual administration, are not divided, but perpetually constitute one episcopal mensa. But if the revenues have been divided and separated, we will that the division be made to the individual cathedral churches proportionally by reason of the fruits. VI. But if it is established that a Bishop, who by translation presided over two churches successively, acquired for himself all the sacred utensils from the revenues only of one church, there will be no place for any division, but the same sacred utensils will pertain only to the cathedral church of that diocese from whose episcopal mensa's proceeds they were acquired." Pius IX, Cum illud, 1 June 1847.

"It often happens that questions concerning profit from a loan are referred to the Apostolic See, for which provision has been made by an appended resolution from the Roman Congregations in similar cases. Therefore, so that the Superiors of Missions may have at hand necessary knowledge of those things which thus far have been decreed on this matter, it seemed opportune to the Sacred Council for the Propagation of the Christian Name to publish all the mentioned resolutions together with the Constitution Vix pervenit of Pope Benedict XIV; and it pleased it that they be sent to all Bishops, Vicars, and Apostolic Prefects depending on the same Sacred Congregation.

I.

S. C. S. O. under date of 13 Jan. 1780, to the Right Reverend Lord Apostolic Vicar N.N. - "Since equality is required in contracts in order that they be just, nothing in a loan, by force of the loan, as has often been defined, is to be received beyond the principal sum. But if it happens that profit ceases for the lender, or damage arises, or danger threatens of losing the sum, or of assuming unusual labors for its recovery, compensation for these indeed can be sought, yet with two conditions always placed before the eyes: the first, that some new title from these actually concur; the other, that nothing more be exacted than it truly demands. Wherefore all contracts depart from the rule of justice, and are liable to restitution, in which either an interest is feigned which is to be compensated, or more is sought than adequate compensation requires. Therefore it is evident that those act imprudently and illicitly, and commit themselves to manifest danger of injustice, who, from the fact that the danger which we indicate generally occurs in such a place, always require profit, and always the same profit, as if danger always intervenes, and, when it has been present, seek always the same remuneration. Nor are they excused because they receive a usury smaller than what is permitted by the law of the kingdom; since a thing is not therefore right because it departs less from justice, unless it is composed entirely to the form of right; and human actions are to be weighed not by human law but by divine law and natural law, which holds fast to equity. Those alone conduct themselves rightly who, looking to individual cases, then only demand compensation when danger truly intervenes, and then seek no other compensation than that which corresponds to the gravity of the danger, which is to be estimated by the judgment of upright and therefore prudent men."

II.

Sacred Roman Inquisition, year 1784, March 18, to the Apostolic Vicar D. D. M., on the question of a loan. - "And that first of all is certain, that by reason of the loan immediately and precisely nothing is to be received beyond the principal sum. But if something is received by reason of a probably imminent danger, the lenders are not to be disquieted, provided that account be had of the quality of the danger and of its probability, and that proportion be observed between the danger and that which is received. In these very words it was thus defined by the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide on 12 September in the year 1645, whose decree issued for the Chinese Missions is joined here. But the following doubt was:

In the aforesaid kingdom it was sanctioned by law that in a loan thirty per cent be received, without regard to ceasing profit or emerging damage. It is asked whether it is lawful for the Chinese, for the loan of their money, although ceasing profit or emerging damage does not intervene, to receive the aforesaid quantity of thirty per cent fixed by the law of the kingdom; and the cause of doubting is because in recovering the money there is some danger, namely, that he who receives the loaned thing may flee, or that he may delay in paying, or that it may be necessary to seek recovery before a judge, or because of other things of this kind.

The Most Eminent Fathers judged that by reason of the loan immediately and precisely nothing is to be received beyond the principal sum. But if they receive something by reason of a probably imminent danger, as in the case, they are not to be disquieted, provided that account be had of the quality of the danger and of its probability, and proportion observed between the danger and that which is received.

At the supplication of the same Congregation, Our Most Holy Lord, in order to preserve uniformity in preaching and in its practice, strictly commanded and ordered all and singular Missionaries of whatever order, religion, and institute, even of the Society of Jesus, existing for the time being, or to exist, in the kingdoms of the Sinas or of China, under penalty of excommunication latae sententiae specially reserved to His Holiness and to the Holy Apostolic See, that they diligently observe the aforesaid responses and resolutions, use them in practice, and cause them to be observed and practiced by those to whom it will pertain, until His Holiness or the Holy Apostolic See shall have ordered otherwise.

It can now be asked what the danger ought to be, and what its character and nature, so that, this title concurring, the lender can receive something beyond the principal. But in this question it is to be held as certain that not just any danger whatever is to be judged sufficiently apt and suitable so that some profit can be received from a loan. For since the title from which a just and legitimate cause arises that something more beyond the principal due from the loan be rightly exacted must always be extrinsic, and not joined and innate to the nature of the loan, hence it plainly follows that if the danger proceeds only from those circumstances which are common there to all lenders and cannot be separated from the nature itself of the loan, then certainly any profit whatever which is taken from the loan can by no means be purged from the stain of usury. Therefore, since plague, fires, persecutions of the Turks, and other misfortunes of this kind, although they are more frequent at Constantinople, nevertheless always threaten lenders in any city whatever, great care must be taken lest because of this common danger, which the force and nature of the loan itself carries, something beyond the principal be exacted in a loan. It seems rather to have greater inquiry when danger of losing the principal threatens either from the fault of the borrower himself, because he is crafty, deceitful, sly, because by flight or by malicious evasions he can deceive the creditor; or when, apart from the fault of the borrower himself, other dangers threaten the creditor from circumstances of place, time, and persons, which keep him very anxious and solicitous in recovering the principal. But although dangers which proceed from the fault of the borrower ought always to be held as more important, nevertheless in all these cases whether, how, and at what value such danger can be estimated, from which a legitimate title is furnished to the lender for taking profit above the principal, is indeed very difficult to establish generally. Let the skill and doctrine of Confessors be incumbent on estimating each matter and weighing it by its own moment. Let them weigh individual cases, inquire concerning the quality and probability of the danger, see whether by the security of a pledge every danger is absent, observe proportion between the danger and that which is permitted to the lender to gain above the principal, consult approved authors, and especially adhere to the opinions and principles approved by this Apostolic See, both in the above-praised decree of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide of the year 1645, and in the Encyclical Letter of Benedict XIV, Vix pervenit, issued in the year 1745, an example of which is alleged here."

"It scarcely reached our ears that, on account of a new controversy, namely, whether a certain contract ought to be judged valid, certain opinions were being spread through Italy which did not seem consonant with sound doctrine, when at once we judged it part of our Apostolic office to bring an opportune remedy, lest an evil of this kind acquire more strength by length of time and silence; and to block its access, lest it creep more widely and shake cities of Italy still unharmed.

§ 1. Wherefore we undertook that method and plan which the Apostolic See has always been accustomed to use. Indeed we explained the whole matter to some of our Venerable Brothers, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, who are much commended by their knowledge of Sacred Theology and by their zeal and skill in Canonical Discipline. We also called several Regulars excellent in both faculties, some of whom we selected from Monks, others from the Order of Mendicants, and finally others from Clerks Regular. We also employed a Prelate endowed with the laurel in both laws and long versed in the forum. We appointed the fourth day of July, which recently passed, that all these should come together before Us; to them we declared the nature of the whole matter, which we found had been known and perceived by them beforehand.

