Source: http://clsadb.com/document/0fe451d2-bb39-4f15-91bb-150293ca4e24
Timestamp: 2019-03-26 19:30:14
Document Index: 510616034

Matched Legal Cases: ['art. 2', '§1', '§1', 'art. 2', '§1', 'art. 3']

Cong. for the Clergy, Decree on Collective Mass Intentions Mos iugiter, 22 February 1991, AAS 83 (1991): 443-446.
Norms established by the Congregation for the Clergy concerning the practice of Mass stipends.
It is the Church’s constant practice, as Paul VI wrote in the motu proprio Firma in traditione, that “the faithful, desiring in a religious and ecclesial spirit to participate more intimately in the Eucharistic sacrifice, add to it a form of sacrifice of their own by which they contribute in a particular way to the needs of the Church and especially to the sustenance of her ministers.”
Because the matter directly affects the Most Blessed Sacrament, even the slightest appearance of profit or simony would cause a scandal. Therefore, the Holy See has always followed the evolution of this pious tradition with attention, with opportune interventions, to provide for adaptations to the changing social and cultural situations, in order to prevent or correct any eventual abuses connected with these adaptations, wherever they might occur.
Quite different, however, is the case of those priests who, indiscriminately gathering the offerings of the faithful which are destined for the celebration of Masses according to particular intentions, “accumulate them in a single offering and satisfy them with a single Mass,” celebrated according to what is called a “collective intention.”
The arguments in favor of this new practice are specious and pretentious, if not reflecting an erroneous ecclesiology. In any case this use can run the serious risk of not satisfying an obligation of justice towards the donors of the offerings and progressively spread and extinguish in the entire Christian people the awareness and understanding of the motives and purpose of making an offering for the celebration of the holy Sacrifice for particular intentions, therefore depriving the sacred ministers who still live from these offerings of a necessary means of support, and depriving many particular Churches of the resources for their apostolic activity.
Therefore, to execute a mandate received by the Supreme Pontiff, the Congregation for the Clergy, which has the jurisdiction of the discipline of this
delicate subject, has carried out an extensive consultation on the matter, including the opinions of the conferences of bishops. After careful examination of the responses and the various aspects of the complex problem, in collaboration with other interested curial departments, this congregation has established as follows:
1. According to c. 948, “separate Masses are to be applied for the intentions for which an individual offering, even if small, has been made and accepted.” Therefore the priest who accepts the offering for a Mass for particular intention is bound ex iustitia to satisfy personally the obligation assumed or to commit its fulfillment to another priest, according to the conditions established by law.
2. Priests who transgress this norm assume the relative moral responsibility if they “indistinctly collect offerings for the celebration of Masses” for particular intentions and, combining them in a single offering and without the knowledge of those who have made the offering, satisfy them with a single Mass celebrated according to an intention which they call “collective.”
1. In cases in which the people making the offering have been previously explicitly informed and have freely consented to combining their offerings in a single offering, their intentions can be satisfied with a single Mass celebrated according to a “collective” intention.
2. In this case it is necessary that the place and time for the celebration of this Mass, which is not to be said more than twice a week, be made public.
3. The bishops in whose dioceses these cases occur are to keep in mind that this practice is an exception to the canonical law in effect; wherever the practice spreads excessively, also on the basis of erroneous ideas of the meaning of offerings for Masses, it must be considered an abuse which could progressively lead to the faithful’s discontinuation of the practice of giving offerings for the celebration of Masses for individual intentions, thus causing the loss of a most ancient practice which is salutary for individual souls and the whole Church.
1. In the cases described in art. 2, §1, it is licit for the celebrant to keep the amount of the offering established by the diocese.
2. Any amount exceeding this offering shall be consigned to the ordinary as specified in c. 951, §1, who will provide for its destination according to the ends established by law.
2. If in these or similar circumstances that which is described in art. 2, §1 of this decree takes place, the priests must be attentive to the dispositions of art. 3.
Cong. for the Clergy, 22 February 1991, Decr. on Collective Mass Intentions, AAS 83 (1991): 443-446; Comm 23 (1991): 16-19; Origins 20 (1991): 705-707; TPS 36 (1991): 257-260.