Chapter IX — On the vow of chastity and of obedience

I. QUESTION I. What is the vow of religious chastity? ANSWER. It is a perpetual abstinence from every venereal act, both internal and external. Priests sinning against this vow increase the malice on account of the twofold title or bond by which priests are bound to preserving chastity. The observance of this vow depends very much upon modesty of the eyes, upon solitude, upon mortification of the flesh, and upon the declining of idleness. Wherefore every Religion prescribes fasts, temperance of food, and other virtues more or less as a safeguard of chastity. They renounce riches, that they may preserve their soul immune from affection for money. They are separated from the world, that, every occasion being taken away, they may more easily guard that chastity which Christians themselves are bound to observe, whether virginal or matrimonial, in the midst of the snares of the world and amid the very prestiges of women. A look at venery and a deliberate lustful delight thrust down into Hell a Christian and a religious man equally, with a difference only in the circumstance of sacrilege.

II. This virtue is carried like the most limpid crystal in a putrid and muddy body. Most easily is the bitumen kindled and the fire of luxury burns, and sulphurous exhalations obscure the candour of chastity, unless it be guarded by assiduous vigilance. Concupiscence is a dire wild beast, which always roars and machinates revolutions. If at the outset it be restrained by a heroic spirit, and bridled by continual custody, a victory of this kind is easy. Never nevertheless is it to be trusted, since it weaves its rebellion out of craft and from ambush. Preachers and confessors above all must needs be vigilant. For these by reason of their ministry frequently address women. From spiritual conversations the beginning is taken; but unless the highest caution be employed, all things fall away into the flesh. Confessors have their own spiritual daughters, with whom they weave familiar discourses. That virginal and at the same time womanly breath, those warm sighs, and the familiarity of a spiritual paternity with a spiritual daughter are to be fled as the hiss of a basilisk. Women are to be handled no otherwise than persons infected with plague. Let spiritual nourishment be held out, and let separation forthwith succeed; otherwise the pest of luxury sends in its enchantments. But since there are innumerable books which treat this argument more fully, therefore I abstain from further discourse.

III. QUESTION II. To what is a Regular bound by reason of the vow of obedience? ANSWER. The vow of obedience is an oblation of one's own will made to God, while a Regular promises to obey his superiors in all those things which they shall command according to his own rule. Wherefore a Regular is bound under grave fault to the precepts of superiors. When a superior does not command, but only wishes and exhorts, even if a subject do not obey, he does not on that account violate the vow of obedience, because he transgresses no precept. But the precepts of superiors must be of a grave matter.

IV. Four conditions the holy Doctors commonly require for exact obedience: 1. That there be a prompt execution of that which is commanded; 2. That the interior will accede to the external execution; 3. That a subject submit his own judgment in a doubtful or controverted matter to the judgment of his superior; 4. That, the superior's will being known, a precept is not to be awaited, but that which the superior desires is to be fulfilled. These conditions nevertheless are required for the greater perfection of obedience, but not for the nature of the same virtue. For this, and that a sin at least a grave one be avoided, it is enough that in fact the subject obey and execute the imposed precept. It is nevertheless to be adverted that superiors sometimes suspend precepts that they may avoid scandal, because they foresee subjects by no means prepared for fulfilling the precept. And then subjects who afford these arguments for resisting the mandates of superiors are in a bad state, and can sin mortally, the gravity of the thing to be commanded being regarded. For in these things the circumstances are to be regarded.

V. Superiors can by right command all those things which are contained within the confines of the Rule and Constitutions, or which even indirectly conduce to the preservation and decorum of the Rule and of the Religion. Prelates can also forbid those things which tend to the violating of their own laws, and command other things which gravely expedite the observation of the Rule and Constitutions. Wherefore a superior can command, necessity urging, that subjects serve Religious and minister the sacraments to Christians infected with plague, chiefly if the Religious profess an Order instituted for procuring the salvation of neighbours.

VI. In a doubtful matter a subject is bound to obey a superior commanding, because possession stands for the superior, as theologians commonly teach. Certain Probabilists contend that subjects having on their side an opinion even less probable are free from the obedience to be furnished, although the opposite opinion be more probable and stand for the superior. And so they are compelled to teach, the probabilistic system being admitted. Hence indeed it appears more luculently how seditious and pernicious Probabilism is to the authority of superiors and to good government.

VII. Superiors on the contrary can command nothing above or contrary to the Rule. A subject nevertheless is not the lawful judge whether that which the Prelate enjoins be against or above the Rule, unless the thing be evident. General Chapters can prescribe and establish new statutes also, which may increase the decorum of the Order and more strongly confirm regular observance. To prefectures also to be accepted and undertaken Prelates can by right urge their subjects with their precepts; otherwise as to accepting dignities or a bishopric outside the Order.

VIII. Regulars sin gravely either while they refuse to fulfil the precept of a superior, or while they contemn his voice, or while they resist him reforming abuses and corruptions brought in against the Rule and Constitutions. They sin venially if they neglect to commit to execution those things which they know to be prescribed by a superior, although not under precept — as when they inculcate the observance of the Rule and Constitutions. And although Constitutions by their own nature do not oblige to fault, yet in fact they are never deliberately violated without some venial fault. But those who from habit and custom transgress them indiscriminately dispose themselves to a tacit contempt, and sin against the precept of aspiring to perfection.

IX. Superiors who dissemble transgressions of the Rule and Constitutions, who neglect to correct and hinder the same with all their strength, either from torpor and negligence or from a certain connivance, sin mortally, as Diana, the Salmanticenses, La Croix, and others commonly teach. For Superiors are destined by their office to the custody of the laws and to the promoting of the observance of the whole discipline. Their negligence in hindering transgressions inflicts a most grave detriment upon Religion. For hence proceed most grave absurdities, and hence have flowed all the relaxations of the sacred Orders. For upon these transgressions there succeed violations of the vows, scandals, the loss of chastity, and the pest of property.