§ 2. After these things we commanded that, freed from every party zeal and every desire, they accurately weigh the whole matter and write out their opinions. We did not, however, ask from them that they render judgment concerning the contract which had initially given cause to the controversy, since several documents were not available which were necessarily required for this; but that they establish certain doctrine concerning usury, to which those things which recently began to be spread among the people seemed to bring no slight detriment. All carried out the commands: for they openly declared their opinions in two Congregations, the first of which was held before Us on 18 July, but the other on the first day of August, months which have recently elapsed; and finally they handed the same opinions in writing to the Secretary of the Congregation.

§ 3. Moreover, with unanimous consent they approved these things.

I. That kind of sin which is called usury, and which has its proper seat and place in the contract of loan, is placed in this: that someone, from the loan itself, which by its own nature demands that only as much be returned as was received, wishes more to be returned to himself than was received, and therefore contends that some profit beyond the principal is owed to him by reason of the loan itself. Therefore every profit of this kind which exceeds the principal is illicit and usurious.

II. Nor indeed, to purge that stain, will any assistance be able to be fetched, either from the fact that that profit is not excessive and too much, but moderate; not great, but small; or from the fact that he from whom that profit is demanded because of the loan alone is not poor, but rich; nor that he is not going to leave idle the sum given to him as a loan, but is going to expend it most usefully for enlarging his fortunes, or for buying new estates, or for carrying on profitable businesses. Indeed, against the law of loan, which necessarily turns on the equality of what is given and what is returned, he is convicted of acting, whoever, once the same equality has been posited, still does not fear to exact something more from anyone by force of the loan itself, to which satisfaction has already been made by an equal amount. And therefore, if he has received it, he will be liable to restitution, from the obligation of that justice which they call commutative, and whose office it is, in human contracts, both to preserve holily the proper equality of each one and exactly to repair it when not preserved.

III. By these things, however, it is by no means denied that sometimes, together with the contract of loan, certain other titles, as they say, can perhaps concur, and these by no means universally innate and intrinsic to the nature itself of loan, from which an altogether just and legitimate cause arises of rightly exacting something more above the principal due from the loan. Likewise it is not denied that many times money belonging to each person can rightly be placed and expended through other contracts entirely different in nature from the nature of a loan, whether for obtaining annual revenues for oneself, or also for exercising lawful commerce and business, and for receiving honorable profits from the same.

IV. But just as in so many diverse kinds of contracts of this sort, if the equality proper to each is not preserved, whatever is received beyond the just amount, if it pertains less to usury, because every loan, both open and disguised, is absent, yet certainly is known to pertain to another true injustice, likewise bringing the burden of restitution; so, if all things are rightly performed and are exacted according to the scale of justice, there is no doubt that a manifold lawful mode and reason is available in the same contracts for preserving and carrying on human commerce and fruitful business itself for the public advantage. For let it be far from the minds of Christians that they think profitable commerce can flourish through usuries or similar injuries against another; since, on the contrary, from the divine oracle itself we learn that justice exalts a nation, but sin makes peoples miserable.

V. But this must diligently be observed: anyone will falsely and rashly persuade himself that there are always found, and everywhere at hand, either other legitimate titles together with a loan, or, even with loan excluded, other just contracts, by whose support of titles or contracts, whenever money, grain, or anything else of that kind is credited to any other person, it is always lawful to receive a moderate increase beyond the whole and safe principal. Thus if anyone should think, he will without doubt be opposed not only to divine documents and to the judgment of the Catholic Church concerning Usury, but also to common human sense itself and natural reason. For no one at least can be ignorant of this: that in many cases a man is bound to help another by a simple and bare loan, especially Christ the Lord Himself teaching: From him who wishes to borrow from you, turn not away; and that likewise in many circumstances, besides the one loan, there can be place for no other true and just contract. Therefore whoever wishes to consult his conscience must first diligently inquire whether truly with the loan another just title occurs, or truly another just contract different from the loan occurs, by whose benefit the profit which he seeks may be rendered free and immune from every stain.

§ 4. In these words the Cardinals, Theologians, and men most skilled in the Canons, whose counsel we requested in this most grave matter, comprise and explain their opinions. We also applied our private study to the same cause before the Congregations were held, and while they were being held, and even after they had been completed; for we most diligently went through the votes of the outstanding Men whom we have just mentioned. Since these things are so, we approve and confirm whatever is contained in the opinions set forth above; since plainly all Writers, Professors of Theology and of the Canons, several testimonies of the Sacred Scriptures, Decrees of Our Predecessor Pontiffs, and the authority of Councils and Fathers seem to conspire well for proving the same opinions. Furthermore, we have most clearly known the Authors to whom contrary opinions must be referred, and likewise those who foster and defend them, or seem to provide an opening or occasion for them. Nor are we ignorant with how much wisdom and gravity Theologians neighboring those regions where controversies of this kind had their beginning undertook the defense of truth.

§ 5. Therefore we have given these Encyclical letters to all Archbishops, Bishops, and Ordinaries of Italy, so that these things may become known to you, Venerable Brother, and to all the rest; and as often as it happens that you celebrate synods, speak to the people, and instruct them with sacred doctrines, nothing at all alien from those opinions which we have reviewed above should be brought forward. We also vehemently admonish that every solicitude be spent, lest anyone in your dioceses dare to teach the contrary in writings or sermons. But if anyone refuses to obey, we declare him liable and subject to the penalties proposed by the Sacred Canons against those who have contemned and violated Apostolic commands.

“1. This blessed, indeed more than blessed, law of love removes all property and ownership.” — False, erroneous, heretical. “2. The actual renunciation of the cordial will and of the temporal power of dominion or authority manifests and effects the most perfect state.” — Understood universally, false, erroneous, heretical. Conclusions concerning poverty of Dionysius Soulechat, a Minorite of the sect of the Fraticelli, condemned by Urban V in 1368.

