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IS THE APPOINTMENT OF LAY TRUSTEES NOT CONTRARY TO CANON LAW?
It has been suggested occasionally that appointing lay trustees to administer “ecclesiastical goods” is against canon law, this is not correct. Canon law acknowledges that lay people may be involved in such administration and provides in Canon 1282 that “All clerics or lay people who take part in the administration of ecclesiastical goods by a legitimate title are bound to ful l their functions in the name of the Church according to the norm of law”. As a result, any lay trustee who is appointed who is Catholic will in fact be bound by the provisions of canon law in relation to the assets of the charity in the same way as any member of the institute.
Given the nature of the charity, and its role in furthering the Roman Catholic religion, at civil law there is also a principle that arguably requires the charity trustees to be members of the Roman Catholic Church. In practice, it has generally been provided that a simple majority of the charity trustees (i.e. members of the institute and lay trustees) should be Roman Catholics.
It is, however, necessary to consider whether the appointment of lay trustees is consistent with the institute’s canonical statutes and, if not, the statues would need to be amended. For example, the statutes may stipulate that all trustees must be members of the institute, in which case this provision would need to be amended.
WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF APPOINTING LAY TRUSTEES?
The reality for many institutes is that the future of their charity will eventually depend upon the successful introduction of lay trustees and the new skills and energy that they are able to offer.
The advantages of having lay trustees might be:
Ÿ New individuals bring with them an infusion of new ideas and constructive criticism
Ÿ They bring with them the outsider’s objective perspective on the future of the charity
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