VII. Priest. The word properly signifies a person in priest's orders and contains no reference to appointment to any particular ecclesiastical office. But the priest being often a parish priest, the former term is often used where the latter is meant; similarly, the person officiating, whether in priest's or deacon's orders, is frequently called priest, especially in the prayerbook.38 VIII. Minister. This word signifies any person conducting divine service, without regard to orders or to office. But it is also used, though apparently only in older documents, such as the canons of 1604, as equivalent to 'priest,' 'minister' and 'deacon' being thus opposed. Yet in the same canons minister, in other places, embraces priest and deacon, and can only be understood quite generally in the sense of clergyman, clerk. In 33 & 34 Vict. c 91 'minister' signifies priest and deacon.'-By 6 & 7 Vict. c 37 s 12 the clergyman of a new 'Separate District for Spiritual Purposes' which has not yet been raised to a parish is entitled 'minister'; the post has a fixed endowment and corporative rights; appointment and deprivation are as in the case of a perpetual curate. The three kinds of parish priests designated 'rector,'' vicar' and 'perpetual curate' are appointed for life and entitled to perform the sa me ecclesiastical functions. The essential difference of the three concerns the domain of the law of property. The parish priest has to hold divine service in the church of his parish, and has, within the limits imposed by law, full freedom in ordering it.39 He had also until lately the sole right of conducting burials in the churchyard; but 43 & 44 Vict. c 41, the Burial Laws Amendment Act, allowed private persons, after notice given, to conduct burials, to the exclusion of the parish priest. The The parish priest appoints, subject to episcopal approbation, his representatives and assistant curates; if the appointment is not made within the prescribed time, the bishop appoints independently.40 The rule is the same, for the most part, in respect to curates of chapels of ease; but the deed of foundation is therein determinative. Whether in the absence of such determination by deed the right of nomination falls to the founder or to the incumbent is a moot point. Lecturers are generally chosen by the vestry, not nominated by the parish priest; but here again the deed by which the lectureship was established is determinative." parochial readers of modern times are appointed by the parish priest, subject to the approbation of the bishop. Parish clerks are appointed, in so far as recognized usage does not run counter to such appointment, as in some cases it does, by the parish priest independently. Only when they are spiritual persons do they need the approbation of the bishop; such approbation is, however, as a rule sought even when lay clerks are concerned.43 In many cases the parish priest also appoints the rest of the lower officials or takes part in their appointment." According to the canons of 1604 the minister and the parishioners were to choose the churchwardens jointly; if they could not agree, then the minister was to choose one and the parishioners another. The latter has remained in most places the usual mode of appointment.45 Whether the parish priest has the right ex officio (that is to say, without being elected by the parishioners present) to be chairman of the vestry is disputed.46 Rectors and vicars are entitled to assist in electing proctors to convocation; for the most part, perpetual curates seem also allowed to vote.47 Before rector or vicar obtains institution or collation, or a perpetual curate receives a licence to officiate, he must declare his assent to the thirty-nine articles, to the book of common prayer and of ordering of bishops, priests and deacons; furthermore, he must declare that he has not procured his new office by any simoniacal practice and must take the oaths of allegiance to the king and canonical obedience to the bishop.48 9. REPRESENTATIVES AND ASSISTANTS OF PARISH PRIESTS. § 45. A. STIPENDIARY CURATES." THE older rules which determined the position of assistant clergy of this kind are found in the constitutions of archbishops Edmund, Islip and Sudbury, in the canons of 1604, in archbishop Wake's instructions and in the (now repealed) acts, 12 Ann. st. 2 c 12, 36 Geo. III c 83, 53 Geo. III c 149 and 57 Geo. III c 99.1 The legal status of the curate is now regulated almost entirely by 1 & 2 Vict. (1838) c 106, as supplemented and amended by 48 & 49 Vict. (1885) c 54. These enactments contain, with many limitations in matters of detail, the following main provisions: 3 1. Non-residence of incumbent. The holder of a benefice who is non-resident and does not, with the consent of the bishop, perform the ecclesiastical duties of that benefice from his residence outside the parish, must provide a curate to represent him. Where the 45 Cf. § 48, notes 6 ff. 46 The affirmative is maintained by Blunt, Book of Church Law 7th Ed. p. 300, Phillimore, Eccl. Law 1877 f.; the negative, at some length by Toulmin Smith, The Parish 2nd Ed. pp. 291 f., 294 ff. 47 Cf. § 55, note 8. 