I fully accept Pope John XXII’s condemnation as well as Pope Nicholas III’s teaching

Upon closer examination, it is not clear to me whether Pope John XXII’s condemnation during the poverty controversy was meant to address ownership in the strict legal sense. Nevertheless, I fully accept his condemnation as well as Pope Nicholas III’s teaching on the matter.

Luke Wadding (d. 1657), chronicler and historian of the Order of Friars Minor:

“This affair concluded with a Decretal in which he [Pope John XXII] decided that it was heresy to maintain that Jesus Christ and the Apostles possessed nothing either in common or individually, and that they had no right to use the things they possessed, to give them away, or to employ them in buying and selling. It was published on December 12 and begins Cum inter nonnullos…

Nicholas III says in his Decretal that the renunciation of ownership of all things, both in common and individually, undertaken for the love of God, is meritorious and holy; that Jesus Christ, when he wished to show the way of perfection, taught it by word and confirmed it by example; and that the first founders of the Church transmitted it through their lives and doctrine, as through sacred channels, to those who desired to live in the state of perfection, having drawn it from the very source of truth…

It is evident… that Nicholas III distinguishes two periods and two states in Christ’s exercise of lordship: the state of perfection, when he forbade possessions to the Apostles, and the state of imperfection, or lesser perfection, when he permitted them the money bag.”

For more information 👉 Luke Wadding on the Controversy over the Poverty of Christ and the Apostles