Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/249

Rh name of the convent, any property immoveable or moveable, of what quality soever it may be, or in what way soever acquired; but the same shall be straightway delivered up to the superior, and be incorporated with the convent. Nor shall it henceforth be lawful for superiors to allow any real property to any regular, not even by way of having the interest or the use, the administration thereof, or in commendam. But the administration of the property of monasteries, or of convents, shall appertain to the officials thereof only, removable at the will of their superiors. The superiors shall permit the use of moveables in such manner as that the furniture of their [monasteries] shall be suitable to the state of poverty which they have professed; and there shall therein be nothing superfluous, but at the same time nothing which is necessary shall be refused them. But if any one should be discovered, or be proved, to possess anything in any other manner, he shall be deprived during two years of his active and passive voice, and also be punished according to the constitutions of his own rule and order.

CHAPTER III.

The holy synod permits unto all monasteries and houses, both of men and women, and of mendicants, even those who were forbidden by their constitutions to possess it, or who had not received permission to that effect by apostolic Privilege, to possess real property: with the exception, however, of the houses of the brethren of St. Francis [called] Capuchins, and those called Minor Observants, And if any of the aforesaid places, to which it has been granted by apostolic authority to possess such property, have been stripped thereof, it ordains that the same shall be wholly restored unto them. But, in the aforesaid monasteries and houses, as well of men as of women, whether they possess, or do not possess, real property, such a number [of inmates] only shall be fixed upon and retained for the future, as can be conveniently supported either out of the proper