CHAPTER III: ON THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE PECULIAR TO NUNS

Prelim. Under the name of nuns, unless otherwise noted, here come those solemnly professed or to be professed. But they are either exempt or not. Of the exempt, some are subject to Regulars, others are not.

1188. • Dispositions of law proper to the Novitiate and Profession of nuns. - I. They are not to be admitted to the habit, a) before the completed fifteenth year of age (nor are they validly professed before the sixteenth).² b) The practice commonly in force requires permission either of the Bishop, if it is a question of non-exempt nuns or of exempt nuns who are not subject to regulars; or of the regular Prelate, if they are subject to regulars. I said: the practice commonly in force; because as to written law it is disputed.³ Moreover nuns, even if not exempt and professed by simple vows only, cannot be compelled by the Ordinary to receive some novice, or to manifest the cause why they do not admit her. Thus commonly. - The Decree of the S. C. on the State of Regulars, concerning which n. 1157. 7°, does not pertain to nuns.

II. They cannot licitly be admitted to profession: 1) unless the Bishop, or, he being absent or impeded, his Vicar, or another deputed by them, has previously examined them (the same must be done before receiving the habit). The examination can be made only within fifteen days after the Bishop has been made certain concerning the time of profession, which notification must be made by the Superior a month before profession. The examination must be performed at the grates of the monastery, and other questions are prohibited than those which the Council of Trent orders to be made, namely, whether she is being dedicated to God under compulsion; whether she has been seduced; whether she knows what she is doing? Yet those three questions can be expressed in various formulas; but one must avoid, by varying the formulas, running out into other matters; for example the question would be undue: whether she has at any time thought about entering Matrimony; whether she has lived as a Christian; whether she is liable to temptations or falls of the flesh, etc.

Although by the aforesaid law of the Council of Trent the Bishop is not bound except as to nuns who emit solemn vows - for the Council and St. Pius V speak of those to be received in order to Profession, which in law is solemn Profession - yet the Bishop can, if he wishes, forbid girls, even in Congregations which have either only simple vows or no vows, to be admitted to the habit or profession before an examination made by him, in which then he is not bound to the form determined by the Council of Trent and St. Pius V, but only to the prudence and equity prescribed by natural law.¹

2. If, the year of probation having been completed, the Bishop for a just cause has deferred profession.

3. If it is a question of a choir-nun, and the dowry, taxed by the Bishop and to be paid in money, has not been furnished. But Nuns cannot alienate the dowry, nor transfer it into another monastery into which the nun is transferred, unless this monastery is compelled to admit the nun. But it must be restored to one departing from the monastery if only simple vows are emitted in it. Yet it seems equitable that some part of the dowry be left to the monastery in compensation for expenses which were made for her support.³

4. The profession would be invalid if a novice who went out of the monastery on account of infirmity, afterwards, when she recovered, did not begin the novitiate anew.¹

5. The profession of nuns must be made principally into the hand of the Ordinary or his delegate, but not of the Abbess.... Yet it is valid if it is made into the hand of the Superioress with the consent of the greater part of the Chapter. - Thus by common law: for by particular law, custom, or Statutes of the Order confirmed, the right of admitting to profession can belong to the Bishop alone also. - Thus Fagnanus.²

6. The Decree of the S. Congregation of Regulars, dated March 19, 1857, which we related above n. 1187, does not pertain to nuns.

7. Solemnly professed Nuns cannot be transferred to another monastery without Indult of the Holy See, by which dispensation is made with the same concerning the law of enclosure.³

8. Causes of nullity of profession for non-exempt nuns are to be judged by the Ordinary alone; but for exempt nuns who are subject to regulars, by the Ordinary jointly with the Prelate to whom the governance of the monastery has been committed. In the case in which those judges would not agree, the case would have to be decided by the Apostolic See.⁴

1189. • III. Dispositions of law pertaining to the governance of nuns.

