§ 3. Obligations Common to Priests

— By canons 126-131 these things are imposed on priests:

1. At least every third year, spiritual exercises, in some pious or religious house. To the proper Ordinary pertain: the designation of the house; the determination of the time; the faculty of exempting a priest in a particular case. Express permission is required (c. 126).

Although c. 592 carries over to religious all obligations contained in cc. 125-142, c. 126 affects only seculars. For it expressly names secular priests; and, from the nature of the matter, the proper constitutions of religious will define what they themselves must perform in this matter.

Because the word "at least" is used, it remains entire for the Ordinary of the place to prescribe more frequent exercises;

2. A peculiar obligation of reverence and obedience (c. 127).

For they are held by a formal promise of obedience; a more frequent useful occasion of obedience is offered to them; with greater harm to the Church and to souls they refuse obedience. The scope of the obligation is defined from the nature of the state and from custom; the promise adds an obligation of fidelity. The bishop can command them from jurisdiction alone;

3. Continuation of sacred studies and, for three years, an annual examination (cc. 129, 130).

The obligation of examination also affects pastors and canons, "unless they have been exempted by the Ordinary of the place for a just cause." The ordering of the examinations belongs to the Ordinary of the place. In conferring offices, account is to be had of those who have stood out more in the remembered tests (c. 130, §2);

4. The obligation of assisting at collations or conferences concerning moral and liturgical matters, and at other exercises which the Ordinary has added as opportune for promoting the knowledge and piety of clerics. These collations are to be instituted in the episcopal city and in the individual vicariates forane or deaneries (c. 131).

These collations must be had more often in the year. How often? This is left to the judgment of the Ordinary. He also establishes norms for sending written responses, if it is difficult for the meeting to be held; and he grants a dispensation, which must be express.

The obligation holds all secular priests; but religious also, even exempt, if they have care of souls, or, being approved for confessions by the Ordinary of the place, lack collations in their own houses. A pastor or quasi-pastor has care of souls, but not a cooperating vicar. Those who contumaciously refuse to be present at collations must be punished; religious confessors who do not exercise care of souls must be suspended from the confessions of seculars.

N.B. - Concerning vocation and the required qualities, we shall treat more conveniently where we treat of the sacrament of Order.

— I. Negative Obligations. 1. On account of danger to virtue and reputation, clerics must keep from themselves women easily suspected; nor can they cohabit except with near relatives or their family, or with women of such probity and age as, in the judgment of the Ordinary, removes every suspicion. Common life, however, is commended to clerics.

2. For protecting peace of soul and honest support, clerics illicitly become sureties without consulting the Ordinary.

3. On account of the decorum of their state, they are prohibited: a. to exercise unbecoming arts; b. to spend time on games of chance, money being exposed, or to indulge in them notably; c. to carry arms, especially publicly, without a just cause; d. to indulge in hunting or to exercise noisy hunting; e. to enter taverns without necessity or a cause approved by the Ordinary. A tavern, from common law, is a common eating-house; but the stricter discipline of certain places must be observed; f. to go to public theaters or, when it is unbecoming, to be present at spectacles, dances, and pageants: concerning cinematographic spectacles the usages of places must be attended to.

4. On account of discrepancy between their proper offices and these other things, they are prohibited: a. without apostolic indult, to exercise medicine or surgery. In the indult which, for example, is granted to missionaries, an incision or cauterization such as may bring danger of life or mutilation is of itself excepted; b. to act as public notaries, unless in the ecclesiastical Curia; c. to assume public offices which bring with them the exercise of lay jurisdiction or administration, such as those of judge or prefect of a province; d. without the permission of their own Ordinary, to manage the goods of laymen or to fulfill secular offices which oblige them to render accounts. Secular clerics, however, can be tutors of related persons; e. to be procurators or advocates outside an ecclesiastical tribunal, unless there is question of their own cause, and perhaps that of relatives, or of their church; f. in a lay criminal trial pursuing a grave personal penalty, to intervene, even as witnesses, without necessity; g. without the consent both of their own Ordinary and of the Ordinary of the place of election, to solicit or accept the office of senator or deputy. Bishops and Ordinaries need at least the tacit assent of the Holy See; h. voluntarily to undertake military service, unless, with the consent of their own Ordinary acceding, they do so that they may more quickly be freed from the burden (c. 141); i. to exercise commerce or business by themselves or through others, for their own utility or for the utility of others. The prohibition first comprehends every gainful business, that is, by which things are bought with the intention that, morally unchanged, they be sold at a higher price; it also touches artificial business, by which things are bought so that, by industry or art, having been reduced into a more useful form, they may be sold more dearly, unless clerics apply their own industry, or there is question of the fruits of their own field. Thus it is lawful, even through hired workers, to fatten animals in one's own pastures and to sell them fattened with profit. The buying together of things which are then retailed to others (negotiatio politica) must also be avoided, unless the end of charity or mercy prudently commands it. But economic dealing is not prohibited, by which fruits collected from one's own field are sold, or things which remain over from goods broadly bought for one's own use; or things which, bought for one's own use, are then, with a plan changed, sold even with profit. Yet every mode which may be unbecoming to clerics must be avoided.

