Title III: Of the Obligations of Clerics

Clerics must lead an interior and exterior life holier than that of lay persons, and must excel before them as an example by virtue and right deeds.

Local Ordinaries are to take care:

1° That all clerics frequently wash away the stains of conscience by the sacrament of penance.

2° That the same clerics devote themselves daily for some time to mental prayer, visit the most holy Sacrament, honor the Virgin Mother of God with the Marian rosary, and examine their conscience.

All secular priests must, at least every third year, give themselves to spiritual exercises for the time determined by their own Ordinary, in some pious or religious house designated by the same Ordinary; nor is anyone to be exempt from them except in a particular case, for a just cause, and by the express permission of that same Ordinary.

All clerics, but especially presbyters, are held by a special obligation of showing reverence and obedience, each one to his own Ordinary.

Whenever and for as long as, in the judgment of the proper Ordinary, the necessity of the Church requires it, and unless a legitimate impediment excuses, an office committed to clerics by the Bishop must be undertaken and faithfully fulfilled by them.

Clerics are not to interrupt their studies, especially sacred studies, after receiving the priesthood; and in the sacred disciplines they are to follow that solid doctrine handed down by the elders and commonly received by the Church, avoiding profane novelties of words and falsely named knowledge.

§ 1. Once the course of studies has been completed, all priests, even those who have obtained a parochial or canonical benefice, unless they have been exempted by the local Ordinary for a just cause, are to undergo an examination each year, at least for a full three years, in different disciplines of the sacred sciences designated opportunely beforehand, according to the manner determined by the same Ordinary.

§ 2. In the conferral of ecclesiastical offices and benefices, account is to be taken of those who, other things being equal, have performed better in the examinations mentioned.

§ 1. In the episcopal city and in individual vicariates forane, meetings are to be held several times a year, on days to be set beforehand at the discretion of the local Ordinary, which are called collations or conferences, concerning moral and liturgical matters; to these may be added other exercises which the Ordinary has judged opportune for promoting the knowledge and piety of clerics.

§ 2. If it is difficult for meetings to be held, written solutions of questions are to be sent, according to norms to be established by the Ordinary.

§ 3. They must attend the meeting, or, if the meeting is lacking, send a written solution of cases, unless they have previously obtained express exemption from the local Ordinary: both all secular priests and religious, even exempt religious, who have care of souls, and also, if a collation is not held in their houses, other religious who have obtained from the Ordinary the faculty of hearing confessions.

§ 1. Clerics constituted in major orders are kept from marriage and are so held by the obligation of observing chastity that those sinning against it are also guilty of sacrilege, without prejudice to the prescription of can. 214, Sec. 1.

§ 2. Minor clerics can indeed enter marriage; but, unless the marriage was null because of force or fear inflicted on them, they fall from the clerical state by the law itself.

§ 3. A married man who has received major orders without apostolic dispensation, even in good faith, is prohibited from the exercise of those same orders.

§ 1. Clerics are to beware lest they retain with them or in any way frequent women about whom suspicion could exist.

§ 2. It is permitted to them to live together only with those women in whom a natural bond allows nothing evil to be suspected, such as mother, sister, aunt, and the like, or women whose proven uprightness of morals, joined with more advanced age, removes every suspicion.

§ 3. The judgment whether retaining or frequenting women, even those upon whom suspicion commonly does not fall, can in some particular case be a scandal or bring danger of incontinence belongs to the local Ordinary, whose office it is to prohibit clerics from this retention or frequenting.

§ 4. The contumacious are presumed to be concubinarians.

The custom of common life among clerics is to be praised and encouraged, and where it is in force, it is to be preserved as far as possible.

Clerics constituted in major orders, except those mentioned in canons 213 and 214, are held by the obligation of reciting the canonical hours in full each day according to their proper and approved liturgical books.

§ 1. All clerics are to wear decent ecclesiastical dress, according to the legitimate customs of places and the prescriptions of the local Ordinary; they are to wear the tonsure or clerical crown, unless the received customs of peoples provide otherwise, and are to use a simple manner of caring for the hair.

§ 2. They are not to use a ring, unless this has been granted to them by law or by apostolic privilege.

§ 3. Minor clerics who by their own authority and without legitimate cause have put aside ecclesiastical dress and tonsure, and, after being warned by the Ordinary, have not corrected themselves within a month, fall from the clerical state by the law itself.

A cleric is prohibited from becoming surety, even from his own goods, without consulting the local Ordinary.

Clerics are to abstain entirely from all those things which disgrace their state: they are not to practice unbecoming occupations; they are not to devote themselves to games of chance with money staked; they are not to carry weapons unless a just cause of fear is present; they are not to indulge in hunting, and never to practice noisy hunting; they are not to enter taverns and other similar places without necessity or another just cause approved by the local Ordinary.

§ 1. They are also to avoid those things which, although not unbecoming, are nevertheless foreign to the clerical state.

§ 2. Without an apostolic indult they are not to practice medicine or surgery; they are not to act as recorders or public notaries except in an ecclesiastical Curia; they are not to assume public offices which carry with them the exercise of lay jurisdiction or administration.

§ 3. Without the permission of their Ordinary they are not to undertake the management of goods belonging to lay persons or secular offices which carry with them the burden of rendering accounts; they are not to exercise the office of procurator or advocate except in an ecclesiastical tribunal, or in a civil tribunal when there is question of their own cause or that of their church; in a lay criminal trial pursuing a grave personal penalty, they are to have no part, not even by giving testimony, unless necessity requires it.

§ 4. They are not to seek or accept, without permission of the Holy See, the office of senators or legislators whom they call deputies, in places where a pontifical prohibition has intervened; in other places they are not to attempt the same without the permission both of their own Ordinary and of the Ordinary of the place in which the election is to be held.

They are not to be present at spectacles, dances, and pageants which disgrace them, or at which it would be a scandal for clerics to be present, especially in public theaters.

§ 1. They are not to take up secular military service as volunteers, unless they have done this with the permission of their own Ordinary so that they may become free sooner; nor are they to bring aid in any way to civil wars and disturbances of public order.

§ 2. A minor cleric who, contrary to the prescription of Sec. 1, has given his name to military service of his own accord falls from the clerical state by the law itself.

Clerics are prohibited, by themselves or through others, from carrying on business or trade, whether for their own advantage or for that of others.

Clerics, even though they do not have a residential benefice or office, are nevertheless not to depart from their own diocese for a notable time without at least the presumed permission of their proper Ordinary.

One who, with the permission of his Ordinary, has transferred into another diocese, while remaining incardinated in his own diocese, can be recalled for a just cause and with natural equity observed; and the Ordinary of the other diocese can also, for a just cause, deny him permission for further residence in his own territory, unless he has conferred a benefice upon him.