THE CANONICAL RIGHT TO REMUNERATION AND DECENT SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY ACCORDING TO CODEX IURIS CANONICI 1983 WITH A SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THOSE CLERICS WHO HAVE BECOME UNSUITABLE FOR ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICES

The system of maintenance of the clergy today we have in the Church is the result of a long historical and juridical process. According to CIC 1917 we had the benefices to provide for the remuneration and decent support of the clergy.  It was more of the disciplinary nature of incardination through the bishop’s vigilance and control. Whereas the Revised Code abolished this practice of benefices and it leaves the responsibility of providing for the remuneration and decent support of the clergy ultimately to the respective diocesan bishops to whom the clergy belong (c. 384, PO 20).  CIC 1983 emphasized the pastoral sense of incardination for the purpose of service. The overall purpose was that all the clerics be left free to exercise the ministry of the Church without any worry about their personal finances.  The 1971 Synod of bishops insisted that the fitting support of priests was a matter of justice; the remuneration should be as far as possible, equitable and sufficient.

Diaconate is the ‘door’ through which clerics are incardinated.  It can be called different words such as affiliation, incorporation, enrolment, inscription, and incardination. Among these concepts, the notion of ‘incardination’ suits the context as it conveys a deeper meaning of what is supposed to be in the fraternal relationship between the presbyter and the bishop.  Incardination is the first juridic effect of ordination; it is a juridic reality, established and determined by ecclesiastical law and aiming at good order in the Church, particularly in reference to presbyters and deacons and their relationship to the people of God in general and to a specific canonical entity such as a diocese more particularly.  

Canon 281/1 makes a connection between the performance of the ministry and the right to remuneration. Then what happens to those clerics, not engaged in pastoral ministry?  Canon 284/1 provides for the clerics who are sick and retired. But still how do we understand the case of a cleric who is penalized?  And how about the decent support of the clerics who have become unassignable for ecclesiastical the offices?  Another further question is whether we can really compare the ‘remuneration’ with the ‘salary/wage’ a lay person receives for any job done in the Church or in the civil society.

An incardinated cleric has a right to remuneration and decent support. To what extent can we compare this right to remuneration as to human right?  The positioning of c. 281 is very much supportive to understand the fact of remuneration as a right as the canon is placed in the chapter on rights and obligations of clerics. There are two schools of thought. One is of the mind that the remuneration and decent support of the clergy is based on the fact of being actively involved in the ministry of the Church; the other school bases the same on the fact of incardination. We need to see in both schools how the understanding affects the relationship between the presbyter and the bishop and how this fact of remuneration and decent support of the clergy could be an expression of fraternal relationship between the presbyter and the bishop.