CHAPTER XI.
Certain Leases of Ecclesiastical Property are prohibited; certain others, when made, are annulled.
It is wont to bring great ruin upon churches, when the property thereof is, to the prejudice of the successors, leased out to others upon the present payment of a sum of money. All leases, therefore, of this kind, if they be made for payments in advance, shall in nowise be considered as valid, to the prejudice of the successors; any indult or privilege soever notwithstanding; nor shall such leases be confirmed in, or out of, the Roman court. Neither shall it be lawful to let out [1] ecclesiastical jurisdictions, or the faculties of nominating, or of deputing vicars in spirituals; nor for the leaseholders[2] to exercise them in person or by others; and any grants to the contrary, even though made by the Apostolic See, shall be accounted surreptitious. But those leases of ecclesiastical things, even though confirmed by apostolic authority, the holy synod declares to be invalid, which, having been made within the last thirty years, for a long term, or as they are designated in some places, for twenty-nine, or for twice twenty-nine years, the provincial synod, or the deputies thereof, shall judge to have been contracted to the injury of the church, and contrary to the ordinances of the canons.
CHAPTER XII.
Those are not to be borne who, by various artifices, endeavour to withhold the tithes accruing to the churches; nor those who rashly take possession of, and apply to their own purpose, the tithes which ought to be paid by others; whereas the payment of tithes is due to God;[3] and they who refuse to pay them, or hinder those who give them, usurp the property of others. The holy synod therefore enjoins
