Específicos
7.4. PERSPECTIVAS DEL SIGNIFICADO DE CALIDAD
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object be merely the increase of knowledge that is not in itself a charitable object unless it be combined with teaching or education.376
This is thought to be too narrow a view of education whether the trust in this case would be held charitable under Wilberforce J.‟s test depends on the usefulness of the research, and that is a matter of individual judgment. Not every type of knowledge, whether researched, disseminated or taught is capable of being education.377 Not schools for prostitute or pickpocket,378 nor the training of spiritualistic medium379 will not qualify under this classification.
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requires a spiritual belief. It may include, but is greater than, morality, or a recommended way of life. In Re South Place Ethical Society,383 one question was whether the society‟s objects, which were the “study and dissemination of ethical principles and cultivation of a rational religious sentiment”, were charitable under this heading. Dillon J. held that they were not. “Religion according to him is concerned with man‟s relations with God, and ethics are concerned with man‟s relations with man. The two are not the same, and are not made the same by sincere enquiry into the question; what is God?”384 Similarly, the object of the body such as the Freemason, whose rules demand the highest personal, social and domestic standards, do not constitute a religion, even though they insist upon a belief in a divine spirit.385 In any event, to be charitable, a trust must be for the advancement of religion; and this means “the promotion of spiritual teaching in a wide sense and the maintenance of the doctrines on which this rests, and the observances that serve to promote and manifest it – not merely a foundation or cause to which it can be related”.386
The advent of religion toleration in the seventeenth century permitted the recognition of Christian sect other than the established church, and it seems now that no distinction is drawn between them.387 Thus, trusts for Roman Catholics,388 Quakers,389Baptist390, Methodist, and the Exclusive Brethren391 have been held. So also small groups, promoting minority religions.
383[1980]1 WLR 1565.
384 Ibid, p.1571.
385 United Grand Lodge of Ancient Free & Accepted Mason of England and Wales v Holborn B.C [1957] 1 WLR 1080.
386 Ibid.
387 Dunn v Bryne[1912] AC 407; Re Flynn [1948] Ch.24.
388 Dunn v Brynesupra.
389 Re Manser[1905]1 Ch.68.
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In Thornton v Howe,392Romilly M.R went so far as to held as charitable a trust for the publication of the sacred writings of Joanna South Cott, who claimed that she was with child by the Holy Ghost and would give birth to a new messiah. In Re Watson393, Plowman J. upheld a trust for the continuation of the work of God… “In propagating the truth as given in the Holy Bible” by financing the continued publication of the books and tracts of one Hobbs who, with the testator, has the leading member of a very small group of undenominational Christians. Expert evidence regarded the intrinsic value of the work as nil; but it confirmed the genuineness of the belief of the adherents of that small group.
Cases like these raise the question of the limits of such trusts. This is an area where crankish views can be held with the greatest fervor and good faith. Should any belief, however outlandish, shared perhaps by only a handful of friends, be entitled to the perpetual and fiscal privileges given to charities? Or, should such religion be required to show some relation to orthodox religious thought? This is not a question of public benefit, as “where the purposes in question is of a religious nature… the court assumes a public benefit unless the contrary is shown.394 It seems, therefore, that, if a movement can establish that its tenets are within the scope of the Christian religion, it is no objection that those tenets are theologically unsound, or that the number of followers is minimal.
Minority groups are well looked after. But doctrines adverse to the very foundation of all religion”395 cannot be charitable.
390 Re Strickland‟s W.T [1936] 3 All ER 1627.
391 Holmes v Att. Gen., The Times, February 12,1981. But their place of worship did not qualify for rating exemption in Broxtowe Borough Council v Birch[1983] 1 WLR 314.
392[1862] 31 Beav.14. As this gift was to take effect out of land, it was void as infringing the Statutes of Mortmain, now repealed.
393 [1973] 1 WLR 1472. Also, Funnell v Stewart [1996] 1 WLR282 [faith healing upheld]
394Per Plowman J. p.1482.
395Per Romilly MR in Thornton v Howe [1862] 31 Beav.141,p.20.
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A trust to aid religion without specifying what religion or how the aid is to be furnished, is a valid charity, although admittedly giving great latitude to the trustee,396 and the same is true where the trustee is expressly given discretion to select methods or objects.397
The burden is on the court to decide whether the institutions, ideas, and practices which the settlor has sought to make the basis of a charitable trust are religious.398 The courts have not bound themselves by any clear-cut definition of religion. In several constitutional and tax cases courts have expressed the view that belief in a divinity is essential to a religion,399 and it may be argued that in addition to a system of ethics or morals this element is a prerequisite, but this view has not received judicial sanction.400 It seems clear that the settlor cannot create or adopt a set of practices and theories and describe them as his religion, and thus bind the courts to approve a trust for their advancement as charitable. Examples, might exist where nudism and sun worshiping, or opposition to the slaughter of animals and consequent vegetarianism, where merely the hobbies of the settler.401
Gift to the numerous denominations and sects of protestants Christianity have been held charitable,402 as have donations in aid of the Roman Catholic403 and the Jewish
396 Thompson‟s Estate[1925] 282 Pa.30, 127 A.446.
397InGeppert‟s Estate, [1953] 75 SD.96,59 NW 2d.727.
398 In Hummeltenberg‟sEstate ,[1923] 1 Ch. 237, the court held that the training of spiritualistic medium not charitable. Also, Glover v Baker, 76 NH.393,420,83A.916, where the court said, “Mrs Eddy had the constitutional right to entertain such opinions as she chose, and to make a religion of them, and to teach them to all others;… whether her opinions are theologically true, the courts are not competent to decide”.
399 Davis v Beason[1890] 133 US.333,10S.Ct. 299,33 L.E.D 637; Berman v United States [1946]156 F.2d 377; Washington Ethical Society v District of Columbia,84 Wash.LR 1072; Fellowship of Humanity v Alameda, [1957]153 Cal.App.2d673.
400Bogert, op cit,p.219.
401 Ibid.
402Gass v White,2 Dana,KY170,26 Am.Dec.446.
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religion.404 Trusts for the support of a religious order or community405 such as monastery or a Covent are plainly within this head, though if instead of engaging in good works (example, among the sick and the poor) the order has as it object merely sanctification by prayer and pious contemplation, it will lack the necessary element of demonstrable public benefit and so not be charitable.406 A gift to establish “a Catholic daily newspaper”, has been held not to be charitable, for at best it is no more than partly conducive to religion.407 The saying of masses for the dead,408 the improvement of musical services in a church,409 and a gift simply “for God‟s work”410 have also been charitable. It is seen from the foregoing that in order that a trust for religion to be held charitable, such trust must involve the bringing of religious benefits to the public or some class of it, and must not be merely a case of private religious exercises and devotions, open to some sect; clergy, monks, nuns or others of similar position.