Page 9 - Demo

This is reinforced by Canon 1284§2 which provides that those administering temporal goods must “take care that the ownership of ecclesiastical goods is protected by civilly valid methods”. The canon goes on to provide in "three" that you must also “observe the prescripts of both canon and civil law or those imposed by a founder, a donor, or legitimate authority, and especially be on guard so that no damage comes to the Church from the non-observance of civil laws”.
You therefore, as a matter of canon law, have to put in place some separate structure that is recognised in civil law, in order to protect your assets.
SO IS THE CHARITY THE SAME AS THE INSTITUTE?
No. Whatever structure you have set up in the past, will technically be a separate structure to your institute. You will therefore have a dual structure with the institute and its members on one side, and the structure holding the assets on the other.
The structure holding the assets will be holding those assets for a particular purpose, which will be to advance the works and mission of the institute and not for the bene t of the individual members of the institute.
BUT WHY DOES THIS CIVIL LAW STRUCTURE HAVE TO BE A CHARITY?
The answer is that any institution that meets certain criteria will be a charity whether it wants to or not (Section 1, Charities Act 2011). The relevant criteria are that it is:
(a) An institution that is established for exclusively charitable purposes only; and
(b) An institution which falls to be subject to the control of the High Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction with respect to charities
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