Abstrakt

Religious life is a testimony of faith and trust in God. It also proves the possibility of living and breathing spiritual values and having a healthy distance to the possession of material goods. A religious profession, which is very complex, causes consequences specified in canon law. A religious vow of poverty excludes religious’ independence in making various decisions, which could have reference to material goods. The subordination also concerns daily life of the community and the individual religious. The fundamental idea of the vow of poverty is common for professed temporarily, as well as perpetually. The distinction may result from different traditions of institutes.

Religious institutes are public legal persons in the Church, therefore material goods belonging to them are according to canon law, ecclesiastical goods. In this context, there is an issue of relation between individual religious and Church property. When a particular religious holds a variety of functions and offices all the more his decisions relate to Church property. This applies mainly to religious superiors and stewards. Then, everything that a religious acquires or receives as: salary, donation, allowance or insurance, etc. is handed over to the institute, so at the same time becomes Church property. The decisions that he should or could take, and apply to assets held before the beginning of religious life, could potentially enrich the goods of the institute - only when his instructions concern waiving goods for the institute. Also it is applicable if his income from the property is donated to the order. Own religious law regulates matters of a relation between religious and material goods religious relations to material goods in detail.