Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/532

 PROPERTY

466

PROPERTY

is no less an abundant source of moral dangers than is excessive wealth. It is the function of a wise Government bo to direct the laws and administration that a moderate well-being may be shared by as many as possible. The civil power cannot reach this end by taking away from the rich in order to give to the poor, for "this would be at bottom a denial of private property"; but by regulating the titles of income in strict accordance with the demands of public welfare. Thus far we have spoken of the necessity of private property and the right to acquire it. It remains only to discuss the title of acquisition by which one be- comes the proprietor of a certain concrete thing: a piece of land, a house, a tool etc. As explained above, the primitive title is occupation. The first who took possession of a piece of land became its proprietor. After a whole country has thus been turned into property, occupation loses its significance as conferring a title to real estate. But for movable goods it still remains important. It is sufficient to recall fishing and hunting on unclaimed ground, searching and digging for gold or diamonds in re- gions which have not yet passed over into private ownership. JMany regard labour as the primitive title of acquisition, that is, labour which is different from mere occupation. But in this they are wrong. If one works at an object, then the product belongs to him only when he is proprietor of the object, the material; if not, then the product belongs to another, though the workman has the right to demand his reward in money or other goods. Now the question again recurs: How did this other man obtain pos- session of these goods? Finally we shall arrive at a primitive title different from labour, and this is oc- cupation. Besides occupation there are other titles of acquisition, which are called subordinate or de- rived titles, as, for instance, accession, fructification, conveyance by various kinds of contracts, prescrip- tion, and especially the right of inheritance. By oc- cupation an ownerless thing passes into the possession of a person, by accession it is extended, by the other derivative titles it passes from one possessor to an- other. Though all the titles mentioned, with the exception of prescription, are valid by the law of nature, and hence cannot be abolished by human laws, still they are not precisely and universally applied by natural law. To define them in individual eases in accordance with the demands of the public weal and with due regard to all concrete circumstances is the task of legislation.

St. Thomas, Summa, II-II, Q. Ixvi.; Soto, Deju^titia el jure; DB Lugo, De justitia et jure. disp. 6; Meyer, Instittilioncs juris naturalis, II (1900), no. 129 sqq.; Schiffini. DispiituHonea philosophice moralis, II, no. 309 aqq.: Pescb, Lehrbuch der Na- tionalakonomie, 1 (1905), 179 sqq.; W \gnek, Lchr-u. Handbuck der polil. Oekonamie, I; Grundlegung, II; Abl. (1901), ISl sqq.; VERUEEnscH.QucEstionesdejuslitia (1901), 187 aqq.; Garriguet. Regime de la propriili (1907); Walter, Das Eigentum nach der Lehre des hi. Thomas von Aquin u. der Sozialismus (1895); ScHAUB, Die Eigentumslehre nach Thomas voii Aquin u. dem modernen .Sozialismus (1898); Castelein, Le Socialisme et le droit de propriHe; WiLLEMs, Philosophia moralis (1908), 295 aqq.; Stammler, Eigenlum u. Besitz in Handbuch der Staatsu>issen- achafien; Berolzheimer, System der Rechts u. Wirtschaftsphi- losophie.lV: Philosophie des Verm6gens (1907), 3S sqq.; Cath- EEIN, Moralphilosophie. II (5th ed.. 1911), 1. 2; Devas, Political Economy (London, 1901); Rickabt, Moral Philos- ophy (London, 1910) ; Kehbt, Private Property as it is in Catho- lic World, XCII (New York, 1911). 577; Idem, The Indictment of Private Property, ibid.. XCIII, 30; Ryan, Henry George and Private Property, ibid., XCIII, 289; Idem, The Ethical .irgu- ments of Henry George against Private Ownership of Land, ibid., XCIII, 483; Cain, Origin of Private Proper!'/, ibid.. XLVII, 545; Idem, Ownership of Private Property, ibid.. XLV. 433* Dillon, Rights and Duties of Property in our Lenal and Social Systems, XXIX (St. Louis, 189.5). 161; Bbyce, Studies in His- tory and Jurisprudence (London, 1901).

V. Cathrein.

Property Ecclesiastical. — Ahaimcl Right of Ownership. — That the Church has the right to acquire and possess temporal goods is a proposition which may now prob.ably be considered an established principle. But though almost self-evident and uni-

versally acted upon in practice, this truth has met with many contradictors. Scandalized by frequent examples of greed, or misled by an impossible ideal of a clergy entirely spiritualized and raised above human needs, Arnold of Brescia, th^ Waldenses, then somewhat later Marsilius of Padua, and finally the Wycliffites, formulated various 'Xtreme views re- garding the lack of temporal resources which befitted ministers of the Gospel. Under John XXII the doc- trine of Marsilius and his forerunners had provoked the two Decrees "Cum inter nonnullos" (13 Nov., 1323) and "Licet juxia doctrinam" (23 Oct., 1323) by which it was affirmed that our Lord and His Apostles held true ownership in the temporal things which they possessed, and that the goods of the Church were not rightfully at the disposition of the emperor (see Denzinger-Bannwart, nn. 494-5). Some- what less than a century later the errors of Wyclif and Hus were condemned at the Council of Con- stance (Denzinger-Bannwart, nn. 586, 598, 612, 684-6, etc.) and it was equivalently defined that ecclesias- tical persons might without sin hold temporal pos- sessions, that the civil authorities had no right to appropriate ecclesiastical property, and that if they did so they might be punished as guilty of sacrilege. In later times these positions have been still more explicitly reaffirmed and in particular by Pius IX, who in the Encyclical "Quanta cura" (1864) con- demned the opinion that the claims advanced by the civil Government to the ownership of all Church property could be reconciled with the principles of sound theology and the canon law (Denzinger-Bann- wart, n. 1697, and the appended Syllabus, props. 26 and 27).

But apart from these and other similar pronounce- ments the right of the Church to the complete con- trol of such temporal possessions as have been be- stowed upon her is grounded both on reason and tradition. In the first place the Church as an or- ganized and visible society, performing public duties whether of worship or administration, requires ma- terial resources for the orderly discharge of these duties. Neither could this end be sufficiently at- tained if the resources were entirely precarious or if the Church were hampered in her use of them by the constant interference of the civil authority. In the second place Old Testament analogy (see, e. g., Num., xviii, 8-25), the practice of the Apostles (John, xii, 6; Acts, iv, 34-5) with certain explicit utterances of St. Paul, for example, the argument in I Cor., ix, 3 sq., and finally the interpretation of the doctors and pastors of the Church at all periods, recognize no dependence upon the State, but show plainly that the principle of absolute ownership and free administration of ecclesiastical property has always been maintained. It may be further noted that in some of the sternest of her disciplinary enact- ments the Church has proved that she takes for granted her dominion over the goods bestowed upon her by the charity of the faithful. The twelfth canon of the (Ecumenical Council of Lyons (1274) pro- nounces excommunication ipso facto against those lay persons who seize and detain the temporal pos- sessions of the Church (see Friedberg, "Corpus Juris", II, 953 and 1059) and the Council of Trent followed suit in its Sess. XXII (De ref., C. xi) by launching excommunications later sententio' against those who usurped many different kinds of ecclesias- tical property.

Subject of' Rights of Property. — But while the ab- stract right of the Church and her representatives to hold property is clear enough, there has been in past ages much vagueness and diversity of view as to the precise subject in whom this right was vested. The idea of a corporate body, as that of an organized group of men (univcrsitas) which has rights and duties other than the rights and duties of all or any of its