X. CHALLENGES FACING THE GOVERNANCE OF TEMPORAL GOODS OF HOLY TRINITY PARISH IN
3.3 I T MUST HAVE CONSIDERABLE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE RELIGIOUS INSTITUTE
3.3 It must have considerable relationship with the religious institute.
The relation been mentioned here is talking about the day by day pastoral functions carried out by the pastor with the help of other parish assistants.
After all these, we have seen that, there are different ways and systems of handing over the pastoral care of a church to the religious. The first system is used in such situations, as in the case of the Holy Trinity church of Kecsemét, when the religious has a 100 percent and full right on the church, because it has right of ownership on it through acquisition. Under this system, both the religious house and the church are completely and legally joined together. The rules of this acquisition are mentioned above in the chapters above. The second system is when only the church is belonging to the monastery or the religious. We experience this situation when an already existing religious church is joined to a parish whose function is only to handle its pastoral functions. In other words, a religious’ church is joined to a juridical person (that is, the religious church and the parish), though without any complicated situations. Then, the third is more interesting, when a religious covers a church only on pastoral activities. The carrying out of the pastoral activities
127 mentioned here is totally different from such situations when a religious individual (pastor) is appointed by the bishop to care for a given church, as we discussed in the previous chapters. In that case, the pastor’s right is not full in terms of duration of his office. His office can never be made stable. Contrarily, covering-up in this case is backed up with a perpetual right. This normally occurs when such religious orders like the mendicant orders are given parishes who from the nature of their apostolate cannot have their own properties, whether as an individual or as an order.
They take care of all the religious activities but cannot take hold of the temporal goods of the church in quote. But knowing fully well the problems that usually go along with this kind of parish, we suggest that, they should be given a perpetual pronunciation.
Hence, if we should now talk about a religious parish church, we would see that it is merely the product of incorporation of a parish and a religious church. This would make a religious church to belong solely to the monastery and nourish from the qualities proper to the religious. In this case, the religious church does not form a unique or different entity neither juridical person, because it is also part of the juridical person, the monastery, thereby maintaining its own juridical personal statute also as parish. This is shown clearly, for example, on the latest certificate of juridical person of the Holy Trinity parish issued by the by dr. Balázs Bábel, the arch-bishop of Kalocsa-Kecskemét on the 23rd of March 2017 to prove the state of the parish. He said: “…hivatalosan igazolom, hogy a kecskeméti Római Katolikus (Szentháromság) plébánia (6000 Kecskemét, Jókai u. 1) szervezeti egység, amelynek képviselője Görbe László plébános.”242 By certifying that the Holy Trinity parish is an organizational body, or more precisely, juridical body, the archbishop recognizes the juridical quality of the parish aside the religious house to which it is united to. The religious parishes, whether owned by the clerical religious institutes or clerical society of apostolic life constitute juridical persons, they are “subjects capable of acquiring, retaining, administering, and alienating temporal goods according to the norm of law.”243 In other words, parishes of the religious are also temporal goods that possess juridical qualities. Sometimes it seems inconvenience to talk about the Church in terms of acquiring, administering
242 See the certificate releised by the archbishop for the juridical personality of the paris on the 23rd of March 2017 with the file number 291/2017.
243 See c. 1255.
128 and maybe alienating temporal goods. But we cannot deny the fact that The Church is not merely spiritual fellowship of the flock, but also the group of the followers of Christ made institutional. It therefore should incorporate those material things as well, which would enable a free flow of the preaching of the kingdom of God given to her as mission. Jesus Christ filled the poor with material goods: fishes and bread.
The Church also has a lot to do in enriching the poor, not only by the spiritual nourishment but by material goods as well. This can only be attained if She possesses enough temporal goods to serve the flock. The religious, been part of the Church also has a lot to play in this scene, because they also take care of the flock spiritually, socially, materially and otherwise.244 Sometimes the religious pastors, the religious institutes and apostolic societies at large may be regarded incompatible with this situation because of their vow of poverty. Even the current legislation bounds the mendicant orders from organizing collections unless the local bishop allows it.245 At the same time, this cannot apply to every situation of the religious; the religious also manage parishes and institutions which are public forums for the people of God. Besides, they also accept donations from their flock;
the faithful who receive the spiritual services from them consider it their obligation to help in maintaining them in their functions just as it was in the lives of the first Christians. As a result, some of these temporal goods serve to carry out effectively the pastoral care of the faithful, though some of them are from the appreciations of the faithful to the religious.
4 The Piarist “religious property” in Kecskemét
The property of religious, after joining a parish with a religious house is always understandable, straight and clearly specified. This is because, the properties of a parish are governed independent of those of the church and of course, those of the religious houses and monasteries. For example, “Unless the contrary is established, offerings given to superiors or administrators of any ecclesiastical juridical person, even a private one are presumed given to the juridical person itself.”246 So it is always specified clearly. Although
244 See VALESIO, D. P., La Vita Consacrata nella Chiesa, (Facolta’ di Dirrito Canonico San Pio X, Manuallia 4; edizione revista e ampliata a cura de Musca, V.) Venezia 2010.
