Chapter X — On the power of Prelates of Regulars in dispensing vows

I. Those things that are common to all subjects, which Regulars can dispense with their subjects — namely, the General throughout the whole Order, the Provincial throughout the whole province, and the superiors of houses throughout the whole family — need to be prefaced along with what Bishops can do with the subjects of their diocese. Since, compared to their own subjects, all these have quasi-episcopal jurisdiction; whence they can likewise delegate this same power. Just as, then, they can impose censures, and absolve from them, so too they can dispense in all vows, five excepted, over which they have no power. Indeed, the power over these five vows would be superfluous here: for the first two are in no way subject to Religious; but the vows of chastity, and of religious life, cannot be dispensed by Prelates, and would be null if attempted.

II. Question I. Can secular Prelates dispense in the vows of subjects made with the license of major Prelates? Response: It has been said above that Prelates cannot invalidate the vows of subjects made with their license, without cause, though several think otherwise. As to dispensation, however, there is no difficulty, that those Prelates who have granted the license themselves can dispense in the vows — since this does no detriment to the spiritual jurisdiction granted. Concerning vows made with the license of major Prelates, the opinion of theologians is not unified.

Some deny that an inferior Prelate can dispense in such vows. The common, and true, opinion affirms that he can — since, although the license granted by a superior Prelate withdraws the vow from the dominating power of the inferior Prelate (wherefore an inferior Prelate cannot invalidate it), it by no means withdraws it from the spiritual jurisdiction of the inferior Prelate; and consequently he can dispense in such a vow.

III. Question II. Can regular Prelates dispense with their Novices in vows? Response: The common opinion affirms this, a few authors denying it. Since regular Prelates have spiritual jurisdiction over their Novices: to govern and direct them pertains to the Prelates. Add to this that Novices enjoy the privileges of the religious order. The same power, however, resides also in the Bishop — since a Novice is not altogether exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, before he makes his profession. The Bishop of a Novice is that Bishop in whose diocese the Novice resides.

IV. Question III. Can regular Prelates dispense with their subjects in a vow of transferring to a stricter religious order? Response: It has been said above that this vow is not subject to the invalidation of Prelates. That a Prelate can dispense from it, however, is held by the common opinion, provided a reasonable cause is present — namely, that the Prelate dispensing prudently judges that his subject will more easily attain the perfection of his state in his own order, than if he should migrate to another religious order. A distinction is needed, however. Either the one vowing lives in a milder religious order, which nonetheless keeps its own profession exactly, and in this case the Prelate can, without doubt, dispense in the vow of transferring to a stricter order, when he prudently, and on solid grounds, judges that his subject will better attain evangelical perfection in his own religious order; or the religious order is not milder, but laxer, either in the observance of the Rule, or gravely collapsed. Let me explain the matter more clearly. In a position of grave relaxation, a Prelate cannot absolve a subject, this dispensation having been made, from the danger of withdrawing himself from the debt to which he is bound, of transgressing his own profession, and observing the laws in that Order where the observance of laws scarcely flourishes at all. Wherefore, granted that... the religious order in which the Prelate could place himself, so too, then, the Prelate is not able to dispense from the vow of transferring to a stricter order, or to another where the Rule prescribed. He can absolve him from the resolve, or debt, of not sinning; but he cannot free him from the debt of transferring to a stricter religious order — just as he cannot free him from the debt of restraining himself from sins.

V. Hence authors must be read cautiously who assert everywhere (as may be seen in the theologians of Salamanca, tract. 17, ch. 2, punct. 11, n. 91) that Prelates of Regulars can also dispense those who have made a vow of entering a stricter religious order, so that they may embrace a laxer one. For if the discussion concerns a laxer order — that is, one collapsed from regular discipline in substantial matters — their teaching is most false, since it is not even lawful for young men to enter such religious orders in the first place. The privileges of Eugene IV, which are commonly adduced, are apocryphal, nor do they pertain to the matter to which they are dragged.

VI. Neither in solemn vows, nor in vows which affect the very state proper to a religious order, and which are, as it were, singular prerogatives of such an Order, can Prelates dispense. Hence the vows of abstinence in the Order of the Minims, of restraining poverty in the Society of Jesus, of never seeking honors, of not soliciting dignities outside the religious order — which are made in certain Orders — can never be relaxed, or loosened, by Prelates. All this is common ground, such that scarcely anyone disagrees.