§ 1. What The Exemption Of Regulars Comprehends

2185. • The exemption of Regulars, provided there is question of a canonically erected Convent, generally comprehends the following:

I. AS REGARDS PLACES. Their churches, to which no parochial or quasi-parochial care of souls is annexed, are not subject to the Visitation of the Ordinary; nor their houses and oratories, whether public or private, joined to their houses; nor their chapels and altars of laymen or local Confraternities erected in these churches or oratories.³

But it must be noted what is read in the Constitution Romanos Pontifices of LEO XIII, 8 May 1881: "It has been established by common law... that houses which do not hold at least six religious members (of whom four are priests) must be entirely in the power of Bishops." - But Regulars dwelling in mission residences, although they may have been few, are not subject to Bishops "except in cases expressly named by law, and generally in those things which concern the care of souls and the administration of the Sacraments" (same Constitution).⁴

2186. • II. AS REGARDS PERSONS. Regulars are subject to the ordinary and exclusive jurisdiction of their own Prelates, insofar as no exception is established by the sacred canons or Apostolic Constitutions which declares in express words that they are subject in certain cases to the ordinary jurisdiction of Bishops or to jurisdiction delegated by the Holy See.⁵

Now it must be adverted: - 1. In odious things, under the name of subjects there come, generally, only professed Religious, both priests and lay brothers. 2. But in favorable things there come also novices, candidates admitted to probation, Oblates or Tertiaries dwelling in the monastery, and secular familiars, provided they are continuous table-companions, dwell within the enclosures of the Convent, and live under the obedience of Superiors⁶ (see what was said n. 1763, q. 2, concerning boarders).

2187. • Consequences. By force of this jurisdiction, which is called quasi-episcopal:

1. General Superiors can and must, either by themselves or through their Visitors, and provincial Superiors by themselves, VISIT the individual houses, persons, and churches subject to them: with every visitation of Bishops excluded, except in the cases to be excepted below (n. 2189).

2. The same Superiors can BRING against their professed subjects all those CENSURES which it is licit to inflict upon persons. The local Superior also can do the same, at least with the consent of the major Superiors (cf. n. 1256, 7, and 1774).⁷

3. All Superiors can DISPENSE with their subjects, in those things and in that manner in which and according to which Bishops can by law dispense with their own diocesans, namely: 1) as regards servile works on feast days and Sundays; 2) as regards fast and abstinence from flesh meats: concerning which "they can also accept for themselves and their own house those dispensations which the Bishop grants generally for the whole diocese";⁸ - 3) as regards the Divine Office, in the manner of Bishops, in particular cases, for a brief time and from a just cause, e.g. if there is doubt concerning moral impotence of reciting.⁹ (Moreover, from the concession of Clement VII, in favor of the sick and of those serving the sick who would not be excused of themselves, they can commute the Office into six or seven Psalms to be assigned by themselves, and seven Our Fathers and two Creeds);¹⁰ - 4) as regards prohibited books, in the manner of Bishops (i.e. in a case of great necessity, another privilege being set aside) (cf. n. 454, q. 2); - 5) as regards irregularities from an occult delict, and certain ones from defect, in which Bishops can dispense with diocesans, and even in the case of occult homicide, or one consummated outside the cloisters; in defect of body, "if someone should lack a foot or an eye, even the left"; in defect of birth (to dignities inferior to the Generalate), in bigamy, in defect of mildness, etc.;¹¹ - 6) as regards inabilities and penalties contracted from delict, such as privation of office, benefice, voice, place, etc., even if these have been reserved to the Roman Pontiff;¹² - 7) as regards all vows not reserved to the Pope; but reserved vows, if there is question of the vows of the three pilgrimages, they can irritate with professed members and suspend with novices, even if they themselves, or a predecessor, or a subaltern Superior, consented to their emission (cf. n. 638-640); - 8) as regards rules, in particular cases, unless dispensation has expressly been interdicted to them.¹³