245 See c. 1265, §1.
246 Canon 1267, §1.
129 problems may arise in this case as well, because parishes are completely joined with the religious monasteries or religious houses, and it sometimes makes benefices become confusing and questionable. Apart from this, every other situations follows the directives of the proper law of the diocese, and if the clerical society or religious is an exempt one, the universal law makes demarcations between the properties of these juridical bodies.
Another situation arises when the religious parish has foundation founded by the faithful to help the functioning of the parish. As a matter of fact, no foundation founded in the parish church by the faithful claims juridical qualities, because they do not make up a different entity from the life of the parish unless the religious institute is by nature clerical, which is originally exempted from the influence of the authority of the local ordinary.
Otherwise, the solution is easy to be found; they follow the directives proper to the diocese.
So, if the foundation is clerical and exempt, all about it belongs the higher superior or the Superior General of the institute. Consequently, it is required that the intention of the founders be known and written down at the beginning to avoid those problems that may arise in due course of time. In any case, all attentions should be drawn to use and apply the directives of the code of canon of the current legislation pertinent to this chapter. That is why the norms determining the particular law urges the administrators to render account to the faithful concerning the goods offered by the faithful to the Church.
To be precise, the Hoy Trinity parish church belongs to the Piarist religious Order. In his joining declaration, dr. József Pétery the bishop of Vác said: “…és maga a Szentháromság tiszteletére emelt templom is a Piarista Rend tulajdonában maradjon,…”247 This statement is straight and clear. Dr. Seregély István, the Arch-bishop of Eger made similar statement to László Gyüre about Sátoraljaújhely parish when he wrote him: “A Nagyboldogasszonyról nevezett templom a piarista rend tulajdona.”248 These declarations point that these churches are properties of Piarist religious Order and their states are not temporary, they are stable. If the property is religious, it is fashioned with privileges as already mentioned in the above chapters. This privilege gives them protection against every internal and external authorities which may act detrimentally to the state of the religious temporal goods. This protection is assured by can. 493 of 1917 code which says that: “minden szerzet, mégha egyházmegyei jogú is, cask a Szentszéktől törölhető el akinek
247 PIARISTA REND MAGYAR TARTOMÁNY KÖZPONTI LEVÉLTÁRA, Hivatalos levelezés, the incorporation declaration of the Bishop of Vác, written on the 24th of December 1949.
248 EGRI ÉRSEKI LEVÉLTÁR, Főegyházmegyei Hatóság levelezés, Északi rész, Eger 1993, 59/1993.
130 fenntartva, hogy ez esetben a javakról intézkedjék, de mindig a felajánlók szándéka szerint.”
On his document of joining the Holy Trinity parish with the religious house, the bishop warned on the 2nd point that the authority and temporal goods of the parish should be kept separate from those of the religious in a way that donations from the faithful and the previous offerings of the faithful belong to the parish, while every other offering which may come from the ecclesiastical services should belong to the religious house.249 Owing to this declaration, the provincial released such a sketch of arrangement to clarify the conditions between Piarist religious properties and parish properties as explained and translated on the table below:
“A rendház tábbra is átengedi használatra azokat a helységeket, amelyeket eddig is a plébánia használt”250
A religious house still allows the parish to use those areas it used till now
A jelenlegi adminisztrátor részére, (…) a plébánia hivatallal szemben levő raktár-szabát a rendhát átengedheti használatra naturally without prejudice to our norms…
A plébánia által eddig kezelt pénztárak: 1.
egyházközségi pénztár, 2. templom pénztár, 3. A Szt. Antal pénz
The cash registers under the control of the parish: 1. parish cash register, 2. church levéltára (1.1.b), Hivatalos levelezés, the incorporation declaration of the Bishop of Vác, written on the 24th of December 1949.
250 PIARISTA REND MAGYAR TARTOMÁNY KÖZPONTI LEVÉLTÁRA, Magyar rendfőnökség új levéltára (1.1.c), Harmadik Korszak, Vegyes ügyek, Kecskemét 1965, 1265/1958.
131 Mivel a templom és az összes fölszerelés a
piaista rend tulajdona, az ezek fönntartására és megjavítására szolgáló templompénztárt/ csengőaprópersely és az oltárperselyek jöveldelme/ ezentul a házfőnök kezeli, mint rector eccl.
Owing to the fact that the church and all equipment are properties of Piarist Order, all collection destined to their maintenance and renovation: the church cash register, coins collection, and the alter collections would from now be under the care of house superior as the rector eccl.
Ugyanigy a Szt. Antal pénztár is ezentul ne aplébánia, hanem a rector eccl. kezelje
The same applies to St. Anthony’s cash register; henceforth, not the parish, but the rector eccl. should take care of it
The above table strictly and specifically demarcated governance of benefices between the Holy Trinity parish, the Holy Trinity church and the religious house in Kecskemét.
Obviously, the religious properties were never mixed up with the parish ones, but sometime both properties could overlap to help each other. That is, sometimes religious properties were used by the parish to render services to the faith and vice vassal as shown by the above table.
132