IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/jemarx/v02y2021i01ns2737436x21500023.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

In Persona Christi Capitis: Agency Problems When God is the Principal

Author

Listed:
  • Clara E. Jace

    (George Mason University, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030, USA)

  • Ennio E. Piano

    (��Middle Tennessee State University, 1301 E. Main St., Murfreesboro, TN 37132, USA)

Abstract

The in persona Christi Capitis doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church guarantees the validity of its sacraments, irrespective of the personal morality of the priest who performs them. While this protects their value as metacredence goods, it seemingly opens the door to opportunistic behaviour by the clergy. To balance out its institutional incentives, the Roman Catholic Church must rigorously screen its candidates for the priesthood. Historical evidence supports our hypothesis that the development of the in persona Christi Capitis doctrine was accompanied by marginal increases in the screening of seminarians, which may have been an optimal response to changing historical circumstances. Also consistent with our hypothesis, a cross section of contemporary Christian denominations shows a correlation between a group’s stance on sacramental theology and the strictness of its screening of candidates to religious ministry.

Suggested Citation

  • Clara E. Jace & Ennio E. Piano, 2021. "In Persona Christi Capitis: Agency Problems When God is the Principal," Journal of Economics, Management and Religion (JEMAR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 2(01), pages 1-30, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:jemarx:v:02:y:2021:i:01:n:s2737436x21500023
    DOI: 10.1142/S2737436X21500023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2737436X21500023
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S2737436X21500023?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:jemarx:v:02:y:2021:i:01:n:s2737436x21500023. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscinet/jemar .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.