Prayers Alone did not make Convent Charitable
A trust to apply the income of a fund for all or any of the purposes of a community of Roman Catholic Carmelite nuns living in seclusion and spending their lives in prayer, contemplation and penance, was not charitable because it could not be shown that it conferred any benefit on the public or on any section of the public. There is no proven or provable benefit to the community if the results of the contemplation are in no way communicated to the public’.
If religious beliefs are genuinely held, the ‘truth or falsity of religions is not the business of courts.’ The law of charity does not now favour one religion to another.
It would be unwise to regard charity law as a paradigm of rationality.
Lord Simonds said that charity law had been built up ‘not logically but empirically.’
Lord Simonds said: ‘I would speak with all respect and reverence of those who spend their lives in cloistered piety, and in this House of Lords Spiritual and Temporal, which daily commences its proceedings with intercessory prayers, how can I deny that the Divine Being may in His wisdom think fit to answer them? But, my Lords, whether 1 affirm or deny, whether I believe or disbelieve, what has that to do with the proof which the Court demands that a particular purpose satisfies the test of benefit to the community? Here is something which is manifestly not susceptible of proof. But, then it is said, this is a matter not of proof but of belief: for the value of intercessory prayer is a tenet of the Catholic faith, therefore in such prayer there is benefit to the community. But it is just at this ‘ therefore ‘ that I must pause. It is, no doubt, true that the advancement of religion is generally speaking one of the heads of charity. But it does not follow from this that the Court must accept as proved whatever a particular church believes. The faithful must embrace their faith believing where they cannot prove: the Court can act only on proof. A gift to two or ten or a hundred cloistered nuns in the belief that their prayers will benefit the world at large does not from that belief alone derive validity any more than does the belief of any other donor for any other purpose.’
Lord Reid, Lord Simonds
[1949] AC 426, [1949] UKHL 1, [1949] 1 All ER 848
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Bourne v Keane HL 1919
Gift for Masses not Void for Superstition
An Irish Roman Catholic testator, domiciled in England, bequeathed 200 pounds to Westminster Cathedral for masses, and 200 pounds and his residuary personal Estate to the Jesuit Fathers of Farm Street, again for masses. The next of kin contended . .
Cited – National Anti-Vivisection League v Inland Revenue Commissioners HL 2-Jul-1947
The main object of the Society was political viz, the repeal of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876, and for that reason the Society was not established for charitable purposes only and was not entitled to exemption from tax. An organisation whose aims . .
Cited – White, In re; White v White ChD 8-Feb-1893
A testator gave his property ‘to the [listed] religious societies, to be divided in equal shares among them,’ the particular objects not being named.
Held: (reversing Kekewich J) A bequest to a religious institution, or for a religious . .
Cited – Cocks v Manners ChD 26-Jul-1871
Testatrix, a married woman, bequeathed the residue of all her property, consisting of impure and pure personalty belonging to her separate use, to be divided equally between four religious institutions, two of them being the Dominican convent at C, . .
Cited – Hoare v Hoare 1887
It is not a charitable purpose to provide for Church of England services in a private chapel, nor Almshouses for estate labourers, nor for the education of estate children. . .
Cited – Dunne v Byrne PC 22-Feb-1912
Will – Construction – Charitable Bequest – Fund to be expended for the Good of
Religion – Religious Purposes.
Held, that a residuary bequest ‘to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane and his successors to be used and expended wholly . .
Cited – In re Hummeltenberg; Beatty v London Spiritualistic Alliance Limited ChD 1923
A testator by his will bequeathed 3,000 pounds to the London Spiritualistic Alliance Limited to form the nucleus of a fund for the purpose of establishing a college for the training and developing a suitable person’s male and female as mediums, . .
Cited – In re Caus; Lindeboom v Camille ChD 1934
A Roman Catholic testator by his will bequeathed 1,000 pounds for Masses, foundation and other and also devoted four houses ‘for one Foundation Mass to be said for my soul and the souls of my parents and relatives during the space of 25 years’ and . .
Cited by:
Cited – Varsani and others v Jesani, Patel and Her Majesty’s Attorney-General CA 3-Apr-1998
A Hindu religious sect, constituted as a charity, had split into two factions.
Held: The court had jurisdiction to order that the assets of the sect should be divided under the powers in the Act, and held upon separate trusts for the two . .
Cited – Inland Revenue Commissioners v Glasgow Police Athletic Association HL 9-Mar-1953
The House was asked whether the taxpayer association was established for ‘Charitable purposes only’ so as to benefit from tax exemptions. The association promoted sporting activities among members of the Glasgow police.
Held: Though the . .
Cited – Gallagher (Valuation Officer) v Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints HL 30-Jul-2008
The House considered whether certain properties of the Church were subject to non-domestic rating. Various buildings were on the land, and the officer denied that some fell within the exemptions, and in particular whether the Temple itself was a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Charity
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.187521