Folia Canonica 5. (2002)

STUDIES - Jobe Abbass: Alienating Ecclesiastical Goods in the Eastern Catholic Churches

FOLIA CANONICA 5 (2002) 125-147.

JOBE ABBASS

ALIENATING ECCLESIASTICAL GOODS IN THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES

INTRODUCTION; I. PRELIMINARY Questions: 1. Ecclesiastical Goods Subject to Norms on Alienation; 2. Alienation and Other Transactions Subject to the Same Norms', 3. Alienation and Required Consent, A. Other Prerequisites', II. CCEO CANONS 1036-1037-A COMMENTARY: \ . Eastern Church Alienation — Value between Minimum and Maximum (c. 1036§1);2. Within Patriarchal Churches - Alienation Value above Maximum (c. 1036 §§2-3); 3. Outside Patriarchal (In Other) Churches - Value Exceeds Maximum (c. 1036 §4); 4. Re: Goods of Patriarchal Church or of Patriarch s Eparchy (c. 1037); CONCLUSION.

Introduction

By now, it is well-known that, when Pope John Paul II presented the 1990 Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium (CCEO) to the entire Church, he told the assembled bishops that CCEO, together with the 1983 Codex Iuris Canonici, are integral parts of “one Corpus Iuris Canonici” in the Catholic Church. Notwithstanding this, since the promulgation of the new Eastern Code twelve years ago, few texts treating the canonical norms of the Church in any specific area have adequately highlighted both parts of the Church’s one body of canon law. In the area of ecclesiastical goods, for example, this shortcoming may be understandable in the case of manuals which are evidently limited to a commentary on Book V of the Latin Code (cc. 1254-1310).' However, the relative lack of parallel references to Title XXIII of the Eastern Code (cc. 1007-1054) in other works which mean to treat “The Temporal Goods of the Church” is less understandable.1 2

In the same discourse by which John Paul II presented CCEO to the universal Church, he stated: “Considering this Corpus, it appears obvious to urge that a proper and comparative study of both Codes be promoted in the Faculties of Canon Law even if, by their constitutions, they have the study of one or the other

1 See: V. De Paolis, I beni temporali della Chiesa, Bologna 1995; and J.-C. PÉRISSET, Les biens temporels de l’église, Paris 1996.

2 See: I beni temporali della Chiesa (Studi giuridici 50), Vatican City 1999. Apart from the comparative study by P.G. Marcuzzi on pious foundations and a few footnoted references to CCEO in two other articles (Minambres and Falchi), this volume basically examines the regulation of temporal goods in the Latin Church. Even less attention is paid to the corresponding Eastern norms in: I beni temporali della Chiesa (Quademi della Mendola 4), Milan 1997.