CHAPTER II: ON THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE PROPER TO RELIGIOUS WHO PROFESS SOLEMN VOWS

1185. • I. The things especially altogether proper to solemnly professed Religious are these:

1° Perpetuity of obligation such that it is dissolved only by an extraordinary way, for example through the Supreme Pontiff and only on account of a most grave and public cause, and most rarely.

2° Inability to contract matrimony validly, and dissolution of matrimony contracted but not consummated, since a simple vow of chastity of itself neither dissolves a contract nor invalidates one to be contracted, but only renders it illicit.

3° Exemption from the power of Ordinaries, or liberty from the power and jurisdiction of the Ordinary with immediate subjection to the Apostolic See; and this exemption is not acquired by Congregations of simple vows except by special communication of the Holy See. - But although these Congregations are subject per se to the Bishop, nevertheless they are subject only to his jurisdiction, and indeed excepting the Institute, in whose form and rule consequently he can change nothing. - I said: only to his jurisdiction; for economic and dominative power (that is, that which is from the vow) pertains to the Congregation itself. Hence, for example, elections of Superiors, admissions and expulsions of subjects, etc., pertain to it.¹

4° Incapacity of dominion in particular, or with respect to the individual. I say: in particular, for the Friars Minor of the Observance and Capuchins (but these alone) cannot possess immovable goods even in common.

Hence all gifts which are made to solemnly professed Religious are by that very fact acquired for the Monastery, not excepting legacies and inheritances, from the very well-known principle of Canon Law: "Whatever a Monk acquires, he acquires not for himself, but for the Monastery." This principle also holds as to other Religious within the limits of the vow of poverty, which does not take away from them the faculty of acquiring and possessing. Hence these can accept and acquire legacies and inheritances, although they cannot dispose of them without permission. As to other donations, they fall to the Monastery, unless they are made specifically by regard to the private person and not insofar as Religious. But then the Religious cannot accept without at least presumed permission, or under the condition of permission to be obtained.

But a Religious not solemnly professed retains direct dominion, and this dominion extends: 1) to temporal goods which he possessed before the vows; 2) to fruits or revenues of the same goods; 3) to those things which come to him by law without a new acceptance, as paternal inheritance, legacies, etc.; 4) to all goods which from parents, relatives, friends ... he accepts with permission of Superiors. Yet if these are consumable by use, they must be applied to the common use of the monastery according to custom, at least generally speaking.

5° Papal enclosure, without which a monastery with solemn vows cannot exist, although with it there can also exist a monastery in which simple vows only are pronounced.¹

I said: especially these are the things. For:

1186. • II. There are some things so proper to them that, although they are also found in very many Institutes of simple vows, nevertheless they are not necessary in all. Of this kind by common law are:

1° That the Novitiate (unless it is a question of places of heretics, in which by legitimate custom or dispensation of the Supreme Pontiff the contrary obtains) be made in habit; and last for a year, to be computed from the habit having been received,² and that year a) so entire that neither a day, and in the opinion of many, neither a quarter nor even a moment be lacking, and in a bissextile year one day be added;³ and b) so continuous (or not interrupted) that it is not morally repugnant to probation. But Profession made otherwise is null.⁴ - But interruption certainly is not had from sickness which prohibits from exercises, unless it was insanity; nor from violent abduction from the Novitiate, for example in a time of political disturbance, or of violent ejection; nor from a journey undertaken with the Superior approving, for example for managing his affairs; nor from dismissal to which a false accusation gave occasion.

Interruption certainly is had when someone, the habit having been laid aside and with the mind of not returning, goes out from the Novitiate. (There are those who deny that the Novitiate is interrupted when someone, the habit being retained, or indeed laid aside, but only for a few days, for example three or four, goes out, because interruption after the greater part of the Novitiate has already been completed would seem harsher. To decide an occurring case belongs to Superiors); likewise when someone by his own authority goes out of the house of probation in which he began the Novitiate, and passes to another house or province of the same Order, unless nevertheless this was done from levity and only for a few days; finally when someone passes to another Order.⁵

2° That donations and renunciations, even sworn, which are made by those entering Religion, be void unless they are made with permission of the Bishop or of his Vicar, within the two months nearest before profession, and profession afterwards follows. - Thus Trent, Sess. 25. c. 16 de Regul. The renunciation of a benefice is comprehended by the same Tridentine decree, and it also remains suspended.¹ The end of this decree is to remove from Novices the necessity of emitting profession; and so its disposition has place only in donations and renunciations which are made by regard to, or from the impulsive cause of, entrance, or under the condition of profession to be emitted; but not in others which are not made with that mind, or which do not prejudice liberty of going out, for example in a small donation; in a codicil; in a testament; in a donation mortis causa; for these are revocable up to profession.² Trent excepts the Society of Jesus from this decree of its own. The same Trent, in the cited place, under penalty of excommunication on givers and receivers, prohibits that during Novitiate anything from the goods of the novice be handed over to the monastery, and commands that to those departing before profession all things must be restored, expenses nevertheless for food, clothing, and other necessary and customary things being deducted, which those entering brought in and which were theirs.

3° That, if it is a question of men, conversi and laymen not emit solemn vows before the completion of the twenty-first year of age, Clerics before the sixteenth; nor these before the nineteenth, those before the twenty-fourth year, emit simple vows.³

4° That he who has been professed nullly, once five years have elapsed from the day of profession, can no longer make reclamation, unless from a just cause he has been restored in integrum by the Supreme Pontiff.⁴

1187. • III. From the Decree of Pius IX promulgated through the encyclical letters of the S. Congregation of Regulars given to the Superiors of Religious Orders, March 19, 1857, religious men of those Orders in which solemn vows are emitted, in the future, the novitiate having been completed, emit only simple vows, at least for three years; then they are admitted to solemn vows, if they are found worthy by their Superiors. But for just causes solemn profession can also be deferred longer, although not beyond the completed age of twenty-five years.¹

But from the declarations of the S. Congregation of Regulars given on Feb. 25, 1859, etc., and pertaining to the aforesaid decree, the simple vows in question are perpetual on the part of the one vowing, and dispensation from them is reserved to the Supreme Pontiff. Yet on the part of the Order they can be dissolved by the dismissal of the professed, so that, dismissal having been given, by that very fact the professed become free from every bond of the said vows. But no one can be dismissed on account of infirmity arising after profession of simple vows. Moreover the professed of these vows become participants in all graces and privileges by which the solemnly professed enjoy in the same Order.