BENEFIT
476
BENEFIT
Council of Trent a simple benefice could lawfully
be conferred on a cleric as early as his seventh year,
but since that council the recipient of a simple bene-
fice must be in his fourteenth year, and for double
benefices the age of twenty-four years completed is
always required. A greater maturity is demanded
for certain offices, e. g. thirty years' completed for
the episcopate, and forty years foi the post of canon
penitentiary, (c) Character. — The appointee must
be of legitimate birth and of good reputation, and
free from censure and irregularity. (d) Relative
trorthiness. — In the case of a choice between several
candidates for a bishopric or for a parish, the col-
lator must appoint the most worthy, i. e. the one who
possesses in the highest degree the qualities necessary
for a successful discharge of the duties connected
with the benefice in question. The same rule applies
to prelacies with quasiepiscopal jurisdiction, to
the canon theologian and to the canon penitentiary.
As to other benefices authorities differ, the preferable
opinion maintaining that in all cases the most worthy
is to be chosen, (e) Science. — According to a law of
Trent (Sess. VII, c. xiii, De ref.) no one can be collated
to a benefice unless his fitness has been demonstrated
in an examination conducted by the ordinary. In
the case of parochial benefices, this examination
must take the form of a concursus. (See Concursus.)
For some appointments the possession of a degree
in theology or in canon law is demanded, as evidence
of requisite learning; a bishop must be a doctor or a
licentiate in canon law or in theology, or have the
public testimony of a university as to his fitness to
teach others; an archdeacon also must be a doctor
or a licentiate in canon law or in theology; and
similar qualifications are demanded for other offices.
The Holy See, is, at the present time, insisting that
the law concerning degrees be faithfully observed,
(f) Extraordinary requirements. — These may be im-
posed by the articles of foundation or by secular law.
Founders of benefices are given a great deal of
liberty in attaching conditions to the act of collation,
provided that these conditions be approved by
ecclesiastical authority. In consequence, it happens
at times that only members of a certain family or
citizens of some town or city are eligible, or even, in
some few instances, persons of noble birth. More
onerous, and not always acceptable to the church, is
the interference of civil authorities in the matter
of collation. In many places only a person declared
acceptable to the Government, or a citizen, or a native,
or one who swears fidelity to the Government at
the time of appointment, or who receives the royal
exequatur, can hope to be collated. In Portugal and
in Bavaria, the permission of the Government is
necessary for ordination, and without this permission,
which is given after an examination by secular au-
thorities, a cleric is incapacitated for benefices in
these two kingdoms. The Bavarian law also con-
tains the curious provision that no subject is to enter
the German College at Rome so long as it is con-
ducted by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, or by
any similar order, and that all who contravene this
ordinance are to be considered as persona; non gratce
to the Government and excluded from all benefices
and posts at its disposal.
Obligations. — .\11 beneficed clerics are bound to make a profession of faith within two months from the date of taking possession, to perform faithfully the duties pertaining to their charge, to recite the canonical hours, and if the benefice held be double, to reside in the place in which their benefice is lo- cated. Violation of the law of residence is punished by loss of revenues during the time of absence, and if persisted in, by privation.
Vacancy. — The tenure of the incumbent of a benefice is perpetual, in the sense that it can be terminated only by death or for causes specified in
the law. It is provided in the law that in the event
of certain acts vacancy shall occur ip.so facto; as when
the incumbent marries or attempts marriage, when
he takes solemn vows in a religious order, when he
violates the canon forbidding plurality, when he
fails to receive within the prescribed time the nec-
essary ordination, when he obtains episcopal conse-
cration, when he is guilty of any crime to which
penalty of deprivation is expressly attached. In
other cases deprivation follows a judicial process,
instituted in virtue of laws authorizing the bishop to
punish certain offences in this manner. Moreover
a cleric has the right to resign his benefice provided
the resignation be offered freely and for just reasons,
and be accepted by a competent superior, and he
may also, with certain conditions, exchange bene-
fices with another incumbent.
Revenues, — The holder of a benefice is not the owner of the foundation from which he derives his support; he occupies in reference to it the position of a tutor or guardian who must defend its interests. His chief duty is to maintain it as a perpetual means of support for ministers of religion. Its fruits or revenues, however, belong to him, but with the ob- ligation of devoting to pious causes, and especially to the relief of the poor, all that is not needed for his own support. Formerly, this superfluous revenue could not be disposed of by will, but a universal custom has long since authorized such testamentary disposal, provided it be made in favour of pious causes or of the poor. In fact, in most places on account of the difficulty of distinguishing a cleric's patrimonial property from his beneficiary revenue, the right is recognized to dispose freely by will of all property. (See Jus Spolii.)
Du.\RENE, De Sacris Ministeriis et Beneficiis (Paris, 1564); Rebuffi, Praxis Beneficiorum (Lyons, 1580); G.vrzias, De Beneficiis (Cologne, 1614); Corradu.s, De Praii Beneficiarid (Naples, 1656); LoTTERlus, De Re Beneficiarid (Lyons. 1659); Leurenius, Forum Benefidale (Cologne, 1674); Gohard, Traite des Benefices (Paris, 1765); Sgdanin, Tractatus Bene- ficiarius (Rome, 1751); Thomassinus, Vetus et Nova Disciptina circa Ecclesice Bcneficia et Beneficiarios (Venice, 1766). the classic historical work on Benefices; Gagliardi. Tractatus de Beneficiis (Naples, 1842); Zitelli, Apparatus Juris Eccl. (Rome, 1907); Gross, Das Recht an der Pfriinde (Graz, 18S7); Galante, II Beneficio Ecclesiastico (Milan, 1895); Vering. Lehrbuch des kath. prot. und oriental. Kirchenrechts, etc. (3d ed., Freiburg, 1893), 452 sqq.; Roth, Geschichte des Beneficialwesens (Eriangen, 1850): Stutz, Geschichte des Bene- ficia/wcsens bis Alexander III (Berlin, 1895); Taunton, The Laic of the Church (London, 1906).
John T. Creagh. Benefit of Clergy, the exemption from the juris- diction of the secular courts, which in England, in the Middle Ages, was accorded to clergymen. This exemption included all who had been tonsured and wore the ecclesiastical dress, and was shared in by monks and nuns. In Saxon days ecclesias- tical and civil cases were decided in shire and hun- dred courts where the bishop sat side by side with the ealdorman or sheriff. From the days of the Conqueror ecclesiastical courts were held distinct from the secular courts. Gratian (cap. xlvii, 11» pars Dec, Causa XI, ix 1) sums up the privilege of the clergy thus: "From the above it is to be understood that a clergyman is not to be brought before the public courts either in a civil or criminal case, tinless perhaps the bishop should not wish to decide the civil case, or unless he should, in a criminal case, degrade him". William forbade his judges and ministers and every layman to meddle with the laws regarding the bishop. These privi- leges of the clergy were substantially respected by the Norman kings, though their tendency to arbi- trariness caused them in special cases to seek to override them. They were at the root of the con- troversy between Henrj- II and St. Thomas Becket. Henry alleged that the old customs of the kingdom required that a criminous clerk should be accused in a lay court, whence he was to be transferred to
