Chapter V — On those who are bound to recite the Canonical Hours privately

I. Question I. Are Clerics established in minor orders bound to recite the Canonical Hours, or any prayers? Answer. All commonly deny that these Clerics are bound either to the Canonical Hours or to other prayers, unless in some Church a custom prevailed which bound Clerics, on account of alms received, to recite the office of the Blessed Virgin. Nor can Bishops absolutely compel Clerics to any task of prayers: since Clerics are subject to Bishops in those things that regard their own state, but not otherwise in things beyond their state.

II. Clerics who have been initiated into sacred orders are bound to pay the divine office, at least by force of a general custom gravely obliging. Nay, even if, through fear unjustly inflicted, they had received the sacred Orders, they would be bound to this burden, because fear extrinsically inflicted does not take away the voluntary. By a stronger right they would be bound, if the fear had been justly inflicted.

III. A Subdeacon who receives Orders, and a Cleric who either receives a Benefice or makes profession, on the day on which he is initiated into sacred orders, or receives profession or the Benefice, is bound to recite that part of the office which remains to be recited — whatever anyone too laxly fables to the contrary. A Bishop, for a grave cause, can dispense private Clerics from the recitation of the office, as from other precepts. Those about to be initiated into sacred Orders, or about to receive a Benefice, ought to have the Breviary ready, and know the manner of reciting it: otherwise they would expose themselves to the danger of violating the precept.

IV. Question II. Are Religious not yet in sacred orders, and Nuns who have made profession, bound under grave fault to recite the Hours privately outside choir? Answer. That Novices before profession are exempt from this burden, the common and true opinion teaches. Bordoni, Caramuel, Marchant, Lessius, Martín de San José — whom Diana cites — deny that professed Religious, before the reception of sacred Orders, are bound under grave fault to pay the Canonical Hours. But this opinion is false: since all Regulars, and Nuns professing choir, after profession has been made, are bound, by force of a perennial custom and by force of their own constitutions, to pay the divine praises privately outside choir.

V. The authors cited object that a custom introduced by those who lack the power of introducing it has no force. Now the custom of reciting the office was introduced by Nuns and by Youths, who possess no faculty for introducing it. Therefore it is null. These are trifles. For this custom flows from the authority of the holy Fathers and from the Patriarchs of the sacred Orders. Wherefore a professed Religious chorister not yet initiated into sacred orders, dispensed to remain outside the cloister, is bound to recite the Canonical Hours. A fugitive professed Religious, before the reception of the sacred Orders, is bound to pay the Canonical Hours. The same must be said of Religious choristers ejected from the Monastery by sentence of a judge. What of Religious condemned to the galleys, and initiated into sacred orders? Several Theologians affirm that they are bound to pay the Canonical Hours. But the more probable opinion to me is that these unhappy men, whether or not they are initiated into sacred orders, are exempt from this burden — both on account of continual impediments, and because, since the Pontiff subjects them to so great a punishment, he seems tacitly to dispense them from the burden, lest the religious state be exposed to opprobrium.

VI. I had indicated a privilege in Tome 2 of the Christian Theology, book 2, dissertation 2, chapter 7, § 2, number 18, question 7, page 404, granted to professed Benedictines, by which they are exempted from reciting the Canonical Hours until they have been initiated into sacred orders. But I have now discovered that this privilege is not sufficiently authentic. Wherefore I retract what I wrote in the place cited concerning this privilege.