1° Once in the year the Bishop through himself or through another must make the canonical visitation of nuns; and indeed by force of his ordinary jurisdiction if they are not exempt; but if they are exempt and immediately subject to the Holy See, as delegate of the same See; if finally they are exempt and subject to regular Prelates, visitation must be made by regular Prelates, but at the same time the Ordinary can visit the monastery by reason of enclosure, that is, as to all things which pertain to the observance of enclosure.⁵

2° It belongs to the Bishop through himself or through another to preside over the election of the Superioress: and indeed by ordinary right, if the monastery is subject to him; but if it is immediately subject to the Apostolic See, the Bishop presides over it as delegated by the same See; but if it is subject to a regular Prelate, the Bishop can also, if he wishes, be present and preside, but only directively, not jurisdictionally: wherefore in this case he cannot receive the votes, but only hear and know them; but to receive them belongs to the regular Prelate, while the Bishop knows and hears. The elected Superioress must be confirmed either by the regular Prelate, if the monastery is subject to him; or by the Bishop, if it is not exempt: but if it is immediately subject to the Apostolic See, confirmation must be sought from the Supreme Pontiff.¹

3° The Bishop can demand each year an account of the administration of the temporal goods of nuns, even of exempt nuns, but as Apostolic delegate; he can remove administrators, whether they are regulars or seculars, but if it is a question of exempt nuns, he cannot constitute them; he will also be able, if it is a question of nuns who are not subject to Regulars and custom so has it, to exercise several other acts of administration concerning the goods of nuns, for example to require that for matters of greater moment his consent be had.²

4° If convents of nuns scattered in diverse dioceses are subject to a Superioress General, the power of the respective Bishop is to be determined in the following way. Either the Holy See, in approving the Constitutions of Congregations of this kind, determined the mode by which the nuns would depend on the various Ordinaries, as Benedict XIV determined in his Constitution Quamvis, April 30, 1749, as to the English Virgins, and then the rules thus given are certainly to be observed; or no such thing was determined, and then the nuns certainly also depend on each respective Bishop of the place where they reside, as to those things which are of episcopal jurisdiction, since this belongs to each respective Ordinary by reason of episcopal duty independently from others, and he cannot be deprived of them except in cases expressed in law. - But as to those things which are of mere economic administration, it does not seem possible to admit that nuns depend on each respective Ordinary when they are subject to a Superioress General; for these, as we have already said, do not pertain to Bishops by reason of episcopal duty, but only by reason of custom (this n. under 3°); but custom is not to be observed unless it is good and reasonable, which this certainly would not be. For if, for example, one Bishop wished to put over an Order or monastery a nun whom another Bishop wished to retain for himself; if certain religious certainly had to be cast out from one monastery or transferred elsewhere, with another Ordinary or the Superioress General refusing this very thing, how in these and six hundred other similar cases could unity of governance be present, or even could the Congregation itself stand? Therefore the custom is not reasonable by which, under the reason of economic governance, nuns subject to a Superioress General depend on each respective Ordinary; but they must depend on her alone.

5° Superioresses possess dominative power, by force of which, according to the opinion which is absolutely more probable to St. Alphonsus,¹ they can prescribe in virtue of holy obedience and irritate the vows of the professed;² deprive them of Communion on some day, but not oblige them to receive it more frequently or more rarely than seems good to their confessor.³ But they lack jurisdiction. Wherefore they cannot properly dispense in the Rule or ecclesiastical precepts, but either only declare cases in which subjects are excused from them (n. 147), or dispense from the commission of the regular Prelate to whom they are subject,⁴ or, as Gautrelet thinks,⁵ of the Bishop, if they are not subject to a regular Prelate. (u) p. 483.

6° If Superioresses by force of the Rule require an account of conscience, nuns are not held to declare to them their sins, whether present or past.⁶ (v) p. 483.

7° Nuns, even non-exempt, enjoy those privileges of Religious of their Order of which, according to their condition, they are capable.⁷

Concerning the obligation of nuns to choir, see the things said n. 1090. I, 1095, 1096; 1098. q. 9°; concerning the enclosure and confessors of nuns, the things to be said in the Treatise on Penance and on Censures.