Enti ecclesiastici e procedure concorsuali

The recent difficulties of a few hospitals owned by Catholic religious orders have raised the issue of the extent that Church bodies may be subject to Italian bankruptcy law. Under the Concordat between the Holy See and the Republic of Italy, the application of Italian law to the economic activities of Church bodies should preserve their structure and purposes. However, what it exactly means in the case of an insolvency is far from clear. After critically reviewing the existing literature, the article asserts that bankruptcy law is applicable to Church bodies within the limits of the assets that are connected with their relevant economic activities. By focusing on the canon law notion of "stable patrimony'', it also discusses how to identify the assets which should be considered essential to the purposes of Church bodies, and therefore should be excluded from bankruptcy proceedings.