Urban VIII, Brief Commissum nobis, 22 April 1639, § 2, prohibits “reducing the Indians to slavery; selling, buying, exchanging, or giving them; separating them from their wives and children; despoiling them of things and goods; leading and transporting them to other places; or depriving them of liberty in any manner whatsoever; retaining them in slavery; and also furnishing counsel, assistance, favor, and labor to those doing the aforesaid things, under any pretext and specious appearance whatsoever; or preaching or teaching that this is lawful; and otherwise cooperating in any manner whatsoever in the aforesaid things.” Cf. the Letter to the Bishops of Brazil of Leo XIII, 5 May 1888; C. 2107. “1. It is lawful to capture by force or fraud Negroes and other uncivilized persons who are hostile to no one. 2. It is lawful to buy, sell, and make other contracts concerning Negroes and other uncivilized persons hostile to no one who have been captured by force or fraud. 3. When Negroes and other uncivilized persons unjustly captured have been mixed with others who can justly be sold, it is lawful to buy them all, or, as they say, the good and the bad. 4. Buyers of Negroes or other uncivilized persons are not bound to inquire into the title of their servitude, whether they are slaves justly or unjustly, although they know that very many of them were unjustly captured. 5. Possessors of Negroes or other uncivilized persons hostile to no one who were captured by force or fraud are not bound to manumit them. 6. The captors, buyers, and possessors of Negroes and other uncivilized persons hostile to no one who were captured by force or fraud are not bound to compensate their injuries. 7. It is lawful for possessors to expose Negroes and other slaves by private authority to manifest danger of death, to wound, burn, or kill them. 8. It is lawful to baptize Negroes and other unbelievers capable of the doctrine of faith without instruction in the mysteries of faith necessary for salvation, and likewise to leave them without such instruction after they have been baptized. 9. Masters of Negroes and other slaves are not bound to prevent them from living in concubinage. 10. It is lawful to retain captives in slavery after baptism, whether or not they are slaves justly. 11. It is lawful to buy Negroes from heretics mediately or immediately, and after the purchase or gift, or any other contract, for them to remain their slaves, and likewise to sell them to heretics. Resp. To 1. It is not lawful. To 2. It is not lawful. To 3. It is not lawful. To 4. They are bound. To 5. They are bound. To 6. They are bound. To 7. It is not lawful. To 8. It is not lawful, except at the moment of death. To 9. They are bound. To 10. In the negative, if unjustly enslaved. To 11. In the negative, when bad faith exists.” Holy Office, 20 March 1686; C. 2100.

“For a long time Cambodian Christians have bought Laotians and others from neighboring peoples for their service, and they do this even if there is a founded doubt, or sometimes they know with certainty, that those slaves were carried away by theft in their own country. — Resp. First it must be distinguished whether the Laotian captives who are offered for sale by kidnappers were taken from their legitimate master, or rather, though free and their own masters, fell into the unjust slavery of the kidnappers. In the first case it is not lawful to buy them; for although they are unjustly detained by the kidnappers, nevertheless it is wicked to buy another’s goods carried off by theft against the owner’s will. In the second case it must again likewise be distinguished whether the Laotians refuse to sell themselves to the Christians or consent to it. If they refuse, they can in no way be bought, for the captives themselves are masters of their own liberty, although it was unjustly taken from them by theft through the kidnappers. But if, after they have been fully instructed that the right to liberty belongs to them, from which they fell only through the injury of others, they voluntarily and of their own accord and from their own free will, as masters of their own affairs, offer themselves to the Christians so that they may be received by them and retained in slavery, with the prudent design that, freed from the graver and harsh slavery of the kidnappers, from which it was not granted to them to free themselves in another manner, they may obtain a milder slavery among Christian buyers, among whom they can also easily persuade themselves that they can come to knowledge of the worship of the true God and profess it with an inestimable advantage to their souls—in these circumstances it can indeed be permitted to Christians, regard also being had for the favor of the faith, that they may acquire captives of this kind for themselves at a just price and reduce and retain them in their own servitude, provided that they have this intention: to treat them according to the precepts of Christian charity and to take care also that they be imbued with the rudiments of the faith, so that, if it can be done, through their conversion to the true faith they may be freely and happily brought into the liberty of the children of God, which is in the Catholic Church alone, no coercion, however, being employed, but only opportune persuasions and exhortations.” Holy Office, 12 September 1776; C. 2101.

“34. Likewise, whether he believes that it is lawful for ecclesiastical persons without sin to have possessions and temporal goods of this world.” Articles concerning which those suspected of the errors of Wycliffe and Hus are to be questioned, from the Bull Inter cunctas of Martin V. Cf. no. 498.

“25. Besides the power inhering in the episcopate, there is another temporal power attributed by the civil government, expressly or tacitly conceded, and therefore revocable by the civil government whenever it pleases. — 26. The Church does not have a native and legitimate right of acquiring and possessing. — 27. The sacred ministers of the Church and the Roman Pontiff are altogether to be excluded from every care and ownership of temporal things. — 75. The children of the Christian and Catholic Church dispute among themselves concerning the compatibility of the temporal kingdom with the spiritual. — 76. The abrogation of the civil dominion which the Apostolic See possesses would conduce especially to the liberty and felicity of the Church.” Propositions condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus.

“10. It is contrary to Sacred Scripture that ecclesiastical men should have possessions. — 16. Temporal lords can at their own discretion take temporal goods from the Church when those possessing them habitually transgress, that is, transgress by habit and not only in act. — 32. To enrich the clergy is contrary to the rule of Christ. — 33. Pope Sylvester and Emperor Constantine erred by endowing the Church. — 36. The Pope with all his clerics who have possessions are heretics because they have possessions; and those consenting to them, namely all secular lords and the other laity, are heretics. — 39. The Emperor and secular lords were seduced by the devil to enrich the Church with temporal goods. — 44. Augustine, Benedict, and Bernard are damned unless they repented of this: that they had possessions and instituted and entered religious orders; and thus, from the Pope down to the last religious, all are heretics.” Propositions of John Wycliffe condemned at the Council of Constance.

“Moreover, according to the decree of the most blessed Pope Stephen, We establish that laymen, although religious, have no faculty whatsoever of disposing of ecclesiastical things; but according to the canons of the Apostles, let the Bishop have the care of all ecclesiastical affairs and dispense them as though God were beholding. Therefore, if any prince or other layman should claim for himself the administration of ecclesiastical things or possessions, let him be judged sacrilegious.” First Ecumenical Lateran Council, canon 4.

“We believe that alms, sacrifice, and other benefits can profit the faithful departed. We confess and believe that those remaining in the world and possessing their own goods, giving alms and other benefits from their goods, and observing the Lord’s precepts, can be saved. We believe that tithes, first fruits, and offerings are to be paid to clerics by the Lord’s precept.” Profession of Faith prescribed to the Waldensians by Innocent III.

“18. Tithes are pure alms, and parishioners can at their own discretion take them away on account of the sins of their prelates.” Proposition of John Wycliffe condemned by the Council of Constance.

Concerning the recent suppression of tithes in Italy, cf. Letter of the Sacred Penitentiary, 25 August 1887; A. S. S., vol. 20, p. 205 ff. Cf. also nos. 701, 704, 1331.

“Whether the salaries which are paid in Belgium by the Government to pastors and canons take on the character of benefices or ecclesiastical goods, and have annexed to them the obligation inhering in these goods, namely, the strict and canonical obligation of expending the surplus upon the poor or pious causes, and of residence under the penalty of not making the fruits one’s own? — Resp. It has already at another time been answered in the affirmative by the Holy See, upon the advice of a secret Congregation.” Sacred Penitentiary, 19 January 1819.

“The Sacred Penitentiary, having been consulted whether that response should be applied to the salaries which are paid by the Government to pastors and Canons of the Kingdom of France, judged that the response should be: In the affirmative.” 19 August 1821.

“Whether the response for Belgium of 19 January should be applied only to the fixed salaries of 1,000 livres for Parish Priests and 750 livres for Administrators, or whether it should be extended to the offerings of the faithful? — Resp. In the affirmative as regards the first part; in the negative as regards the second.” Sacred Penitentiary; Gury-Ballerini, no. 563.

