Whether a Religious Can Receive Money to Lay Out in Pious Works without Leave of the Superior, and When He Would Sin Therein against the Vow of Poverty

THE Society wishes us to keep such purity and perfection in this matter of poverty, and to be so far from the keeping and command of money, that we have a rule forbidding us to ask or receive anything from our penitents, either to give in alms to the poor, or by way of restitution, or for any other purpose. Thus, though a penitent be bound to restitution and would be glad to give his confessor the means of making it, the confessor cannot receive it nor charge himself therewith without leave of the superior. This rule is founded on high motives of prudence and experience, and the teaching and example of the saints. St. Basil expressly advises this, and Father Francis Xavier insisted on it much, as we read in his Life. And of the blessed St. Hilarion Abbot, St. Jerome relates in his history that, when he had cured a very wealthy man, casting out a legion of devils that he was possessed by, the patient offered him many gifts in gratitude; and as the saint refused to receive them, he importuned him to take them to give to the poor; but the saint answered: ‘‘You had better give them yourself, since you go about in towns and know the poor. I have left my own estate; why should I charge myself with yours?” It is our office to counsel these and the like works to our neighbor, but not to be other people’s almoners, since that would be no help to our ministrations, but rather a hindrance. The only result would be that the whole house would be full of people seeking relief, and ten porters would not be enough for these applications alone, and the fathers would be taken off from confessions and spiritual ministrations to attend to this. Even the apostles found by experience that they could not attend to this without prejudice to spiritual ministrations of more importance. It is not right for us to give up preaching the word of God to serve at tables (Acts vi. 2), to attend to these temporal things. And so they had to choose out sundry persons to make this their occupation that they might be able to give their whole attention to the conversion of souls.

Some think that this distribution of alms is a good way of gaining our neighbor and attaching him to the frequentation of the sacraments. That is a mistake; you lose more than you gain thereby. There are many more complaining and discontented folk than folk who are satisfied with what you give them. Some complain because you give them nothing, others because they are not given more; they are all grumbling, and go on to tell stories how we are influenced by private partialities and acceptance of persons; they even think that we walk off with a bit for ourselves, and apply all we can to feathering our own nest. This is not a good way to entice our neighbor to confession; far from it. Many will thence take occasion to make sham confessions and tell a thousand lies to the confessor, to move and induce him to give them alms. Oh, how right is the Wise Man in advising us to believe the old and experienced, and follow their counsel (Ecclus. viii. 9)! Occasionally, with leave of the superior, you may do well to receive some conscience money from a penitent, for example, when the affair is secret and your penitent cannot conveniently make the restitution himself without its coming to be known. Even then doctors advise the confessor, and it is very good advice, to ask of the person to whom he makes the restitution a note of hand, stating-that he has received such a sum from him in a certain case of restitution that someone was charged with; and afterwards give this receipt to the penitent for his greater satisfaction and that of the confessor himself. And though the penitent says that he wants nothing of this, but has full reliance on his confessor, the confessor should not omit this precaution; the party will be glad when he sees the receipt, and will be edified, and more quiet and assured; nor will there come over him afterwards anxieties and suspicions as to whether that money was paid in the right quarter or not, as may readily happen when this precaution is not taken. But now that we are treating of the vow of poverty, and what it binds us to in rigor, it will be well to declare when you will sin in this matter against the vow of poverty and when not, but only against obedience and against the rules. Theologians treat this question in detail, whether it would be a sin against the vow of poverty on the part of a religious, without leave of his superior, to receive money from an extern, not for himself, nor to distribute and mete out in his own name, but to do so in the name of the donor. The solution of this question turns on this, that there are two ways in which you may receive money from one person to give to another. The one is when the donor gives me the money that I, in his name, may give it to some specified person or distribute it on such and such pious works. That is the way in which money is given to confessors as conscience money for restitution, or to give in alms to certain poor people. To receive money in this way without leave of the superior, in the Society, would be against our rules, which forbid it, as we have said; but it does not appear that it would be a sin against the vow of poverty, because the donor in that case remains master of his money, and he it is that disposes of it; I am only his minister and instrument, to give it in his name to the person to whom he tells me.