4. It belongs to Superiors to ADMINISTER THE SACRAMENTS to any persons subject to themselves, or to see that they are administered; likewise, to approve confessors for their respective subjects, and to concede to them jurisdiction over the same, in the name of the Supreme Pontiff (cf. n. 1762-1763). - But these CONFESSORS, although they cannot absolve them, as formerly by privilege, from censures and cases specially or simply reserved to the Pope; nevertheless they can do this, with the special delegation of Prelate Superiors, by common law, insofar as Religious are impeded from going to Rome: according to what was said n. 1280, 3, and 1283. - Similarly the same confessors can absolve all their own, even novices, candidates, and familiars, from episcopal cases, unless there is question of a case brought before the contentious forum before their entrance¹⁴ (cf. n. 1762).

5. Superiors General and Provincials can give dimissorial letters to their subjects, yet professed ones, so that they may receive ORDERS, even outside the times, with the interstices not observed, on Sundays and feast days of precept (even suppressed ones), even continuously (cf. n. 1910).¹⁵

6. Regulars, by force of personal exemption, are not bound to intervene in DIOCESAN SYNODS. Except Abbots who are not subject to general Chapters of the Order, and those Regulars who exercise the office of pastors or quasi-pastors.¹⁶ Nor similarly are they bound to assist at conferences of cases of conscience, unless they exercise the care of souls (cf. n. 2254, end).

7. In administering TEMPORAL GOODS, male Regulars do not depend upon the Bishop.¹⁷ - Hence, when an inheritance has been left to an Order with the burden of Masses, or of pious works to be fulfilled either within or outside the Order, the Bishop cannot inquire concerning their execution. And the same must be said concerning Masses, whether founded or manual, even in those churches of Regulars to which the care of souls is annexed¹⁸ (cf. n. 1617, 1).

2188. • From these things you will resolve, FOR PRACTICE: the right of Regulars is composed with the right of pastors in the following manner.¹⁹

1. Regulars can, without the pastor being able to stand in the way, celebrate in churches at an hour that seems good to them, preach, announce the feasts, vigils, and fasts of the following week, and also distribute the Holy Eucharist on all days (Easter day excepted) (see also n. 677, 678).

2. Regulars, approved by the Bishop for confessions, can throughout the whole year, even in Paschal time, hear confessions of seculars, even of the sick. But after the confession of some sick person has been heard, they must notify the matter to the pastor at least by a writing left with the sick person: to which they can be constrained by the Bishop, under penalty of suspension from hearing confessions.

3. All the functions of Holy Week can freely be performed by Regulars in their own churches. Yet on Holy Saturday they cannot ring the bell before it is rung in the more dignified church, unless a contrary custom is in force, or unless the churches are very distant.

4. They can perform all blessings in their own churches: except the blessing of the baptismal font, and the nuptial blessing, and, where contrary custom or synodal statutes stand in the way, the blessing of women after childbirth.

5. Funeral Masses and burial, in the case in which someone has chosen it among Regulars, are not among parochial rights strictly so called. But the funeral fourth, or the candles lit at the exposition and association of the corpse, must be paid to the pastor in this case, unless a contrary custom is in force. But the bodies of the dead to be buried in cemeteries of Regulars must be carried by the direct path, and by the way to be declared by the pastor, to the churches of the Regulars themselves, but not first to the parish church, even if the heirs contradict. Thus the Sacred Congregation of Rites, 19 December 1671, in Savonen.²⁰

6. Although processions generally cannot be made by Regulars and by Confraternities which have been erected in their churches outside the cloisters without license of the Bishop, nevertheless that license suffices without the consent of the pastor. Indeed, during the Octave of Corpus Christi, a procession can be made outside the limits of the Convent without the permission of the pastor or even of the Bishop being sought.

7. Strangers, even if they should fall into sickness among Regulars, cannot receive Paschal Communion, Viaticum, or Extreme Unction from them without the pastor's license; for only familiars and boarders of Regulars enjoy this privilege, as we said above (n. 2186). - And the same holds for obsequies (cf. n. 2193, end).²¹