Article VI. On the Obligation by Reason of Obedience

280. Prelates, both secular and regular, can, when a just cause exists, command their subjects to apply Mass. Thus holds the far more probable opinion, which is confirmed by nearly universal practice.⁴¹⁹ For although the application of Mass is an internal act and accordingly, in the opinion of some, does not fall under ecclesiastical law, nevertheless priests, by freely undertaking certain offices or emitting religious vows, have obligated themselves to all those things which are joined with such offices or with the vows. Moreover, the application of Mass is also sometimes joined with an office undertaken or with the religious state. Accordingly, no one denies that a pastor is bound under grave sin not only to celebrate Mass, but also sometimes to apply it for the people. The same applies to the conventual Mass of chapters to be applied for benefactors. A religious superior can command his subjects to apply Mass for an accepted stipend or from mere obedience. When the superior has accepted a stipend, he is considered to command the application under grave sin, because a grave obligation of justice has arisen for him also. But when he has commanded it from another motive, there is indeed an obligation of obeying, but disobedience commonly would not be a mortal sin. In practice, the laws of each religious institute must be attended to; these commonly do not bind under sin. A religious priest who, contrary to a grave precept of his superior, applies Mass otherwise applies it validly but illicitly. For the validity of the application depends solely upon the celebrating priest, since it is joined with the priestly order itself, as was said above in n. 243.

Whether by his own authority a bishop can command a private secular priest who has no ecclesiastical office to apply Mass for a determinate end is not established. For the application of Mass is a merely internal act, and there is no evident title by force of which the bishop can command this act. It is otherwise if the bishop commands by a special indult of the Holy See. Hence the Sacred Congregation of the Council decreed on May 8, 1920, that by virtue of an apostolic indult the local Ordinary can compel priests to apply a binated Mass, or a Mass from whose application for the people they have been dispensed, in favor of a pious cause.⁴²⁰ The Supreme Pontiff commanded the special application of the second and third Mass on All Souls' Day, as will be said below in n. 285.

⁴¹⁹ Pertinent here is the response of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, May 3, 1914 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis VI, 231): "Can religious superiors command their subjects, even in virtue of holy obedience, to celebrate according to the intention prescribed by the Constitutions or established by the superiors themselves, with the exceptions sanctioned by the Constitutions or by legitimate custom remaining intact? - Affirmative."

⁴²⁰ Acta Apostolicae Sedis XII, 541.