Cf. On Particular States, no. 7.

“Without possession prescription does not proceed.” Rule of Law 3 in the Liber Sextus.

“Because all that is not of faith is sin, We define by synodal judgment that no prescription, whether canonical or civil, is valid without good faith, since generally every Constitution and custom which cannot be observed without mortal sin must be derogated. Hence it is necessary that he who prescribes have at no part of the time consciousness that the thing belongs to another.” Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, Decrees, chapter 41, On Prescriptions.

“We lately received your questions, that certain usurers make those to whom they give money at interest take an oath that they will not seek the return of the interest and will raise no question concerning the interest they have paid. We therefore answer that, every appeal being removed, you are by ecclesiastical censure to compel the usurers themselves, before payment of the interest, to desist from exacting it, or to restore it after it has been paid, lest it happen that they carry away advantage from deceit and fraud.” Chapter Tuas dudum 13, On Usury.

Whether a simple condition added in a written instrument, that restitution (of the money) is not to be made otherwise than in coined money, loses its force even in the forum of conscience through a subsequent civil law invalidating it? — Resp. Regularly in the affirmative, unless particular circumstances stand in the way, concerning which recourse must be made in particular cases, those circumstances being diligently explained.” Sacred Penitentiary, 21 January 1783; A. S. S., vol. 7, p. 209 ff.

“Eudorius, a bachelor destitute of necessary heirs and gravely ill, in order to provide for his soul determined to expend part of his goods upon pious works. For this purpose he instituted Boniface as universal legatee by a testament furnished with the required forms. He delivered to Boniface, however, a private writing in which he manifests his pious will and asks him to execute it faithfully. But after Eudorius died, Boniface kept the whole inheritance, on the ground that he possessed it by a valid testament. It is asked whether he can be safe in conscience. — Resp. In the case set forth, Boniface is bound in conscience to fulfill the will of Eudorius, certainly known in the forum of conscience.” Sacred Penitentiary, 23 June 1844. Cf. no. 1057.

“General responses…. 1. A monk, even one furnished with a perpetual and absolute Apostolic Indult of secularization, cannot dispose of goods without the special good pleasure of the Apostolic See. 2. If he lacks the faculty of disposing in the said Indult, or has not legitimately used it, a distinction must be made among the goods left by him: namely, goods which belonged to the monastery and which he himself brought with him on leaving the cloister, or which came to him in any manner, as also goods, if he had any, proceeding from them, remain with his monastery. But concerning other goods acquired by such a monk outside the cloister otherwise than from goods belonging to the religious order, judgment is to be made according to the Constitution Officii nostri of Gregory XIII, where the said Constitution is in force. 3. The right of succeeding to the inheritance of a professed monk who dies outside the cloister, who obtained an Apostolic Indult of remaining outside the cloister for a time, retaining the habit or laying aside the garment of his Order, belongs to his monastery.” Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, 4 January 1862. The cited Constitution of Gregory establishes that the goods of regulars living outside the cloister, from whatever source they came, belong under the name of spoils to the Apostolic Camera. Cf. the following number.

“1. To whom belongs the right of succeeding to the inheritance of a professed regular who dies outside the cloister, who obtained an Apostolic Indult to remain outside the cloister for a time, retaining the habit or laying aside the garment of his Order? — 2. To whom belongs the right of succeeding to the inheritance of a professed regular who, in the unhappy time preceding, was expelled from the Monastery by public force and stripped of the garment of his Order, and whom reasonable causes prevented from returning to his Monastery and reassuming the garment of his Order during the subsequent time of tranquility? — 3. To whom belongs the right of succeeding to an inheritance and legacy, and of disposing of the same acquisitions, especially if the disposition was for pious causes and in favor of the religious order? — Resp. To 1. Such an inheritance is to be judged according to the provisions of common ecclesiastical law, namely, that it belongs to the deceased’s own religious order. — To 2. If the religious of whom there is question did not enjoy an absolute Indult of perpetual secularization, as in the preceding response. But if he did enjoy it, a distinction must be made among the goods left by him: namely, goods which belonged to the religious order and which he himself brought with him on leaving the cloister, or which came to him in any manner, as also goods, if he had any, proceeding from them, remain with that religious order. But concerning the other goods acquired by such a religious outside the cloister otherwise than from goods belonging to the religious order, judgment is to be made according to the Constitution Officii nostri of Gregory XIII. — To 3. If the said religious has legitimately used an Apostolic Indult of disposing of goods, as in the case, namely, by making an altogether legitimate disposition of the same goods, the right in question belongs to the one in whose favor the disposition was made.” Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, 26 June 1829. Cf. nos. 1037, 1047.

“1. Whether pensions which are paid from the public treasury to regulars living outside the cloister are to be regarded as ecclesiastical pensions, so that by their nature they are subject to spoil? And insofar as the answer is negative: — 2. To whom, after their death, belongs the right of receiving the unpaid installments of the said pensions, if the professed regulars have obtained an Apostolic Indult to remain outside the cloister either for a time or perpetually? — 3. To whom does the same right belong if regulars of this kind have obtained an Indult of making a testament and disposing? — 4. To whom does the aforesaid right belong if there is question of regulars who emitted only simple vows? — Resp. To 1. In the negative. — To 2. If the Indult was temporary, they belong to the deceased’s own religious order; if perpetual, to the Sacred Congregation of Spoils, according to the Constitution Officii nostri of Gregory XIII. — To 3. The right in question belongs to the one in whose favor the disposition was made, if the regular legitimately used the Apostolic Indult of disposing of goods; insofar as he did not legitimately use the same Indult, the resolution given in the second response is to be observed. — To 4. They belong neither to the religious order nor to the Sacred Congregation of Spoils, but to his heirs, whether coming by intestacy or by testament.” Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, 6 June 1836.