But if the donor gives me the money to spend and distribute freely to any persons that I like, and as I like, then the receiving of it and giving and distributing of it, without the leave of the superior, would be not only against the rules, but against the vow of poverty. In the first place, because then the donor deprives himself of the dominion of the money and, so far as in him lies, transfers it to me that I may dispose of it as I like; and a religious is not capable of that. Secondly, because not only is it against the vow of poverty to become master and proprietor of a thing, but also to have the free use, administration, and dispensation of a thing without leave of and dependence on the superior; for this is a sort of ownership and private property, and is forbidden the religious by his vow of poverty. Nay, they say it is more against the vow of poverty to have the free use of property and possessions than to have the dominion and ownership thereof, because this having the use of property is more distracting and harmful to a religious than having the dominion and ownership without the use. The end for which the Church and the holy Fathers laid it down that religious cannot hold the dominion and ownership of property, was that so they might be free and disengaged from the use and administration thereof, and able to give themselves more entirely to God, because these cares are a greater hindrance and distraction than ownership. Thus, to save sin against the vow of poverty, it is not enough for a religious not to have the dominion and ownership of another’s money, if he undertakes the free use and administration thereof without leave of the superior. Denis the Carthusian says well: Would it not be ridiculous for a father who had a son out of his mind, to be satisfied with depriving him of the ownership and dominion of a knife or a sword, while leaving him the free use of it? Quite as ridiculous is the conduct of those religious who accept the use of other people’s money, thinking it enough that they have not the dominion and ownership; they take just that which is most distracting and harmful and prejudicial in the possession of property. There are some even who think that the former case is against the vow of poverty because it is taking and distributing money, or the equivalent thereto, without leave of the superior; though they say it will be a light matter, and not amounting to mortal sin, if the money is at once given to those whom the donor marks out.

Hence follows the solution of a case that is very practical, which is, whether a religious would sin against the vow of poverty who, without leave of his superior, should ask another for money or alms for a relation or friend or penitent of his, and receive and give it, or ask the donor to give or send it. I say that, if the religious who asks for or receives such a thing accepts it with the idea of making himself owner of it or to make use of it, he will sin against the vow of poverty, though he intends to give it or send it to his relation or friend and though, in fact, he does give it or send it afterwards, either by himself or by means or in the name of another. But if he does not accept it for himself, but, on the contrary, says clearly: “I have no need of it and cannot receive it for myself, but if you please to give it to So-and-So, or leave it with me to give or send it him in your name, you will be doing me a charity and a favor,” in this case it will not be against the vow of poverty, although the donor does this out of regard to the religious, and the religious gives him thanks for having done so. The reason is that he does not receive it for himself nor make himself owner of it, but is the mere executor of the will of another, or intercessor, to get him to have this will and make this donation. Much less would it be against the vow of poverty to ask the donor to give or send the donation in his own name to such a person, although that person understands that the gift is due to the mediation and intercession of the religious.

But though this be not against the vow of poverty, it is clear that it is against the perfection of the vow, and expressly against our rules; and to proceed in these things without the leave and against the will of the superior is apt to involve many unseemly consequences. There is, besides, great danger in it of a breach of the vow of poverty. One cannot always be so wide-awake and So attentive to details as to make it clear: “Does the donor give it to me, or how do I receive it?” “DoI give it in my own name or in his?” “Does the donor give it, or do I make myself the owner and give it myself?” Especially so, since the covetous desire of having and commanding money, and distributing and disposing of things, is apt often to blind us, as we said in the last chapter, and under color of apparent reasons make us do things that are contrary to the vow of poverty; therefore we should be afraid and greatly shun these and the like ways of going on. Let it not be said of us what Cassian relates St. Basil to have said to a senator who had left the world and the dignity of senator and become a monk, that he might not have to earn his livelihood by the labor of his hands, as the other monks did. St. Basil said to him: “You have ruined the senator, and not made yourself a monk”—Et senatorem perdidisti, et monachum non fecisti. You are neither senator nor monk.