Question IV: Whether it befits a regular prelate to remain long in the same office

PRELACIES, whose dispensations are in the power of human choice, do not demand from their nature that they be perpetual or temporary; wherefore in the earliest times, while few were those who aspired to the prelacy and the manner of governing was simple, without so many windings of laws with which prelates are now wont to be entangled, one governed a convent perpetually, and was removed only for notable insufficiency or death; and that this was the mind of our holy Father Francis is gathered from those words of our Rule: Let all the brothers always be bound to have one of the brothers of this Religion as general Minister, at whose death the election of a successor is made by the provincial ministers, etc., although on account of grave causes it was afterward otherwise enacted by the Religion, as Croufers notes in his exposition of chapter 8 of the rule.

ON WHICH ACCOUNT now in all religious Orders, and in many monastic ones too, the custom has prevailed that all Prelates may endure for a fixed time only, more or less, according to the proper institute of each religion, or an Apostolic indult.

Thus among the Minors and the Carmelites the general Minister endures for a six-year term; for since his chief duty is to visit personally the brothers of the whole Religion, it pleased to grant him only so much time as would suffice for that duty: if he sometimes ceases from the said visitation, this is per accidens, on account of some inconvenience or obstacle.

The ORDER of St. Augustine, however, has always acknowledged the same general, but as eligible or removable at each general chapter: wherefore he is not perpetual of himself. Otherwise must be said of the Carthusians, the Preachers, and the Jesuits, to each of whom one general minister is for the term of life.

The PROVINCIALS, however, as also the local superiors, are triennial, very rarely perpetual, against whom Navarrus lashes out with relaxed reins, comment. 3 de Regular. num. 3 and following, where he heaps up many inconveniences constantly born of the frequent change of prelates, and protests that he was never by any reasoning persuaded that it would profit the salvation of souls or the peace of communities; against whom Suarez treats learnedly, tome 4 de Relig. lib. 2 cap. 7, where he argues especially from the common custom received in the whole church and approved by the Sovereign Pontiffs, against which to go is not solid doctrine but most insolent madness, as the common rule of St. Augustine argues, which I have inculcated everywhere elsewhere. That this same thing is most fitting in the Order of Minors the Seraphic Doctor shows, in the little Apologetic book against them, and c. in resp. ad quaest. 5.

I ASSERT therefore, with the holy Doctor, that this temporary duration of prelacy is most fittingly ordained.

IT IS PROVED, at the place cited, by St. Bonaventure: In the religious Prelate, besides the many gifts of soul, namely the zeal of justice, the mildness of gentleness, fraternal compassion, solid discretion, etc., there are required also other perfections of body, such as an honest personal presence, lasting vigor, so that he may be indefatigable in regular observance and in attending to offices; that maturity of age, so that he neither declines into excessive old age, burdensome to himself and others, nor begins from excessive youth, which does not press upon itself but insults others: but these perfections are found in few, and in those they are very unstable: Therefore, concludes the holy Doctor, we can have few prelates stable in office, since either they are weakened in body, whence they do not suffice for bearing so many labors, or they are even assailed by fear of conscience, whence not rarely they urgently beseech to be removed from office.

IT IS PROVED secondly by St. Bonav. there at the end, in the relation which Suarez uses, loco citato: He who knows that he will remain long, or forever, in the office of prelacy, easily forgets himself, and thereupon grows insolent; whereas, on the contrary, knowing that he is to be deposed, or to finish, in a short time, he is held in humility and fear; and this happens in both kinds of prelate, perpetual and temporary: for not rarely several, secure in their prelacies, have seemed to lord it over their clerics, against the precept of the Lord, 1 Peter 5, while in others that vice is detected very rarely; for by a certain emulation of virtue (sometimes perhaps also by a vicious ambition, which yet profits others) they imitate those whom they have seen to have borne themselves well and laudably in office, and study that good peace may be for themselves and others in their days, offering to each one such solace as they conveniently can, and diligently cutting off the vices that spread, knowing that they are shortly to render an account of their stewardship, when they have been made subject to another.

ADD that the prelacy is not so much an exercise of virtues as a reward: wherefore distributive Justice would seem to be injured, while so many outstanding in doctrine and virtues should be perpetually subjected to others perhaps untrained and not sufficiently upright; whence the community would be deprived of not a few advantages: and although those who excel in virtue can use such subjection for their own progress; yet it belongs not to themselves to make good use of an evil, but to the Religion, to drive them to so rigid a discipline, whence many experience ruin rather than progress.

HENCE the holy Doctor, 4 dist. 15 part. 2 dub. 13, adduces as an example of the proud prelate, who is for the whole people unto ruin, David, ambitiously numbering the people subject to him, and glorying in their multitude, or perhaps in the years over which he presided; whence the hand of the Lord was made heavy upon the whole people, to signify that nothing harms a community so much as the pride of the prelate, which is born especially from the perpetuity of his duration.

Should you ask whether one must obey prelates thus openly insolent.

THE HOLY DOCTOR ANSWERS, in his exposition on Ecclesiastes, chapter 20, fol. 332, col. 2, that such prelates are of a threefold difference; for some are unjust in themselves; yet commanding others justly, and executing the rest of their office justly; to whom therefore obedience is justly given.

THERE are others elected unjustly, and exercising the office of Prelate in an equally unjust manner, to whom obedience is not due; finally others elected justly, yet pressing hard and harshly, to whom in those things which are according to God one must submit: yet it is just that such a one be removed, because, as the holy Doctor says there, he merits to lose the privilege who abuses the power granted to him.

THE reasons adduced press most of all in Religions in which the sole active life, or rather a mixed one, is pursued; for on account of the immense cares besetting here, on account of the frequent occasions in which the Prelate is bound to command and the subjects to obey, on account of the constant assistance or presence of the prelate himself, that so many arduous things may be better sustained, scarcely can one endure long, and scarcely can subjects obey long with merit or a cheerful spirit; wherefore if he act more harshly, these console themselves that his deposition is near at hand, as the Seraphic Doctor observes, loco prius citato, at the end.

THAT long series and heap of inconveniences, however, which Navarrus accumulates from the frequent change of Prelates, loco citato, is easily dissolved, if it be noted that those and similar inconveniences arise rather from an undue election of Prelates than from their temporary duration, as Suarez notes, num. 6. But since in cap. Quia propter, and in the Council of Trent de reform. Regularium, provision has been made sufficiently for electing in the due manner, I do not suspect that any grave argument can be drawn from this: and if certain few murmurings of brothers, or the intemperate ambition of some, should disturb these frequent elections, they are readily met by other remedies instituted in each Religion, as seems best to expedite.