“…In order to cut off all causes of doubt and controversy concerning this matter, by the counsel of Our Venerable Brethren, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church placed over the affairs and consultations of bishops and regulars, by Our Apostolic authority We decree and command the following. I. Cardinal Bishops are bound, with respect to sacred utensils, by the law enacted in the Constitution of Saint Pius V beginning Romani Pontificis, with the exception, however, of the suburbicarian Cardinal Bishops, and likewise with the exception of Cardinal Abbots Nullius who dwell in the Roman Curia, whose sacred utensils, regard being had for the cited Constitution Aequum est of Urban VIII, Our predecessor, will belong to the pontifical sacristy. II. The derogatory clauses of the Constitution of Saint Pius V beginning Romani Pontificis providentia, customarily appended in Letters in the form of a Brief beginning De benignitate Sedis Apostolicae, remaining in force, in the other Brief beginning Cum fel. rec. Urbanus VIII let the clause by which the same Constitution of Pius is declared saved be removed, and let the following be substituted in its place: If you shall have presided over abbatial, cathedral, metropolitan, or patriarchal churches, or if by Apostolic concession and dispensation you shall have obtained any others in title, administration, or commendam, We vehemently exhort you, just as Benedict XIV, Our predecessor, already exhorted Cardinals in his Constitution beginning Inter arduas, that in disposing of the aforesaid things you keep those churches before your eyes and prefer them to the others. What We have prescribed in this article We extend to each Cardinal who, before the publication of these Letters, obtained the aforesaid faculty of making a testament and disposing, just as if it were expressed in the respective Indults. III. We declare that the sacred utensils which, by force of the Constitution of Saint Pius V beginning Romani Pontificis, are owed to cathedral churches are these: namely, miters, chasubles, copes, tunicles, dalmatics, sandals, gloves, albs with cinctures, linen amices, and similar things; likewise missals, graduals, books of plainchant and music, pontificals, and the other book entitled Canon of the Mass; likewise chalices, patens, pyxes, monstrances, thuribles, a vessel for holy water with an aspergillum, a basin with a ewer, vessels for the sacred oils, and cruets together with basins and a bell, hand candlesticks, pax-bredes, archiepiscopal crosses, candlesticks with a cross for the use of the altar, a pastoral staff, a faldstool, and other sacred things, whether vestments, ornaments, or vessels, even if any of them by their nature are suitable for profane use, provided that they have been destined not accidentally but permanently for divine worship and sacred functions; with the exception of rings and pectoral crosses, even with sacred relics, and all utensils of any kind which are legitimately proved to have been acquired by the deceased Bishops with goods not belonging to the church and which are not established to have been donated to the church. Therefore We will that Bishops are bound and ought to draw up in authentic form an inventory of sacred utensils, in which they shall state, according to the truth of the matter, when they were acquired, and by a special notation describe those which they acquired for themselves from the revenues and proceeds of the church, lest otherwise all those things have to be presumed to have been acquired from the revenues of the church. But as regards the sacred utensils of Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church which belong to the sacristy of the chapel of the Supreme Pontiff, We will that no account be taken of the quality and nature of the revenues with which they were acquired; and besides those which are specifically enumerated in the Constitution of Urban VIII beginning Aequum est, We will that the following, expressed only by general words, be understood: sandals, gloves, linen amices, albs with cinctures, likewise pyxes, monstrances, vessels for holy water with an aspergillum, vessels for the sacred oils, and cruets with basins and a bell, finally a pastoral staff, a faldstool, hand candlesticks, pax-bredes, a thurible, and similar things, with the exception of rings and pectoral crosses, even with sacred relics. IV. When a Bishop has successively governed two or more churches, We will that the sacred utensils be divided proportionally among the cathedral churches, account being taken of revenues and time, according to the Constitution of Saint Pius V beginning Romani Pontificis. V. But where any Bishop has simultaneously presided over two or more united churches, or churches granted in perpetual administration, which have their own proper and distinct chapter and cathedral church, We declare that the sacred utensils are to be divided in equal shares among each of the cathedral churches, insofar as the revenues of those same churches united or granted in perpetual administration are not divided but perpetually constitute one episcopal mensa; but if the revenues have been divided and separated, We will that the division be made among the individual cathedral churches proportionally according to revenues. VI. But if it is established that a Bishop who through translation successively presided over two churches acquired for himself all the sacred utensils from the revenues of only one church, there will be no place for division, but the same sacred utensils will belong only to the cathedral church of that diocese from the proceeds of whose episcopal mensa they were acquired.” Pius IX, Brief Cum illud, 1 June 1847.

“By command of Our Most Holy Lord Leo XIII, We wish it to be earnestly commended to the Most Reverend Bishops that they take care that the particles of the most holy wood which, enclosed in cases, they carry suspended before their breast be transmitted to their Successors, so that after their death, by the zeal and labor of the cathedral chapter or of him who, while the see is vacant, has discharged the functions of the Bishop, they may come to these Successors by the legitimate right of inheritance. In this manner new Bishops will have no necessity of seeking others elsewhere, not without difficulty, but all will have them ready at hand as things assigned and destined to themselves and to their office, to be transmitted in due time to the others who shall follow.

“This is to be understood only of the relics of the Cross. For concerning the cases skillfully fashioned from precious metal in the form of a cross, they shall determine what seems more opportune; after the particles of the most holy wood have been removed, these may freely be given or bequeathed to whomever they please, and even be divided and sold by private heirs, every appearance of unseemly or profane commerce being removed. For they are estimable by price.” Letter of the Cardinal Vicar, 25 March 1889; A. S. S., vol. 21, p. 696 ff.

“Peter, recently deceased, in a testament concerning profane causes left a legacy of one thousand florins in favor of a pious cause. That testament, as lacking a certain extrinsic solemnity required by civil law, is altogether null. The testament having been rescinded, John, who entered upon the inheritance as heir by intestacy, altogether refuses to furnish the pious legacy of one thousand florins, appealing to the opinion of His Eminence D’Annibale: ‘So long as the Holy See has not spoken, I think that those outside the Pontifical territory who do not fulfill legacies for pious causes in a testament invalid under civil law ought not to be disturbed.’ Can and ought I bind John, under denial of absolution, to discharge this pious legacy? — Resp. The Sacred Penitentiary, after maturely considering the matters set forth, responds: The practice of this Sacred Tribunal in similar cases is that pious legacies are generally regarded as valid and obligatory in the forum of conscience; nevertheless, heirs are readily admitted to a composition with the Church or the pious cause to which the legacy was made.” 10 January 1901. Cf. no. 1030.

“43. An annual legacy left for a soul does not last more than ten years.” Proposition condemned by Alexander VII, 18 March 1666.

“That is the proper interpretation of usury, namely, when from the use of a thing which does not produce, without any labor, expense, or risk, gain and profit are sought….” Leo X at the Fifth Ecumenical Lateran Council, Bull Inter multiplices, issued in Session 5 on 4 May 1515.

“If anyone should fall into that error so as to presume pertinaciously to affirm that to practice usury is not a sin, We decree that he is to be punished as a heretic.” Clementine, sole chapter, On Usury, § 2.

“Moreover, We condemn that detestable and disgraceful insatiable rapacity of moneylenders, repudiated by divine and human laws through Scripture in the Old and New Testaments, and We sequester them from every ecclesiastical consolation, commanding that no Archbishop, no Bishop, no Abbot of any Order, or anyone in an order or among the clergy presume to receive usurers except with the greatest caution; but throughout their whole life let them be regarded as infamous, and unless they repent, let them be deprived of Christian burial.” Second Lateran Council, 1139, canon 13.

Cf. Leo IX at the Synod of Reims; Third Lateran Council, canon 25; Gregory X at the Second General Council of Lyons, in the Liber Sextus, book 5, title 5, chapters 1 and 2. Many appear to have regarded this sanction of the Council as only a positive prohibition. Hence Alexander III, chapter Super eo 4, On Usury, declares that no dispensation can be made for receiving money at usury, not even so that the poor who are held in Saracen captivity might be freed by that money, just as Sacred Scripture prohibits lying to save the life of another. In the same title, chapter Cum tu 5 rejects the exception of certain persons that only those usuries received after the Decree of the Second Lateran Council are to be restored. Finally, chapter Tua nos 9 of the same title establishes that the heirs themselves, whether sons or strangers, are bound to restitution. By many Decrees in the same title Innocent III also urges the observance of these Decretals.

