The Principles Guiding the Care of Church Property

Abstract

THE PRINCIPLES GUIDING THE CARE OF CHURCH PROPERTY John A. Renken* Introduction The Church has its origin in God; it is not a human creation.1 Therefore , it has an “innate right” to own temporal goods in order to achieve its principal purposes, which are primarily: “to order divine worship, to care for the decent support of ministers, and to exercise works of the sacred apostolate and of charity, especially toward the needy” (c. 1254). At the same time, the Church has an “innate right” to require from the Christian faithful “those things which are necessary for the purposes proper to it” (c. 1260). The Church exercises this innate right “independently from civil power” (c. 1254 § 1), and claims the right “to acquire temporal goods by every just means of natural or positive law permitted to others” (c. 1259). From any consideration of the canons concerning the care of ecclesiastical goods,2 especially in Book V but also elsewhere in the code, a number of “guiding principles” become evident. These govern the appliThe Jurist 68 (2008) 136–177 136 * Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 1 For this reason, the Catholic Church is called a “moral person” (c.113 § 1). It is not a “juridic person,” i.e., an artificial person created by competent ecclesiastical authority either a iure or by special decree (c. 114 § 1). Canon 113 § 1 says theApostolic See is also a “moral person;” here, the term “Apostolic See” is a reference to the Petrine office. Seemingly , the college of bishops is also a “moral person.” See Robert T. Kennedy, “Juridic Persons ,” in New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, Commissioned by the Canon Law Society ofAmerica, ed. John P. Beal, JamesA. Coriden, and Thomas J. Green (NewYork: Paulist Press, 2000) 154–156. 2 “Ecclesiastical goods” is a technical legal term, described in canon 1257 § 1 as referring to the temporal goods owned by the Catholic Church, the Apostolic See, and public juridic persons created by the Church to function “in the name of the Church . . . in view of the public good” (c.116 § 1). Ecclesiastical goods are governed by the canons of Book V and by their own statutes. The temporal goods of private juridic persons, which are established by a special decree of competent ecclesiastical authority expressly granting juridic personality (c. 116§ 2), are governed by their own statutes but not by the canons of BookV “unless other provision is expressly made” in the code (c. 1257 § 2). cation of the law of the Church3 governing the acquisition, retention,4 administration , and alienation of ecclesiastical goods (see c. 1254 § 1). This article identifies ten of these guiding principles. Since these principles permeate the code’s legislation on ownership of church property, it is reasonable to expect that they will also guide the application of universal legislation, and the establishment of any other legislation on ecclesiastical goods by more local authorities. It is also reasonable to expect that they will guide the spirit with which all ecclesiastical goods are considered by all the Christian faithful, according to the proper condition of each (see cc. 204 § 2, 210). Principle I: Communio The most basic principle influencing all church law is that the Church is a communio. Indeed, communio can be considered the source and summit of church law: ecclesiastical law finds its origin in the Church which is a communio, and ecclesiastical law exists to build up that same communio . When he promulgated the 1983 Code of Canon Law, Pope John Paul II said that the law should show the Church “as a communio” so as to reveal the relations which exist between the particular churches and the universal Church, and between collegiality and primacy.5 Two years later, the participants of the 1985 extraordinary Synod of Bishops said that “[t]he ecclesiology of communio is the central and fundamental idea of the [Second Vatican Council’s] documents.”6 The conciliar docuthe principles guiding the care of church property 137 3 In Book V, “Church” is also a technical legal term, described in canon 1258 as referring to the Catholic Church, theApostolic See, and public juridic persons in the Church “unless it is otherwise apparent from...

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