Objects of Patronage
Any church benefice, with the exception of the papacy, the cardinalate, the episcopate, and the prelatures of cathedral, collegiate and monastic churches, may be the object of the right of patronage. All persons and corporate bodies may be subject to the right of patronage. But persons, besides being capable of exercising the right, must be members of the Catholic Church. Thus non-Christians, Jews, heretics, schismatics and apostates are ineligible for any sort of patronage.
Nevertheless in Germany and Austria it has become customary as a result of the Peace of Westphalia (1648) for Protestants to possess the rights of patronage over Catholic, and Catholics over Protestant church offices. In modern concordats Rome has repeatedly granted the right of patronage to Protestant princes. Entirely ineligible for patronage are the excommunicati vitandi (the excommunicati tolerati are able at least to acquire it), and those who are infamous according to ecclesiastical or civil law. On the other hand, illegitimates, children, minors and women may acquire patronages.
Read more about this topic: Jus Patronatus
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