48 28 & 29 Vict. (1865) c 122 Clerical Subscription Act; 31 & 32 Vict. (1868) Can. 36 of 180 (append. XII). c 72. 1 Phillimore, Eccles. Law 562. An Act to abridge the holding of Benefices in Plurality, and to make better Provision for the Residence of the Clergy. 8 Pluralities Acts Amendment Act. 4 1 & 2 Vict. c 106 s 75. • Blunt, Book of Church Law Book III cap. 2.-Phillimore, Ecclesiastical Law 560 ff. population of the benefice exceeds two thousand persons, or where there are in it two churches more than a mile distant from each other, the bishop may require that two or more curates be nominated.5 2. Benefices with large population or with several churches. Whenever the annual value of a benefice exceeds five hundred pounds and the population amounts to three thousand persons, or when there is in the benefice a second church or chapel with a hamlet or district containing four hundred persons, the bishop may require the holder of the benefice, though resident and himself performing the duties, to nominate a person as assistant curate. 6 3. Inadequate performance of official duties. If the bishop has reason to suppose that the holder of a benefice does not satisfactorily perform his ecclesiastical duties, he may direct an inquiry to be held by commissioners specified.? If this inquiry justifies the supposition, the bishop may call on the holder of a benefice to nominate a curate.8 4. Sequestration of benefice. In all cases of sequestration (except sequestration for the purpose of providing a house of residence), if the incumbent shall not perform the duties of the benefice, the bishop shall appoint and license a curate. If the benefice has a population of more than two thousand persons or has more than one church, the bishop may appoint several curates.9 In cases 1, 2 and 3, the holder of the benefice nominates a fit and proper person, and the bishop gives the nominated person his licence to officiate as curate. Should the holder of the benefice neglect to nominate a suitable person within a specified time, then the bishop independently may appoint and license. The bishop may in all cases and at any time revoke the licence 5 (1 & 2 Vict. c 106 s 86); 48 & 49 Vict. c 54 s 9. 648 & 49 Vict. c 54 s 13; by this 1 & 2 Vict. c 106 s 78 is repealed. The constitution of the commission of inquiry was originally fixed by 1 & 2 Vict. c 106 s 77; it is now determined by 48 & 49 Vict. ss 3-5. The members are: 1, the archdeacon or rural dean of the district in which the benefice is; 2, a canon residentiary, prebendary or honorary of the cathedral church, to be elected triennially by the chapter; 3, a beneficed clergyman of the archdeaconry, elected triennially by the beneficed clergy of the archdeaconry; 4, a lay justice of the peace for the county, nominated on the requisition of the bishop by the person who presided at the last quarter sessions or, if there be no such person, by the lord lieutenant of the county; 5, at the wish of the incumbent concerned, either an incumbent of a benefice within the diocese, or a magistrate in the commission of the peace. 8 1 & 2 Vict. c 106 s 77.-Special provisions are found in ss 103 ff. for the case that in Welsh sees a curate is required owing to the incumbent's insufficient knowledge of Welsh. 91 & 2 Vict. c 106 s 99. Sequestration (in most cases identical with Zwangsverwaltung [compulsory administration]) takes place on bankruptcy of incumbent; as a means of obtaining payment of a debt; as an ecclesiastical.. punishment; during vacancy. See more in Phillimore 1377 ff. For some cases of sequestration 34 & 35 Vict. (1871) c 45 Sequestration Act contains supplementary provisions. to officiate; he must, however, first hear the curate; appeal to the archbishop against the revocation is allowed.10 A new holder of the benefice may give independently six weeks' notice to the curate in charge, the notice to be given within six months after the holder's admission; otherwise, any incumbent may give six months' notice to the curate, the bishop's permission having first been signified in writing." No curate may quit any curacy to which he has been licensed without three months' notice to the incumbent and the bishop, unless with the consent of the bishop to be signified in writing under his hand. 12 The curate is always to receive a fixed salary, the amount of which has to be entered in the bishop's licence and which has to be paid by the holder of the benefice out of the income of the same or by the sequestrator.13 If the curate be appointed owing to the non-residence of the incumbent or to sequestration, the act contains provisions as to maximum and minimum salary, payable according to the number of curates, population of benefice and income thereof.14 In other cases the stipend to be granted is a matter of agreement between the holder of the benefice and the curate. The curate who seeks a licence must take the oath of obedience to the bishop and hand in a 'stipendiary curate's declaration, wherein the incumbent undertakes to pay the stipend and the curate expresses his bond fide intention to receive the whole of it. When the latter has received his licence, he must