“Your devotion consulted Us whether, in the judgment of souls, he ought to be judged as a usurer who, being unwilling otherwise to give a loan, lends money with this purpose: that, although every agreement ceases, he nevertheless receive more than the principal; and whether he is involved in the same guilt of crime who, as it is commonly said, does not otherwise grant the pledge of an oath until, although without exaction, he receives some emolument therefrom; and whether a merchant ought to be condemned to a similar penalty who sells his merchandise for a much greater price if a longer delay is extended for making payment than if the price is paid to him immediately. But because what is to be held in these cases is clearly known from the Gospel of Luke, in which it is said, Lend, hoping for nothing thereby, men of this kind, on account of the intention of gain which they have, since every usury and excess is prohibited in the law, are to be judged as acting wickedly and are efficaciously to be induced in the judgment of souls to restore the things thus received.” Chapter Consuluit 10, On Usury.

“One lending a certain quantity of money to a man sailing or going to a fair, because he has taken the risk upon himself and is to receive something beyond the principal, is to be judged a usurer. He also who gives ten solidi so that at another time the same number of measures of grain, wine, or oil may be returned to him—concerning which, although they may then be worth more, it is reasonably doubtful whether at the time of payment they will be worth more or less—is not for this reason to be reputed a usurer. By reason of this doubt he also is excused who sells cloth, grain, wine, oil, and other merchandise so that at a fixed term he may receive more for them than they are then worth, provided, however, that he was not going to sell them at the time of the contract.” Chapter Naviganti 19, On Usury. — He has taken the risk upon himself: “It is condemned that, since a loan ought to be made gratuitously, to lend only by binding the borrower to a contract of insurance or partnership is usury…. By force of the loan he cannot compel another who perhaps did not need insurance. For perhaps no danger threatened there, but it was feigned.” Soto, On Justice and Right, book 1, question 4, article 2.

“41. Since money counted out is more valuable than money to be counted out, and there is no one who does not value present money more than future money, a creditor can exact something beyond the principal from the borrower and by this title be excused from usury. — 42. It is not usury when something beyond the principal is exacted as due from benevolence and gratitude, but only if it is exacted as due from justice.” Propositions condemned by Innocent XI.

“Is usury contrary to every law, even natural law? — Resp. In the affirmative.” Holy Office, 9 May 1821; C. 2130.

“42. It is lawful for one who lends to exact something beyond the principal if he binds himself not to seek the return of the principal until a certain time.” Proposition condemned by Alexander VII.

“The Mounts of Piety instituted by commonwealths and thus far approved and confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic See, in which, for their expenses and indemnity, something moderate is received beyond the principal solely for the expenses of the ministers and of other things pertaining to their preservation, only for their indemnity and without profit to the same Mounts, neither present the appearance of evil nor furnish an incentive to sin, nor are they in any manner to be disapproved; rather, a loan of this kind is meritorious and ought to be praised and approved, and is by no means to be regarded as usurious.” Leo X, Constitution Inter multiplices, 4 May 1515.

“Whether the increase which has long been received is to be permitted so that it may be expended upon the said pious uses; or whether it ought rather to be reduced to what is sufficient for the expenses and preservation of the same Mount? — Resp. In the negative to the first part, in the affirmative to the second, and according to the mind.” The mind of the Sacred Congregation was as follows: “That the principle of not exacting an increase upon the loan given should remain firm, except for that which is necessary for the expenses and preservation of the Mount; that the Bishop, a calculation having been made, should determine the proportionate portion to be paid beyond the principal on this title. But as to that which beyond this portion was received according to a custom long introduced, to be expended for pious uses and especially for the maintenance of the church of a very poor village and for relieving the hunger of the poor, insofar as could be done in the dearness of grain, the Bishop could permit the same custom to be observed, yet in such a manner that a book should be established in which the proportionate portions would be noted under distinct headings: those which belonged to the Mount, and those which belonged to other uses, so that it could be known what sum is given under a title of justice and what is received as a gratuitous and pious offering. The Bishop shall take care that the people are informed of this matter by a prudent explanation, whether through the parish priest or in another manner, according as the Bishop himself shall judge prudently.” Sacred Congregation of the Council, 20 December 1838; A. S. S., vol. 4, p. 27 ff.

“It very frequently happens that questions concerning profit from a loan are referred to the Apostolic See, for which provision in similar cases has been made by a resolution given by the Roman Congregations. Therefore, in order that the superiors of the missions may have at hand the necessary knowledge of the things thus far decreed concerning this matter, it seemed opportune to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Christian Name to publish all the aforementioned resolutions together with the Constitution Vix pervenit of Pope Benedict XIV; and it pleased the same Sacred Congregation that they be sent to all Bishops, Vicars, and Prefects Apostolic dependent upon it.

Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, 13 January 1780, to the Most Reverend Lord Vicar Apostolic N. N. — “Since equality is required in contracts in order that they be just, nothing is to be received in a loan by force of the loan, as has often been defined, beyond the principal sum. But if it should happen that profit ceases for the lender, or loss emerges, or danger of losing the principal threatens, or unusual labors must be undertaken for its recovery, compensation for these things can indeed be sought, with two conditions, however, always kept before one’s eyes: the first, that some new title from among these actually concurs; the second, that nothing more be exacted than it truly demands. Therefore, all contracts in which either an interest is feigned which is to be compensated, or more is sought than an adequate compensation requires, depart from the rule of justice and are subject to restitution. It is therefore evident that those act imprudently and unlawfully, and commit themselves to the manifest danger of injustice, who, because the danger which We have indicated commonly occurs in such a place, always demand profit, and always the same profit, as though danger always intervened and, when it was present, always demanded the same remuneration. Nor are they excused because they receive a lesser usury than that which is permitted by the law of the kingdom; for a thing is not therefore right because it departs less from justice unless it is altogether conformed to the form of right, and human actions are to be weighed not by human law but by divine law and natural law, which holds fast to equity. Only those conduct themselves rightly who, attending to individual cases, seek compensation only when danger truly intervenes, and then seek no other compensation than that which corresponds to the gravity of the danger, which is therefore to be estimated by the judgment of upright and prudent men.”

1102. 1. By this precept there is prohibited any taking away or possession of another's thing, which in the broad sense is called theft. But if we speak more strictly, there is distinguished: theft, by which something private is taken from a private person; peculation, by which something public is taken; plagium, by which a free man is carried off into servitude; sacrilege, by which a sacred thing is seized.

(A) How grave these sins are appears: (a) from their nature, by which they are contrary to justice and sometimes to religion; and from their consequences, which are hatred, enmities, and condemnations of innocent men.

(B) Guilty of theft are: (a) those who occupy the things of others; (b) those who employ frauds in the quality of merchandise, in weight and measure; (c) those who do not furnish owed work or who plunder the resources of masters; (d) those who extort money by deceitful begging; (e) those who do not fulfill an office undertaken; (f) nor are sons of families and wives alien from the same fault, when they steal money from fathers and husbands. All these injustices are committed secretly and furtively; whence they are called thefts in the stricter sense.

