TOPIC IV Module 1

topic for acquisition of temporal goods.

Welcome everyone to this fourth topic of our class, acquisition

of temporal goods.

Let's go ahead and begin with our prayer in the

name of the father and of the son and of

the Holy Spirit.

Amen Grant.

Oh! Merciful God that I may ardently desire.

Prudently examine truthfully acknowledge and perfectly accomplish what is pleasing

to the for the praise and glory of thy name.

Amen in the name of the father and of the

son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Well, once again, welcome to this topic for acquisition

of temporal goods.

Just kind of a right at the beginning.

I want to just make a note that this topic

is actually the longest topic that we have of the

class. We have nine modules for these.

But that being said, don't worry, some of the modules

are very short uh and just a few minutes long.

Someone a little more involved.

But there is a lot of material In this uh

in this topic.

So let's dive right in.

Let's have a look at what we're going to cover

in in this topic.

In this topic.

four, we're looking at the acquisition of temporal goods.

How does the church acquire temporal goods?

And what ways do the church, what ways do juristic

persons acquire temporal goods?

And then we're going to examine the canonical laws that

regulate those types of acquisitions of temporal goods.

So we'll be examining various ways such as unsolicited unsolicited

contributions, donations, gifts and things like that.

We look at solicited contributions and those may include things

such as appeals.

Those include things such as taxation, the latin term being

tribute to him.

Uh and also we'll look at things such as prescribed

fees or offerings what's called tax.

Uh This is also why we leave some of these

terms in the latin because sometimes they translate or their

false cognitive ataxia is technically a prescribed fee, not a

taxation. Those two very different topics, but we'll get into

that. We'll also look at begging.

The reality is that in our tradition there is begging.

Uh and that's a way of acquiring temporal goods.

But we'll look at what we mean economically by begging

and what are the canonical norms that govern those?

Those we call steep?

Um coach, steve Prohm coach, so specific that specifically then

for this first module, this first module in this will

be looking at what is the church is right to

acquire temporal goods.

So, general notions about acquisitions of temporal goods.

What is the Church is right to require support from

the faithful?

A predominant way of acquiring temporal goods.

From the Church's perspective, is from the faithful part of

the church herself.

So what are the norms governing that?

How do we, how do we view that?

Is that legitimate?

Is it not legitimate?

When when is it legitimate?

When is it not legitimate?

So, let's dive right in in this this module, then,

let's look at the general principles on acquisition of temporal

goods, the cannon to go to for this one is

Canon 12 59.

It talks about the right to acquire temporal goods, but

before we dive into Canon 12 59 it's important to

remind ourselves of Canon 12 58.

Remember that in Canon 12 58 it refers to the

term church, and what do we mean by church, when

it comes to the acquisition of temporal goods or for

purposes of temporal goods, ken?

In 12 58 reads like this in the following cannons,

the term Church signifies not only the Universal Church or

the apostolic see, but also any public juristic person in

the Church, unless it is otherwise apparent from the context

or the nature of the matter.

So, recall in our previous topics and previous modules, we

looked at that before.

When we say Church here, we don't just mean the

apostolic See or the Universal Church.

And remember apostolic see also has a very specific definition

that we looked at already, but it also means any

other public juristic person in the church, including dioceses, including

parishes, including any entities that have been given that public

juristic Personality that we looked at in the previous topic.

So can in 1258 keep that firmly in mind whenever

we see the term church here, we mean that in

the broader sense, not just the leadership in the church,

not just Rome, not just the apostolic see, but any

other public juridical person.

Let's dive into the general notions.

Then The general notion is this coming from 10 and

1259, is that the church is allowed by our laws

to acquire temporal goods, quote through every just means available

available to, to, to us available to persons.

Every just means.

Now, what do we mean by every just means?

This is kind of a general declaration cannon, uh, kind

of a catch all canon that basically, is laying out

the principle that, yeah, the Church is okay, it's okay.

According to our economical laws for the Church, meaning any

one of those entities to acquire temporal goods.

That's not a bad thing.

That's not an illegitimate thing.

That's not an illegal thing.

So long as that's done in a just way.

And every just means.

So, whatever means is possible for the Church justly to

do that, uh, that means that we're allowed to do

that. Now again, this is not making a moral declaration

here, uh, in the sense that, remember, it's not just

legality that determines whether or not the Church can do

it. Uh, the Church can't acquire things if it's just

not just because it's legitimate.

Sometimes things that are merely legitimate, merely lawful, whether by

canonical or civil laws there.

Okay, legally, but they may not be just And that's

what this cannon is getting at.

I'm sorry.

Before I said, it wasn't, it is making a moral

statement here that the means by which we acquire goods

has to be just has to be moral given the

situation. So, what laws are we talking about, then?

We're talking about natural law.

So, obviously, the Church or any genetic persons can't acquire

temporal goods if it's in violation of natural law in

some way, and everything that falls under that the natural

law, the natural moral law, the other law that we

look at is positive law.

So this means either canonical law or civil law.

Remember that positive law is also part of our canonical

system. Not all canonical laws are expressions of divine natural

law or of dogma.

A lot of them are, but not all of our

canonical laws are expressions that there is some there are

some there are many, as a matter of fact, that

are just downright human laws and human laws that are

good and must be followed.

