Case LXIV: Lay Confraternities Forbidden in Convent Chapels

Applied correction from Woywod's opening insert: CASE LXIV.—The Code allows Confraternities and Pious Unions to be erected in any church, public or semi-public oratory. Semi-public oratories are the chapels in hospitals, colleges, academies and various pious institutions. In churches and chapels that are exclusively for the use of religious Sisterhoods the bishop can allow only the erection of church societies for women and of Pious Unions which have for their object the performance of certain religious exercises but do not transact any other business in their meetings. (Canon 712.)

^* By J. Schwienbacher, C.SS.R.

The School Sisters of St. Francis in X. wish to have a pious confraternity established in their consecrated public chapel as an incentive to a growth of devotion among the people. The superioress applies to a priest asking the question: May lay confraternities be established in convent-churches, or chapels?

The question is not a new one, for such early authors as Lucius Ferraris in his "Bibliotheca prompta," and others, have answered the same in a negative sense, referring to the interdiction of the Sacred Congregation Episc. et Regul. of April 6 and November 6, 1595, of March 15, 1599, and of May 5, 1645: “Confraternities of lay people cannot be erected and established in churches of nuns.” (Ferraris: title “Confraternity,” article c. I. no. 38.) This prohibition was repeatedly renewed later, and even in recent times, and the answer of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences of February 29, 1864, makes it plain that the same concerns all chapels of orders as well as religious congregations of women. With great emphasis, this prohibition was again renewed in the letter of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars of August 22, 1891, to the Bishop of Foligno, in the words: “It does not please the Sacred Congregation that confraternities of lay people be established under any title in monasteries of nuns, in order to remove the very many inconveniences that can arise therefrom; indeed, it commands that those erected be removed, or otherwise transferred.”

That these decisions are not merely limited to individual cases and convents, may be learned, among others, from P. Beringer's work on Indulgences, approved by the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, which enjoys a great reputation. There it is stated as general rule: "In churches or chapels of orders of religious women, whether religious communities in the strict sense of the word, or religious congregations, confraternities of laymen can not be established (II. T. IV. Sec. 4, III. n. 2.) The same principle we find proclaimed in the book about the arch-confraternity of Our Lady of Perpetual Help published in Rome, which in explaining that the same may be erected in every public church or chapel, states explicitly “nevertheless, churches of nuns must be excepted, in which, according to several Declarations of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, confraternities of lay people cannot be established” (Pars III. cap. I. Sec. 55, II. n. 2).

Exceptions from this rule are, according to Beringer, the League of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Confraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the conversion of sinners. Beringer, however, remarks that "In both these cases it appears only allowable that the nuns themselves and inmates of their institutions, also the pupils of such institutions, but not other lay people of either sex may belong to these confraternities."

The ecclesiastical decisions in the matter do not warrant the prohibition to be extended to pious societies of all kinds. As, however, according to Beringer even the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences styles the same confraternities at times differently, as congregations, sodalities, pious unions, confraternities or arch-confraternities; thus the scope of the word "Confraternity" is determined more from the object than from the name. A chief characteristic of confraternities consists, as Beringer observes, that they must be canonically erected, i. e., with ecclesiastical authority, at a certain altar or in a certain church, and for this reason must remain under guidance and control of that church, while the pious societies or unions, even though conducted by the clergy and enriched with indulgences, are as a rule, only simply approved by the ecclesiastical superiors, not, however, canonically erected.

A pious union, therefore, which has the characteristics, just mentioned, of a confraternity, must not be erected in a convent chapel, no matter under what name. For pious associations, however, which have not the characteristics of a confraternity, there ensues from the ecclesiastical prohibition of lay confraternities in convent chapels, the grave warning to be earnestly vigilant lest the zealous cooperation of the nuns in lay societies might open the door to the very improprieties which the Church is so anxious to exclude: “In order to remove the very many inconveniences that can arise therefrom.” (S. Congr. Episc. et Regul. 22, Aug., 1891.)