Podstawy prawa duchownych do utrzymania w ujęciu Kodeksu Prawa Kanonicznego z 1983 roku

The right to just remuneration is undoubtedly one of the most basic human rights. The issue of remuneration due to the clergy in the Church is something new in comparison with the CIC of 1917. Before Vatican Council II there was a beneficiary system in the Church, the basis for the clergymen's maintenance. In the decree of ministry and sacerdotal life Presbyterorum ordinis of Vatican Council II it was resolved that the beneficiary system “[...] should be rejected or reformed, so that the beneficiary part, i.e. the right to benefits from a respective office, should be regarded as something secondary [...]” (DK 20) in relation to duties connected with the spiritual end. As a result of this, the institution of beneficiaries was completely omitted from the CCL. The councillor fathers postulated in the same decree that the clergymen devoted to the service of God in holding their respective offices received remuneration – remuneratio (cf. DK 20). Then at the Synod of Bishops in 1971 two documents were issued De iustitia in mundo and De sacerdotio ministeriali. They stated that remuneration due to the clergymen for their ministry in the Church is a requirement of justice (officium iustitiae). Accordingly, a new legal regulation of the remuneration for the clergymen was made possible in the reformed CIC of 1917. When defining entitlement and its correlative duty to maintain the clergy, the church lawgiver takes into consideration the reason of the vows which made a person to serve in the Church. This general relationship between the vows and ministry is made concrete in the incardination. The latter legally includes a clergymen in a particular diocese or another church structure with the right of incardination. Thereby rights and duties of the clergyman are determined, among which we have on the one hand the duty of service, and on the other the right to remuneration. Analysing the norms of CCL with regard to remuneration, we find three legal foundations of this entitlement: the relationship of incardination, membership of a particular Church as a priest, and a concrete ministry. One should add that the above legal foundations do not have to occur together, and the membership of a particular Church and respective ministry are legally determined by incardination. Thus the post-councillor legislation and the Code of Canon Law had introduced a new principle that determines the duty to remunerate the clergymen. This duty ultimately results from the relationship of incardination, so that a just remuneration is part of the conditions of incardination.