There's a big distinction and there's a big misconception, morally

speaking, ecclesiastic lee speaking economically speaking, that people think if

it's a man made law, then I don't need to

listen to it as long as it's God's law, I

follow God's law and not man's law.

And the answer is, well, that's not entirely true.

God gave legitimate authority to certain institutions evil.

Even secular civil institutions.

God gave certainly man made a corpsman authority, human authority

to leadership in the church and to the church.

And so the church can and does come out with

positive law.

In other words, man made laws that must be followed

for the good of the society under the authority that

has been given to her by jesus christ.

So in the civil round, for example, not everything is

as an enshrinement of natural or divine law, driving on

one side of the street or the other is a

man made law, but a really important man made law

that can and must be followed.

It's not immoral.

It doesn't contradict natural moral law.

It's for the just ordering of society in the United

States. We do it on the right side of the

street, in the UK and other places.

They do it on the left side of the street.

It would be wrong for me to go to the

UK and say, well, this is just a man made

law. I don't need to listen to it.

So I'm going to drive on whatever side of the

street I want to.

That's a violation, that's dangerous.

Uh and that's that's that's a violation of how laws

work. So in the same way here, when the Church

acquires temporal goods, she can do so by every just

means, so long as it's in line with natural law,

but also with the positive law, both canonical and civil

law. Many economical laws are positive canonical laws, meaning they

come from the discretionary authority of the Church.

How we acquire temporal goods outside of not being violative

of natural law, or positive law must also follow the

laws laid down by the Church.

Even positive law.

This has nothing to do necessarily with Divine law or

Natural law, but the Church says that you have to

raise money this way, then it's binding it's legitimate.

The intent here is also to assert the Church's equality

with similar secular entities with regards to the acquisition of

property. In other words, the right of the church to

acquire temporal goods in a secular society, remember when we

said declaration cannons are cannons that really declare.

But it declares for a purpose here.

It declares for the people in the church that acquisition

of temporal goods is legitimate and permitted, so long as

it's just in line with Natural law and positive law,

both civil and canonical.

But the declaration canon here is also for the world

at large, knowing and understanding that the Church functions under

all kinds of different civil secular systems.

The declaration is necessary so that the civil secular realm

can't come back at us and say, look, you're violating

your own laws, you're violating your principle.

You can't acquire temporal goods because you are a church,

you should be spiritual and not temporal.

This declaration is necessary for us against that mentality to

say that the Church allows under our own law.

The way we view it is that we have the

right to acquire temporal goods so long as it's just

through just means, not violative of the natural law, not

violative of positive law, both canonical and civil going on.

The second aspect of this is that the church has

the right to require support from the Christian faithful.

This is under Canon 1260.

Again, this is a declaration cannon, and it says that

the church can and does have the right to require

support from the christian faithful.

This is where it can get kind of hairy because

a lot of times people believe, people think that it's

all voluntary, that when we are members of the church

are giving is voluntary and this is a gentle reminder

that, well, yes, it does come from our volunteers are

will are free wills are goodness our charity of course,

But there is an aspect where the church is allowed

to require support from her own members.

And the interesting thing here is that it says the

christian faithful note that it doesn't just say from the

laity a lot of times there's a misunderstanding that when

we say christian faithful or the faithful, we mean just

the laity, the non ordained.

That's not the case.

You read back in Canon 204, for example, to a

five. We see that the Christian faithful includes also both

delay and the ordained members, so that the church has

a right to require that support not just from the

late members of the church, but also from the clerical

members of the church.

Uh, and this right is an innate right?

Again, the church is just making this declaration cannon declaring

that is not contrary to the nature of mission of

the church, since it's an innate right to require support

from the christian faithful a lot of times again, that

goes against that mentality that no, you're the church, you

can't make people give money to you, you can't make

people support you.

And the answer is that's not outside of the nature

of the church.

We are spiritual and we are also a visible physical

church. So we do have the innate right to require

support the following cannons.

And what we're going to be looking at in the

different modules is how we do that, but that we

have that right is an innate right?

Civil entities.

Then again, that's a declaration cannon to our own people.

But to everybody else, civil entities should not interfere with

this right of the Church to ask this of the

faithful. So the civil entities shouldn't get in the way

of us asking our own members for support.

Remember back in Canon 12 54 section one, that declaration

can And right at the beginning, Book five of the

Code of Canon Law, that are, temporal goods are right

to acquire.

Temporal goods are right to administer.

Temporal goods is independent from any civil power.

And that includes this aspect of requiring and asking support

from our own members.

The innate right, however, extends only insofar as quote, for

the purposes proper to it.

So that right to require support from the members of

the church can only be for and within the parameters

of fulfilling the purposes of the church.

The purposes for, you know, that that we listed before

about divine worship, decent support of clergy and other ministers,

exercising works of the apostle, and charities that all came

from 1254, section two.

And and and we looked at that a little bit

before. Within those parameters, we have that right.

The church does not have that innate right to require

support from the christian faithful when it comes to something

that is outside of that need, outside of one of

those mission things that are there.

So with that, what we're gonna do is we're gonna

go ahead and start to moving into module to where

we look at contributions.

TOPIC IV Module 1

Chapters

Audio TranscriptAuto-generated