benefice, he can support himself fitly for life out of his own fortune. By the title of pension, or stable provision, some one pledges himself to provide for the priest ordained, should he fall into indigence. These three titles do not avail in missionary countries, either because there are no ecclesiastical benefices in such regions, or that personal fortunes are rare, or that there are few willing to bind themselves to supply permanent support for a cleric. This is why the Congregation of Propaganda, in a celebrated instruction sent to countries dependent on it, permits bishops to ordain priests under "title of the mission". By this title, the acolyte before receiving the subdeaconship, promises under oath, that, once ordained, he will not enter any religious order or congregation, without permission of Propaganda, and that he will live in the diocese under the jurisdiction of the bishop, employing himself in the service of the mission. The clerk so ordained is a charge on the diocese for which he has been ordained, which assures him a respectable support if through infirmity or incapacity he chance to fall into poverty. It should be remarked here that a priest ordained under the title of the mission has a right to his support, even when, through his own fault, he has become unworthy of filling an ecclesiastical position. The Congregation of Propaganda in a response to the Bishop of Natchez, 4 February, 1873, shows clearly that the priest cannot be deprived of his means of support, unless, after repeated warnings, he refuses to amend, and falls into contumacy. Grave offences committed by him such as may even justify his deposition from office, will not warrant the bishop in refusing him means of support. He will, of course, have no right to the pension from the benefice from which he has been deposed, but should he wish to amend, the Church, like a compassionate mother, instead of turning him into the street will supply him with his daily bread, and will endeavour to bring him to a realization of his evil courses and consequent penance.
This obligation of providing for priests ordained under "title of the mission" creates a somewhat heavy burden for dioceses. In these countries, especially the United States and Canada, the bishops have been forced to devise some way of satisfying this demand of their pastoral charge. In virtue of a special power of the Congregation of Propaganda, they can grant to the priest or missionary who resigns his parish or mission, on account of infirmity, a pension drawn from the revenues of the parish or mission, to be paid by his successor in it. For a priest to have a claim to such pension, (1) he must have resigned because of infirmity; (2) he must have been ten years in the parish or mission; and (3) the pension must not exceed a third of the revenues of the parish or mission. Moreover, bishops have encouraged among the priests the foundation of "Clerical Funds", whose purpose is to afford pecuniary assistance during their life to members who become infirm and consequently incapable of fulfilling an ecclesiastical charge. Priests in good health belonging to the diocese enter into these societies, and the members contribute something every year to the "Clerical Fund". The society is administered by a bureau of which it is customary for the bishop to be the president, while the directors are priests chosen by members of the society. The amount disbursed to needy members depends on the contributions received and varies with different places. As fallen priests who have repented cannot be abandoned, the bishops provide for them either by founding houses of retreat in which they can do penance, or by sending them to monasteries, where, under the watchful care of holy religious they may, by reflecting on the sanctity of their state, cause the grace of ordination to revive.
Putzer, Commentatium in fac. apostol. (5th ed. 1898), num. 211; Conc. Baltimorense III, dec. De sacerdot. infirmis et lapsis; Gasparri, De Sacra Ordinatione (1893), I, n. 584 sqq.; Ferraris, Biblioth. Canon, s. v. Alimenta.
Alimony (Lat., alimonia, nutriment, from alere, to nourish), in the common legal sense of the word, is the allowance which by order of the court a husband pays to his wife for her maintenance while she is living separately from him, or the allowance or provision ordered by the court to be paid by her former husband to a divorced woman. There are two kinds of alimony, the one kind, alimony pendente lite, being an allowance to the wife pending a suit between herself and her husband, and the other the allowance or provision after suit, and which is known as permanent alimony. Exclusive jurisdiction of matrimonial causes was in England formerly vested in ecclesiastical courts. These courts, notwithstanding the English common law, by which the property of a wife became on marriage the property of her husband, assigned to a wife who was compelled to live apart from her husband a portion of his income for her maintenance or alimony. Regulating their action by the canon law, these courts confined themselves to two general classes of matrimonial cases: suits for separation (divorce a mensâ et toro), and suits to have a marriage declared void from the beginning. Alimony pendente lite might be allowed in a suit belonging to either class, but permanent alimony in a suit for separation only. For, being incidental to marriage, alimony was not allowed in a decree declaring a marriage to have been void from the beginning. Non-payment by the husband subjected him to excommunication, a judgment of the ecclesiastical court which the executive department of the civil government enforced through its officer, the sheriff, to whom was issued the writ de excommunicato capiendo, reciting that "potestas regia sacrosanctæ ecclesiæ in querelis suis deesse non debet" (Registrum omnium brevium, 65). And so it is said that under the appellation of estovers, collection of alimony was enforced through writ de estoveriis habendis. In 1857, jurisdiction in matrimonial cases was taken by statute from the ecclesiastical courts, and the court of divorce and matrimonial causes, with power to grant absolute divorce, was established. In none of the states of the United States have matrimonial cases been confided to ecclesiastical courts. The courts in the several states having jurisdiction to award alimony in matrimonial cases and the circumstances under which it may be awarded are to be ascertained from the constitution, the statutes, and the decisions of the courts of each state. By the ancient Roman law there was allowed on behalf of a pupil against an unfaithful tutor or curator a proceeding in which the pupil might obtain what has been termed alimony. In this proceeding it became the prætor's duty to fix the character and amount of the pupil's expenses, "decernere alimenta", "and if", remarks Cumin ("A Manual of Civil Law", 2d ed., London, 1865, 79), "the tutor appeared and falsely alleged that the pupil's means would not allow alimony to be decreed, he would be removed as suspectus and delivered to the Prœfectus urbis for punishment." The Civil Code of the State of Louisiana contains a very broad definition of alimony as a claim for support. The term has been used in English literature in the general sense of nourishment. Thus, Jeremy Taylor refers to the Sacraments being considered "spiritual alimony." See "A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles," by J. A. H. Murray, Oxford, New York, 1888, s. v. "Alimony."
