Chapter III: Of Religious Profession

§ 1. For the validity of any religious profession it is required that:

1° The one who is about to emit it have the legitimate age according to the norm of can. 573.

2° A legitimate Superior admit him to profession according to the constitutions.

3° A valid novitiate according to the norm of can. 555 have preceded.

4° The profession be emitted without force, grave fear, or fraud.

5° It be express.

6° It be received by a legitimate Superior according to the constitutions, personally or through another.

§ 2. For the validity of perpetual profession, whether solemn or simple, it is furthermore required that temporary simple profession according to the norm of can. 574 have preceded.

Anyone about to emit religious profession must have completed the sixteenth year of age, if there is question of temporary profession; the twenty-first, if of perpetual profession, whether solemn or simple.

§ 1. In any Order, both of men and of women, and in any Congregation which has perpetual vows, after the completed novitiate the novice, in the novitiate house itself, must premise to perpetual vows, whether solemn or simple, with the prescription of can. 634 preserved, a profession of simple vows to last for a triennium, or for a longer time if the age required for perpetual profession lies farther away, unless the constitutions require annual professions.

§ 2. A legitimate Superior can prolong this time, after temporary profession has been renewed by the religious, but not beyond another triennium.

§ 1. When the time of temporary profession has been completed, the religious, according to the norm of can. 637, is either to emit perpetual profession, solemn or simple according to the constitutions, or to return to the world; but even during the time of temporary profession he can, if he is not considered worthy to pronounce perpetual vows, be dismissed by the legitimate Superior according to the norm of can. 647.

§ 2. The vote of the Council or Chapter for the first temporary profession is deliberative; for the subsequent perpetual profession, solemn or simple, it is consultative only.

§ 1. In emitting religious profession, the rite prescribed in the constitutions is to be observed.

§ 2. The document of emitted profession, signed by the professed himself and at least by the one before whom the profession was emitted, is to be preserved in the archive of the religion; and furthermore, if there is question of solemn profession, the Superior receiving it must make the professing person's pastor of baptism more certain concerning the same, according to the norm of can. 470, Sec. 2.

§ 1. When the time for which the vows were pronounced has elapsed, no delay is to be interposed in renewing the vows.

§ 2. Superiors, however, have the faculty, for a just cause, of permitting the renewal of temporary vows to be anticipated for some time, but not beyond a month.

Those professed with temporary vows, of whom in can. 574:

1° Enjoy the same indulgences, privileges, and spiritual graces with which those professed with solemn vows or those professed with perpetual simple vows rejoice; and if they are anticipated by death, they have the right to the same suffrages.

2° They are held by the same obligation of observing the rules and constitutions, but, where the obligation of choir is in force, they are not bound by the law of privately reciting the divine office, unless they are constituted in sacred orders or the constitutions expressly prescribe something else.

3° They lack active and passive voice, unless something else is expressly provided in the constitutions; but the time prescribed for enjoying active and passive voice, the constitutions being silent, is computed from first profession.

Simple profession, whether temporary or perpetual, renders acts contrary to the vows illicit, but not invalid, unless something else has been expressly provided; solemn profession, however, if they are capable of being invalidated, renders them also invalid.

§ 1. Anyone professed with simple vows, whether perpetual or temporary, unless something else is provided in the constitutions, preserves ownership of his goods and the capacity of acquiring other goods, with those things preserved which are prescribed in can. 569.

§ 2. Whatever, however, he acquires by his own industry or in view of the religion, he acquires for the religion.

§ 3. The cession or disposition of which in can. 569, Sec. 2, the professed can change, not indeed by his own decision unless the constitutions allow it, but by permission of the supreme Moderator, or, if there is question of nuns, by permission of the local Ordinary and, if the monastery is subject to regulars, of the regular Superior, provided that the change, at least concerning a notable part of the goods, is not made in favor of the religion; but by departure from the religion such cession and disposition ceases to have force.

§ 1. One professed with simple vows cannot validly renounce earlier, but within sixty days before solemn profession, with peculiar indults granted by the Holy See preserved, he must renounce all goods which he actually has, to whomever he prefers, under the condition of the profession to follow.

§ 2. Once profession has followed, all those things are immediately to be done which are necessary so that the renunciation may also obtain effect in civil law.

After solemn profession, likewise with peculiar indults of the Apostolic See preserved, all goods which in any way come to a regular:

1° In an Order capable of possessing, pass to the Order or province or house according to the constitutions.

2° In an incapable Order, are acquired by the Holy See in ownership.

To those professed with simple vows in religious Congregations it is not lawful:

1° By an act inter vivos to renounce the ownership of their goods by gratuitous title.

2° To change the testament made according to the norm of can. 569, Sec. 3, without permission of the Holy See, or, if the matter is urgent and time is not available for having recourse to it, without permission of the major Superior or, if even he cannot be approached, of the local Superior.

After a year from any religious profession emitted, parochial benefices become vacant; after three years, the rest.

One professed with perpetual vows, whether solemn or simple, loses by the law itself the proper diocese which he had in the world.

§ 1. Religious profession invalid because of an external impediment does not convalidate through subsequent acts, but it is necessary either that it be sanated by the Apostolic See or that, with the nullity known and the impediment removed, it be legitimately emitted anew.

§ 2. But if it was invalid because of a merely internal defect of consent, once this has been supplied, it convalidates, provided that consent on the part of the religion has not been revoked.

§ 3. If there are grave arguments against the validity of religious profession and the religious refuses, for caution, either to renew the profession or to seek its sanation, the matter is to be referred to the Apostolic See.