Folia Canonica 4. (2001)
STUDIES - George Nedungatt: Who is to Administer Church Property? - The Answer of the Ecumenical Councils
Folia Canonica 4 (2001) 117-133. WHO IS TO ADMINISTER CHURCH PROPERTY? The Answer of the Ecumenical Councils GEORGE NEDUNGATT I. The Early Local Synods; II. The Ecumenical Councils; III. the Role of the Laity; IV. Restraining the Mismanagement of Temporalities; V. Summary and Critical Observations. Who is to administer the temporal goods of the Church , like the property of the parish church and its finances? In not a few countries, laypeople claim the right to manage church property, appealing to the Second Vatican Council, according to which laypeople share in the mission of the Church which is common to all the Christian faithful, but their specific role is in the secular sphere. On the basis of this secularity is it not the laity who must be competent and responsible to administer the Church’s temporal goods? But none of the two post-conciliar codes of the Catholic Church, the Codex luris Canonici of the Latin Church (1983) and the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium (1990), recognizes any such right for the laypeople. Some of the laity feel disappointed, if not cheated by the clergy, and some have even denounced the codes as betraying them as well as the Council. The subject is complex and needs to be handled in an interdisciplinary study. Here we shall not enter into a biblical or theological discussion of the question.1 We shall rather turn to history and law and look for the answer given by the ecumenical councils. What have the ecumenical councils legislated about the matter? For many Christians it may be news that the first ecumenical councils, which defined the fundamental truths of the Christian faith to be believed by the universal Church, have also decreed certain norms to be observed in the matter of temporal goods. Already the Canons of the Apostles1 2 contain clear norms 1 For the biblical, theological, and canonical aspects of this question see George Nedun- gatt, Laity and Church Temporalities: Appraisal of a Tradition (Dharmaram Canonical Studies 1), Bangalore 2000. Chapter 4 has supplied the matter for the present article. Given the nature of the subject and its vast interest, this study is aimed at a wider readership than professional canonists and is extended to all interested and educated lay people even without any specialisation in canon law. 2 The Canons of the Apostles is a late fourth century Eastern compilation. The title does not mean that these canons (85 in number according to the more widely accepted recension) were all actually formulated by the Apostles themselves, but they represent the authentic tradition of the Apostles. Like the Western compilation called the Apostles’ Creed, it too is
