his opinion is no longer tenable. Canon 1410 says:--"The
endowment of a Benefice is constituted either by property, the ownership
of which pertains to the Juridical entity itself, or by certain and
obligatory payments of any family or moral personality, or by certain
and voluntary offerings of the faithful which appertain to the rector of
the benefice, or, as they are called stole fees, within the limits of
diocesan taxation or legitimate custom, or choral distributions,
exclusive of a third part of the same, if all the revenues of the
benefice consist of choral distributions."

This Canon seems to make it clear that the second condition is fulfilled
in all the parishes of these Kingdoms, since to the sacred office is
attached the right of receiving revenue from the certain and voluntary
offerings of the faithful or from stole fees or from both.

The third condition, erection by ecclesiastical authority, is qualified
by Canon 1418 which prescribes that benefices should be erected by a
legitimate document defining the place of the benefice, its endowment
and the duties and rights of the person appointed.

This law has not an invalidating clause, hence it is not now necessary
nor ever was it necessary to have such a written document. A valid
appointment was and can be made without any writing.

Where these three conditions are fulfilled there is a benefice, true,
real, and canonical. Normally parishes are benefices. (See _Irish
Ecclesiastical Record_, Vol. XIV., No. 623; and _Irish Theological
Quarterly_, October, 1917, p. 209.)

Every cleric in holy orders is bound under pain of mortal sin to recite
daily the Divine Office. No General Council, no Pope, has made such a
law, but the old-established custom has grown, until it has the force of
a law (Bened. XIV., _Instructio Coptharum_). Authors are not agreed as
to the date of the first traces of this old custom. Billuart quotes the
text of the fourth Council of Carthage to prove that it existed in the
fourth century, _Clericus, qui absque corpusculi sui inequalitate
vigiliis deest, stipendiis privatus, excommunicatur_. Gavantus can find
traces of it only as late as the sixth century. Several decrees of
provincial councils regarding this custom are quoted by writers on
liturgy. However, the matter is clearly and definitely dealt with by the
General Council of Lateran (1213) and by the Bulls, _Quod a nobis_ and
_Ex proximo_, of Pope Pius V. (1571). This Pope expressly st