(C) But guilty of rapine, which is the taking of another's thing openly and sometimes by force and violence, are: (a) those who do not pay wages to workers; (b) those who practice usury; (c) those who have judgments for sale; (d) those who, after taking a period of time for paying, buy goods on their own or another's credit and do not free the pledge; (e) those who exact debts owed to themselves too harshly; (f) those who withhold grain in time of necessity.

(D) Bound to restitution are not only those who have committed theft, but also all those cooperating in theft, such as those commanding, advising, consenting, participating in the thing taken, not prohibiting, not disclosing, and receiving. Nor do these excuse: care of preserving status and of having the convenience of life, the abundance of those from whom a thing is taken, the custom or occasion of stealing, the desire of taking revenge, the necessity of paying debts.

2. They observe the seventh precept more abundantly who exercise various works of mercy, devote themselves to labor, and cultivate frugality and thrift, so that they may do good to others.

Concerning this we treat in the Treatise on Justice, 431-610, 613-938.

1104. By these precepts we are admonished that the law of God is of such a kind that it must be observed not only in external acts, but also in the intimate sense of the soul.

1. Here there is prohibited, not the very power of desiring, which may be used both for good and for evil, but only that lust of desiring which the Apostle calls the concupiscence of the flesh.¹⁶ Now this cupidity is condemned either because it seeks evil, as adulteries, or because the things sought are another's, such as house, field, wife, ox, ass, and many other things, which, by the very fact that they are another's, the divine law forbids one to covet.

¹⁶ Gal. 5:16, 24.

Above others, however, those labor under this vice of cupidity: (a) those who delight in dishonorable games, or who abuse games immoderately; (b) merchants who desire a shortage of goods and high prices of grain, and who take it ill that others besides themselves sell or buy, so that they themselves may sell more dearly or buy more cheaply; (c) those who desire others to be in need so that they themselves may gain by selling or buying; (d) physicians who desire diseases; (e) legal consultants who covet the force and abundance of causes and lawsuits, etc.

2. The affirmative part of the precept, especially of the tenth, consists in this, that if riches abound, we not set the heart on them, and be prepared to cast them away through zeal for piety and divine things, and gladly spend money in relieving the miseries of the poor; if means are lacking, that we bear poverty with an equal and cheerful soul. By this law likewise it is prescribed that with ardent zeal and the highest desire we choose that to be done, not which we covet, but which God wills, as is explained in the Lord's Prayer.

Concerning internal sins and desires we have treated above, n. 499-506.

These are, summarily set forth, the holy precepts of God, of which a richer explanation can be found both in the course of our moral Synopsis and in the reading and meditation of the third part of the Roman Catechism. Moreover, the Roman Catechism teaches us both the manner of proposing doctrine persuasively and clearly, and the considerations by which souls may be moved to observing the law of God, whether considered in general or in the individual precepts.

S. Th. II-II, q. 122; I-II, q. 100, a. 3-7.

896. All the precepts of the decalogue are precepts of justice. - The precepts of the decalogue are the first determined principles of law, to which natural reason at once assents with slight consideration, as to most manifest principles. But the account of debt, which is required for a precept, appears most manifestly in justice, which is toward another: for "in those things which are toward oneself, at first sight it seems that man is master of himself, and that it is licit for him to do anything whatever; but in those things which are toward another, it manifestly appears that man is obligated to another to render him what he owes." Therefore the precepts of the decalogue must pertain to justice (a. 1).

Hence the first three precepts are concerning acts of religion, which is the chief potential part of justice; the fourth is concerning acts of piety, which is second among these; the other six are concerning acts of justice commonly and strictly so called, which is among equals.

897. The ten precepts of the decalogue are fittingly ordered. - This, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas, Billuart proves nearly thus, de virt. iust. adn., diss. 3, a. 11:

The precepts of the decalogue were established for forming man to virtue: for it pertains to law to make men good and virtuous; therefore the precepts of the decalogue had to be ordered according to the order of generation, by which, namely, man becomes good and virtuous. Moreover, in the order of generation two things must be considered:

A. First, that the first part be constituted, as in the generation of man the heart, in a house the foundation: thus in the moral good or goodness of the soul there is goodness of the will, from which someone uses well any other goodness; but the goodness of the will is considered according to its object, which is the end. And therefore in him who was to be instructed to virtue by law, first there had to be made, as it were, a certain foundation of religion, by which man is duly ordered unto God, who is the last end of the human will. I am the Lord thy God (Ex. XX, 2). But because in the order of generation, before the first part is constituted, contraries and impediments must be removed - for the farmer first cleanses the field before he scatters the seed - therefore before all things man had to be instructed in religion in such a way that he would exclude the impediments of true religion. Now then:

I. The chief impediment of true religion is that man adhere to a false god or worship the true God unduly, which constitutes superstition. And for excluding this the first precept is set down: Thou shalt not have strange gods; thou shalt not make for thyself a graven thing, etc.

II. After the first impediment has been excluded, which is opposed to true religion by excess and pertains to superstition, which prevents the true God from being received for worship, another is fittingly removed, which is opposed to religion by defect, and is irreligiosity, which prevents God, after He has been received, from being honored: for it is prior to receive God for worship than to honor Him once received. Therefore, after the precept by which superstition is prohibited has been set down, the second is fittingly set down, by which perjury, or every inordinate and irreverent assumption of the divine name, is prohibited: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

III. The impediments of true religion having been removed through the first and second precepts, it followed that the third precept be set down, by which men would be founded in true religion. But to religion it pertains to exhibit the worship of God; hence the third precept is fittingly set down concerning the sanctification of the Sabbath: Remember that thou sanctify the Sabbath day (that is, of religious rest).

B. But the precepts of the decalogue are ordered not only to love of God but also to love of neighbor, as to an end; but among neighbors we are most obliged to parents, therefore:

IV. Immediately after the precepts ordering us to God, there is set down the fourth precept of piety, ordering us to parents, who are the particular principle of our being, as God is the universal principle: Honor thy father and thy mother; by the name of father and mother understanding also any superiors whatever.

C. Finally, just as by the aforesaid potential parts of justice, namely, religion and piety, a debt is rendered to certain determinate persons, to whom man is obligated from some special account, so by justice itself properly so called someone renders a debt indiscriminately to all. And therefore after the first three precepts pertaining to religion, and after the fourth, which is of piety, by which a special debt is rendered to parents, it was necessary that there be set down consequently some precepts pertaining to justice properly so called, which renders a debt indifferently to all. And for this the last six precepts are set down, by which we are prohibited from inflicting harm upon the neighbor, namely:

V. In his person, which the fifth precept prohibits: Thou shalt not kill, where under homicide, as under the more principal thing, all personal harms are understood.

VI. In the person most conjoined to him through lust, which the sixth precept forbids: Thou shalt not commit adultery.

VII. In exterior bodily things, which the seventh precept prohibits: Thou shalt not steal.

VIII. In external incorporeal things, namely, reputation and honor, which the eighth precept prohibits: Thou shalt not speak false testimony against thy neighbor.

IX. In the very will of committing adultery, which the ninth precept prohibits: Thou shalt not desire thy neighbor's wife.

