The Legal Basis of Responsibility of the Christian Faithful for the Material Needs of the Church

Abstract

The duty safeguard of the material needs of the Church is precisely related to the possibility of executing purposes by him, which are: celebrating of the divine worship, exercising works of the sacred apostolate and of charity and decent sustenance of the ministers. The legal basis of responsibility of the Christian faithful in this regard are regulations of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. The legislator reminds an innate right of Church (ius nativum) to require from the Christian faithful those things which are necessary for the purposes proper to it (can. 1260) and at the same time obliges all the faithful to care for material means for realization this purposes (can. 222 § 1). In the analyzed area the sources indicated by the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code of Canon Law are also relevant, especially: can. 1496 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, decrees of the Second Vatican Council: Apostolicam actuositatem, Ad gentes divinitus, Presbyterorum ordinis. The source documents referred to the first codification of canon law should be also recognized as legal basis.