Disputation — Bontempi, Palladium Theologicum V · from Schola Thomistica
Disputation III: On the State of Regular Prelacy
CUM the most excellent state of the Church is divided into two parts, the Clerical and the Monastic, after the Praelates of the Clerics have been treated in the preceding books, it now fittingly occurs to treat of the Prefect of the Monks, or Regulars: for he obtains a quasi-episcopal power over those subject to him, since he truly takes the place of a Bishop where the exemption of the Regulars prevails, as will be explained more fully in its place below; here, however, I wish to admonish the reader that I shall treat here, and rather strictly limit myself to, those questions which may apply to any Praelate of a Religion; the others, however, whether not thereby weighty, or resting on the particular statutes of Religious, I leave to be discussed elsewhere, since they contain not much Doctrine, and since each is bound by his own obligation to learn or teach them at home: Nevertheless I shall say something, compelled to it, of the proper ordinances of some Institutes, insofar as it touches the present undertaking.
CUM potissimus Ecclesiae status, in Clericalem, et Monachalem bipartitus sit, postquam de Clericorum Praelatis in superioribus actum sit; nunc de Monachorum, seu Regularium Praefecto convenienter agendum occurrit: Hic enim quasi Episcopalem potestatem in sibi subditos obtinet, cum vere in Episcopi locum, ubi Regularium viget exemptio, succedat; uti suo loco infra fusius explicabitur; hic autem monitum volo lectorem, praecipuas hic agitandas, et potius arctandas, quaestiones, quae in quemcumque Religionis Praelatum possint convenire; alias autem, vel non ideo graves, vel particularibus Religiosorum statutis nixas, aliis discutiendas dimitto; cum non multum contineant Doctrinae, et cum quisque ex propria obligatione domi eas ediscere, vel edocere teneatur: Nonnihil tamen de propriis aliquarum institutionum ordinationibus, quatenus ad praesens facit institutum, coactus dicam.
Within this disputation
- Question I: Whether the state of regular prelacy is necessary in a religious order
- Question II: How the prelate of a religious order is to be chosen
- Question III: How many prelates there are in one religious order, and what order among them
- Question IV: Whether it befits a regular prelate to remain long in the same office
- Question V: Whether a religious prelate has the power of coercing subjects with penalties, both spiritual and corporal
- Question VI: What solemnities a regular prelate, acting in judgment, is bound to observe
- Question VII: Whether appeal can be made from a regular prelate or judge
- Question VIII: Who is the judge from whom, and to whom, appeal is made
- Question IX: Whether a regular prelate can dispense his subject, which subject, and in what
- Question X: What power a regular prelate has to absolve, both from sins and from penalties
- Question XI: Whether a regular prelate has the power to administer temporal things, and what power
- Question XII: Whether regular prelates can do anything concerning the conferring of orders and the blessing of things or places, and what