RELIGIOUS AND THE ADMINSTRATION OF TEMPORAL GOODS

Abstract

By law religious institutes are public juridic persons that can acquire, possess, administer and alienate temporal goods that are considered ecclesiastical. At the same time religious institutes are radically committed gospel idea of the vow of poverty that may vary from a monastic institute to an order and to a religious congregation. Hence Codes of Canon Law require religious institutes to draft norms that prescribe a method of administering temporal goods consistent with the vow of poverty appropriate to the institute. The typikons, constitutions or statutes of a religious institute must take great care to integrate the universal norms on temporal goods and harmonize them with the institute’s particular charism and spirit. The Church recognizes that religious institutes will differ among themselves in interpreting the vow of poverty. Nevertheless, it obliges all religious institutes to a corporate witness of poverty. This witness is to be derived from and constituent with the tradition, ‘faithfully observing the mind and designs of the founder’ and the entire charism of each institute. It is high time that religious collectively think and act as ambassadors to provide a powerful witness in the Church.