further subscribe a declaration of assent to the thirty-nine articles, to the book of common prayer and of the ordering of priests and deacons.15 To fill this office 1 the obtaining of orders is not necessary. A reader is, as a rule, a layman; he is appointed to fill, in greater or less degree, the place of a clergyman in the performance of acts of divine service. At the time of the reformation readers were appointed to churches or chapels where, owing to the smallness of the income or some other reason, clergymen could not be found to take upon them the 10 1 & 2 Vict. c 106 s 98. The language of the act left it doubtful whether the admissibility of revocation was only in the case of curates appointed owing to non-residence; it is now decided to hold good in all cases. For more on this point see Phillimore 563, 574, Introduction (Addenda) p. lxx. 11 1 & 2 Vict. c 106 ss 95, 96. 13 1 & 2 Vict. c 106, ss 83, 100. 12 1 & 2 Vict. c 106 s 97. 15 28 & 29 Vict. (1865) c 122 Clerical Subscription Act. ss 3 and 6 require the stipendiary curate's declaration, s 8 the declaration of assent, s 12 leaves the necessity of the oath of obedience untouched. According to Phillimore, Eccles. Law 590, the office is historically connected with that of lector, the lowest but one of the orders in the Roman catholic church. Phillimore, Ecclesiastical Law 590 ff. cure. The position of these readers was regulated by a resolution of the bishops (dating, it would seem, from 1563; perhaps only in confirmation of an order of 1559). According thereto the reader is not to preach and not to administer the sacraments, but to read that which is fixed by public authority, to bury the dead and to purify women after their childbirth. He is also bound to give place as soon as the circumstances allow a clergyman to be appointed." By degrees it was found feasible everywhere to occupy even the poorer parishes with clergymen, and in consequence the office of reader, in the sense in which it had been conferred at the time of the reformation, became almost wholly extinct. Only in recent times was the office revived, and readers have since then been appointed in considerable numbers, not, however, 2 3 Injunctions to be confessed and subscribed by them that shall be admitted readers (printed in Strype, Annals Ed. 1824, 1, 514, and with the date 1561 in Wilkins IV, 225; also after Wilkins in Cardwell, Doc. Ann. I, 268, signed by both archbishops and nine bishops. The more important articles run: Inprimis, I shall not preache or interprete, but only read that, which is appointed by publick authoritie. I shall not minister the sacraments, nor other publick rites of the church, but burie the dead, and purifie women after their childbirthe. I shall give place upon convenient warning, so thought by the ordinarie, if any learned minister shall be placed there, at the sute of the patrone of the parishe. I shall not read, but in poorer parishes destitute of incumbents, excepte in the tyme of sickness, or for other good considerations to be allowed by the ordinary. 3 Statistics in the Church Year-Book, 1891, p. 101 show that in all the bishoprics of England taken together there were in 1890 some 1500 readers. On the relations in the several dioceses down to the year 1884, see committee report No. 161, pp. 6 ff. in appendix to Chronicle of Convocation of Canterbury, 1834. According thereto the readers were generally unpaid, but sometimes paid. The main lines on which the office was to be restored were traced at a meeting of archbishops and bishops at Lambeth. Perry, Hist. of Engl. Ch. III, 539 c 33 § 7. Phillimore, l.c. 592.-Cf. the concurrent resolutions (not binding owing to non-observance of submission act) of the upper and lower house of Canterbury, 16th May, 1884 (Chron. of Conv. Cant. 1884, Summary p. xxvii) :— 1. That no layman be admitted to the office of a Reader who has not been confirmed, and is not a communicant in the Church of England, and that the Bishop should satisfy himself of his personal fitness, knowledge of Scripture, and soundness in the Faith. That the Reader should also be required to sign a Declaration expressive of his acceptance of the doctrine of the Church of England as contained in the Book of Common Prayer and of the Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and of obedience to the Incumbent and the other properly constituted authorities, subject always to the control of the Bishop of the diocese. 2. That in unconsecrated places the Reader may expound the Holy Scriptures, may give Addresses, may read such parts of the Morning and Evening Prayer and use such other Services as may have been approved by the Bishop; and generally act under the Incumbent in visiting the sick and in other duties. 3. That in all cases the Reader shall hold the licence of the Bishop of the diocese and shall be admitted to his office by the delivery of a copy of the New Testament to him by the Bishop. 4. That this House recommends that steps should be taken in each diocese to bring the subject of Lay-Readers before the clergy and laity of the Church in such a manner as may approve itself to the Bishop of the diocese. |