X. Finally, in the will of stealing, which the tenth forbids: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, etc.

Indeed by the sixth and seventh precepts, by which adultery and theft are prohibited, without doubt their will is also implicitly prohibited, just as by the fifth and eighth the will of homicide and false testimony is prohibited. Nevertheless, lest someone think that by these precepts only the external works of adultery and theft are prohibited, and not their will, as many among the carnal Jews were, and even now are among rude Christians, God willed to prohibit both of these concupiscences by special and distinct precepts. But He especially prohibited the concupiscence of adultery and theft rather than of homicide and false testimony because adultery has the account of a pleasurable good, theft the account of a useful good, and therefore they more strongly and more frequently allure the soul; but homicide according to itself, as also false testimony, are rather horrible than desirable: for the life of man, as also truth, is naturally loved.

898. Remarks. - 1. The ten precepts of the law have not been distinguished by all in the same manner or order; but this has no bearing on doctrine. We have followed the division which has now become common in the Catholic Church.

2. To the precepts of the decalogue in the Old Law there were added many ceremonial determinations of divine worship, insofar as they are ordered to God, and determinations of justice to be observed among men, insofar as they are ordered to the neighbor. But in the New Law they are abolished; and, certain broad ceremonial precepts having been given concerning sacrifice and the sacraments, the rest which regard religion and divine worship are left to be determined by ecclesiastical law, and those things which regard the manner of preserving justice are rather left to civil law.

3. Many establish a special treatise on the precepts of the decalogue, and not a few divide moral theology according to the precepts. But following the truly scientific method of St. Thomas, who divides moral science according to the virtues, and thus sets it forth altogether completely, it is now useless to treat specially of the precepts, since those things which pertain to them have already been set forth in the present treatise on Justice, or are also going to receive the supplement of exposition from the treatise on Temperance.

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.

Julius, who applies himself to the study of moral theology, recently read in a certain newspaper an article which seems to defend the lawfulness of the action called “boycotting,” in order to prevent another from renting lands from which a previous tenant had been expelled by the landlord. For those who apply a “boycott” in the case do nothing violent; each indeed, as a result of a conspiracy, abstains from all association, except in a case of extreme necessity, with those who rent the lands, in which manner of acting nothing is discovered which is not conceded to physicians and others who do not associate with brethren who do not observe the rules of the profession. Hence it is asked:

1. What is a right, and how are rights divided?

2. What is the foundation of a right, or whence do human beings possess rights?

3. Is the saying true—It is lawful for several persons as a result of a conspiracy to do what is lawful for individuals?

4. What is to be said of the case?

1. What is a right and how are rights divided?

A right is a moral power of having, doing, or exacting something. Rights may be divided in a great many ways, but for the purposes of this case it will be sufficient to mention natural rights, such as the right to live and to hold property, rights due to positive law, such as the right of prescription, and rights arising out of contract.

2. What is the foundation of right, or whence do men get their rights?

The foundation of natural rights is man’s rational nature, which is ordered by God his Creator to eternal blessedness with God. The duty is imposed upon man by his Creator of working toward the attainment of the end for which he was created; he has consequently the right to fulfil his destiny unhindered by any one else. This is the ultimate foundation for all man’s natural rights. Positive law is the foundation of rights derived from that source; and voluntary agreement that of rights arising from contract.

3. Is the saying true: Whatever individuals are allowed to do may be done by many in conspiracy with one another?

In general it is, but sometimes it becomes unlawful because the very fact of numbers acting together in conspiracy causes hardship to others, or interferes with their rights. Thus individuals have a right to walk through a crowded thoroughfare, but it does not follow that a large number of people may form themselves into a compact body and march, so as to interfere with the traffic.

4. The case. Those who boycott another abstain from all intercourse with him and prevent others from having any intercourse with him with a view to compelling him to leave a place or occupation to which he has a legal right. Thus they violate his natural right of liberty to settle and employ himself as he chooses, provided that he does not violate just laws nor the rights of others. They also violate the right that he had acquired by contract with the owner of the property which he hired. Boycotting is also against charity on account of the hardship which it causes and the practical exclusion of the boycotted party from human society. It also interferes seriously with public order and peace. Doctors, lawyers, and others belonging to like voluntary associations have a right to make rules for their mutual protection, and any one who enters such profession may be required to conform to the established rules. If they will not do so, they may be professionally ostracized. Such ostracism, however, is only partial; it is applied for good reason to compel uniformity for the common good; it is very different from the ordinary boycott, which takes away rights, the enjoyment of which is necessary for human life.

Caius, a very poor old man, unexpectedly received by fortune a legacy of one hundred pounds sterling, but he resolved not to spend it for his own support, but rather to hand it over to his friend Julius so that after his death the latter would take care that Masses were celebrated for his soul. Afterward Caius entered a workhouse, alleging that he was destitute of the means of supporting himself, and there lived for a year at public expense.

After his death, Julius, in order to execute the trust, handed the money to a certain priest, who nevertheless doubted whether he could accept it all or not. Hence it is asked:

1. Did Caius in the case offend against commutative justice?

2. Was it lawful for Julius to execute the trust?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. Did Caius sin against commutative justice in the case?

No; he did wrong in giving the legacy to a trust with instructions to apply it to have Masses said for him after his death. He should have spent it on his own support during life. Still the transaction was valid, much as if he had spent the legacy on drink or other pleasures; the wasteful expenditure would have been valid. After he has disposed of the money, however wrongfully, he goes to the workhouse, and there his support is given him not conditionally but absolutely, for in truth now he has nothing to live upon.

2. Was Julius allowed to execute the trust?

Julius should not have undertaken the trust, for the effect of it was to throw on the rates one who might have supported himself easily for another year at least. Julius therefore was guilty of co-operating in a fraudulent transaction. We have no data for deciding whether Caius and Julius were in good faith, probably they were; but we are considering merely the objective aspects of the case. After the death of Caius, of course, Julius was under an obligation of handing over the money for Masses according to the instructions of Caius.

3. The case. The priest could receive the money according to the intentions of Caius, who had the power to make a valid transfer of it to him, and who did so. If Caius was in debt at his death, the debts should be paid out of the legacy, but there are no indications that this was the fact.

Titius, a missionary in England and not exempt from every suspicion of avarice, is in no way content with the sum of money which, according to a custom of the diocese approved by the bishop, is offered by the faithful in consideration of the administration of the sacraments and other functions. Indeed, unless at least the richer persons pay a sum twice as large as that assessed, he reproaches them most harshly, saying that they defraud him and the Church of God. Therefore he exacts from the richer persons two shillings instead of one for a baptism, and in a similar manner increases the other stole fees. During the time of spiritual exercises, however, he begins to doubt whether he has thereby contracted any guilt, and even a burden of restitution, or not, and therefore questions the Father who gives the exercises concerning his doubts. It is asked:

1. How are the goods of clerics divided, and what right regarding them belongs to clerics in England?

2. Can stole fees in England be exacted under the title of commutative justice?

3. Does anyone sin against commutative justice who exacts something beyond the diocesan assessment by reason of stole fees?

4. What is to be said of the case?