Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/167

 from other sources; and any resignation made otherwise shall be null. But those who have a patrimony, or a pension, shall not hereafter be ordained, except such as the bishop shall judge fit to be received, in consideration of the necessity or the convenience of his churches; after having also first carefully looked to this, that they really possess that patrimony, or pension, and that they are such as to suffice them for sustenance. And they may not in any case be alienated, extinguished, or remitted, without the permission of the bishop, until they shall have obtained a sufficient ecclesiastical benefice, or they shall have from some other source whence they may live: renewing hereupon the penalties of the ancient canons.

A Method of increasing the Daily Distributions is prescribed; the Persons to whom they shall be due: the Contumacy of those who do not serve is punished.

Whereas benefices were established in order to the performance of divine worship, and the offices of the Church; lest the divine worship may in any respect be diminished, and that due attention may be paid thereunto in all things; the holy synod ordains, that in churches, as well cathedral as collegiate, in which there are no daily distributions, or so slight, that they are probably disregarded, a third part of the fruits and of all proceeds soever, and comings in, as well of dignities, as of canonries, personates, portions, and offices, shall be set apart and converted to the purpose of daily distributions, in order to be divided amongst those who possess dignities and the others who are present at divine service, according to a proportionate division to be settled by the bishop, even as the delegate of the Apostolic See, at the time of the very first deduction made from the fruits; saving, however, the customs of those churches wherein those who do not reside, or who do not serve, receive nothing, or less than a third part: all exemptions, and any other customs, even though immemorial, and all appeals soever notwithstanding. And if the contumacy of those who do not serve increase, they may lawfully be proceeded against according to the provision of the law, and of the sacred canons.