Question of Money

When Federico Cardinal Tedeschini, archpriest of St. Peter's and longtime friend of Pope Pius XII, died last year, he left his entire estate (more than $25,000) to his nephews. "No one criticized him for this,'' said a Vatican official; but the official spoke too soon. Last week, Italian Catholic magazines, bent on underscoring every priest's debt to his church--even in death--stirred up a ticklish controversy.

"Every Christian has an obligation to contribute to pious works," said Palestra del Clero, a fortnightly published for priests in Rovigo, near Venice. "For the clergy, this contribution is tantamount to a restitution, because no priest can ever say, T received nothing from the church,' ignoring the fact that the seminary educated him, the church conferred priesthood on him and the hierarchy entrusted him with an apostolate. Furthermore, the practice of the virtue of poverty, enjoined on every priest, demands personal detachment from all worldly possessions, both in life and more so. in death." Other publications were more blunt. Complained the Jesuit monthly Miles Christi: "When priests draw their wills, 95% of their possessions end up in greedy relatives' hands, and the church is completely forgotten.* Priests always call on others to contribute to the church, but have little themselves to contribute in life and noth ing at all in death."

Because "wills are often impugned by surviving relatives," Palestra enjoined Italian priests to write their bequests with care, suggested that wills be drawn early in life ("even young priests have some property") and published lawyerproof samples. The magazine also cautioned priests against leaving annuities to female servants, a practice that could spur "scandalous" interpretations. But chances are that most Italian clerics, indebted to their families for their education, will ignore Palestra & Co., continue to leave to their families whatever they can save from their state-supplied $50-a-month stipend.

* Miles Christi might have rejoiced at the example of Mother Mary Katharine Drexel of the Philadelphia Drexels, founder (in 1891) and first superior general of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People, who gave that order her income from a $14 million trust that she and two sisters inherited from her father, Banker Francis Anthony Drexel, and in her will left the sisters her personal estate of $110,000. She died in 1955-

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