Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/539

 PROPHECY

473

PROPHECY

crees concerning church property. The Fathers of this council seem to have been hopeful that the prescriptions of canon law would find free play in the United States. They say: "In these United States it is the right of all citizens to live freely according to the precepts of their religion, and as the civil laws recognize and declare the same, it seems that there is no obstacle to the exact obser\'ance of the laws decreed by councils and popes for the legitimate acquisition and preser\-ation of ecclesiastical prop- erty, the Fathers desire, therefore, that the right of the Church be vindicated in the eyes of all and publicly before the State, so that Catholics may be allowed to observe the laws of the Catholic Church in acquiring, holding and preser\'ing ecclesiastical goods, such as lands for church edifices, presbj-teries, schools, cemeteries etc. This complete liberty, how- ever, can be said to exist only when the laws and ordinances of the Church are recognized by the civil tribunals and thus receive civil effect. By such pro- \Tsions the rights of all will be preser\-ed, possible abuses will be obviated, and the powerof the bishops, instead of being increased, will rather be diminished by the regulations made by the Church herself. For, at present, in order to obtain protection from the improper interference of lay tribunals, which in prac- tice scarcely acknowledge the ecclesiastical laws, nothing now remains to the bishops for carrying out ecclesiastical decrees but to claim for themselves the fullest administration of property before the civil power. As, however, church regulations are not acknowledged as yet in some States, it is our duty to see that in those places where no provision has been made by the civil law, the impediments to the Uberty of the Church and to the security of ecclesiastical property be removed or diminished" (tit. IV, cap. i, nn. 199, 200). The council then lays down regula- tions regarding lay trustees.

The Third Plenary Council (tit. IX, cap. ii, nn. 267-8) defined more exactly what was meant by secure methods of ownership according to civil law, directing that: (1) The bishop himself be constituted a cor- poration sole for possessing and administering the goods of the whole diocese; or (2) that the bishop hold the goods in trust in the name of the diocese; or (3) that the bishop hold and administer the church property in his own name (in fee simple) by an abso- lute and full legal title. In the last case, the bishop is to remember that, though before the oivU law he is the absolute o«-ner, yet by the sacred canons he is only procurator. By whichever title the bishop holds the property, he is to keep inventories, carefully dis- tinguishing between the church property and his own personal property. Since the Third Plenar\- Council the question of holding church property has more than once been discussed by the American bishops, and at the present time, in addition to the fee simple and the corporation sole methods, a modified system of the trustee method has found considerable fa\-our. Concerning this, the ''St. Paul Catholic Bulletin", says (I, no. 20): "Not only is it not true that the archbishops (at their meeting in 1911) discouraged the holding of church property by local churches, but on the contrarj', they declared it to be the verj' best solution of the problem under consideration. And while in some States, owing to peculiar legislative enactments, other methods of holding church property are in vogue, yet it was admitted by the assembled prelates that the holding of church property by local parish cori)orations w:is by far the safest method. In the Archdiocese of St. Paul, each church is incor- porated separately and independently of all others. Members of this corporation are ex-olEcio the Ordi- narj' of the Diocese, his vicar-general, and the pastor of the parish, who select two laymen from the parish to represent the congregation. In addition to these separate parochial corporations, there is a general

diocesan corporation known as 'The Diocese of St. Paul', in which is invested the control of all the property belonging to the diocese, not directly con- trolled by the aforesaid parish corporations." The laws of the Church are fully observed, as the bishop of the diocese exercises sufficient control over all the property; without him, the other members of the corporation can take no action binding in law, and he assumes no unreasonable obligations inasmuch as he himself is powerless to act without the consent and co-operation of the others. Dr. P. A.Baart ("Catho- lic Fortnightly Review", XIV, no. 4) says: "The Church, through the Sacred Congregation of Propa- ganda, whose decision and decree were approved by the Pope, has declared that the corporation system which recognizes the rights of the hierarchy is pref- erable to the fee simple tenure by the bishops as indi- viduals before the civil law."

Concilia Prorincialia et Plenaria Baltimoreiisia; Baart in The Catholic Fortnightiy Review, VI. VII, XIV (St. Louis); Tacn- TOX, Law of the Church (London, 1906), s. v. Ecclesiastical Prop- erty; SiiiTH, Elements of Ecclesiastical Law, I (New York, 1895); Idem, Notes on Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (New York,

1S74)- William H. W. Faxning.

Prophecy. — Meaning. — As the term is used in mystical theologj', it applies both to the prophecies of canonical Scripture and to private prophecies. Understood in its strict sense, it means the foreknowl- edge and foretelling of future events, though it may sometimes apply to past events of which there is no memorj-, and to present hidden things which cannot be known by the natural light of reason. St. Paul, speaking of prophecy in I Cor., xiv, does not confine its meaning to predictions of future events, but in- cludes under it Divine inspirations concerning what is secret, whether future or not. As, however, the mani- festation of hidden present mysteries or past events comes under revelation, we have here to understand bj- prophecy what it is in its strict and proper sense, namely, the revelation of future events. Prophecy consists in knowledge and in the manifestation of what is known. The knowledge must be supernatural and infused by God because it concerns things bej'ond the natural power of created intelligence; and the knowledge must be manifested either by words or signs, because the gift of prophecy is given primarily for the good of others, and hence needs to be manifested. It is a Di\-ine light by which God reveals things con- cerning the unknown future and by which these things are in some way represented to the mind of the prophet, whose duty it is to manifest them afterwards to others.

Division. — Writers on mj'stical theology consider prophecies with reference to the illumination of the mind, to the objects revealed, and to the means by which the knowledge is conveyed to the hu- man mind. By reason of the illumination of the mind prophecy may be either perfect or imperfect. It is called perfect when not only the thing revealed, but the revelation itself is made known, that is, when the prophet knows that it is God who speaks. The prophecy is imperfect when the recipient does not know clearly or sufficiently from whom the revelation proceeds, or whether it is the prophetic or individual spirit that speaks. This is called the prophetic in- stinct, wherein it is possible that a man may be de- ceived, as it happened in the case of Xathan who said to Da\-id when he was thinking of building the Temple of God: "Go, do all that is in thy heart, because the Lord is with thee" (II Kings, vii, 3). But that ver>' night the Lord commanded the Prophet to return to the king and say that the glory of the building of the temple was reserved, not for him, but for his son. St. Gregorj-, as quoted by Benedict XIV, explains that some holy prophets, through the fre- quent practice of prophesying, ha\e of themselves predicted some things, believing that therein they were influenced by the spirit of .irophecy.

By reason of the object there are three kimls of