Forbidden business is permitted to be exercised neither by oneself nor through others, whether for one's own utility or for that of others.

But, with stock-exchange dealings and the administration of companies excluded, clerics today do not seem to be prohibited from peacefully possessing securities, even shares, of companies, even commercial ones, and, when the occasion is given, profitably exchanging them: because in common estimation these things neither are unbecoming to clerics nor make anyone a merchant or businessman. Yet there are those who think more strictly.

A cleric will have sinned gravely who has exercised forbidden business, and is said to have to be restrained by suitable penalties; he is excused at least from grave sin who has done this once or again, or on occasions morally separated. It is also tolerated that a cleric who has succeeded to his father carry on the paternal business through others, namely connected co-heirs; or that he provide for his own poverty by honest business. In other successions or necessities, permission or dispensation of the Holy See in Italy, or, with the conditions observed, of the Ordinary outside Italy, will have to be obtained.

II. Positive Obligations. - 1. All clerics must: a. lead an interior and exterior life holier than laymen; b. show their proper Ordinary reverence, according to received custom, and obedience, so that they are prompt in obeying the laws, precepts, and admonitions of competent Superiors. Therefore clerics, not legitimately impeded, must accept and faithfully fulfill the very office which, for the necessity of the Church, has been committed to them by the bishop (c. 128); c. acquire for themselves solid doctrine; d. show a simple care of the hair; e. wear decent ecclesiastical dress, such as is defined by the custom and prescriptions of the Ordinary of the place: to put aside that dress for five or six days without cause is reputed grave if it is done by a beneficed cleric or by a cleric of major orders; f. wear the clerical crown, unless the received customs of peoples bear otherwise: yet this obligation is not judged grave. As to the beard, one must not depart from the custom of the diocese; g. reside in their own diocese in such a way that, without permission, at least presumed, of the Ordinary, they are not long absent from the diocese.

2. All clerics of major orders: a. are kept from marriage by a diriment impediment, and are held by the obligation of preserving perfect chastity, so that those sinning are guilty of sacrilege. And in the Latin Church, they must emit a vow of chastity. Since this is an obligation of state, the candidate himself will have sinned gravely who petitions sacred ordination while he could not prudently judge himself morally fit for fulfilling it; that is, if it would be too difficult for him to avoid every scandal and to preserve perfect chastity, at least habitually. Therefore, regularly, sufficient proof of virtue is to be required before sacred ordination; and that proof is to be the more certain the greater the danger of relapse and scandal is, the less the remaining capacity is, and the easier withdrawal from the priestly state is. And even outside a custom properly so called, clerical life is regularly to be dissuaded for those whose future chastity is foreseen as only maimed and interrupted; b. they are held to daily recitation of the canonical hours from the very moment of received subdiaconate, in such a way nevertheless that even before ordination they seem able validly to recite the hours following it.

Beneficiaries, however, are held from the day of accepted possession of the benefice, if they perceive or will perceive the fruits. Those gravely negligent, at least after the first six months, do not make the fruits their own pro rata, so that from justice they must distribute them either to the fabric of the church, or to the diocesan seminary, or among the poor. With attention to the slightness of benefices, almost never, at least in many regions, will there be place for paying this penalty.

Those solemnly professed, in religions in which there is an obligation of choir, must recite the Breviary at least privately from the moment of profession.

One obliged by several titles nevertheless satisfies the debt by one recitation.

The substantial obligation is that the canonical hours be recited entirely every day "according to the proper and approved liturgical books" (c. 135). Today the obligation of reciting the litanies of All Saints on the very feast of St. Mark and on the Rogation days is certain, but less certainly grave. Those litanies cannot be anticipated on the previous day.

As to the mode of recitation, vocal recitation is prescribed, so that words be formed; without syncopation or abbreviation of words and syllables: the defect will generally be venial, or even excused by stammering or by invincible custom against which one acts; devout, from the intention of worshiping God, and with at least that attention which is called external, and which looks to this: that exterior actions be excluded which cannot be composed with internal attention. Internal attention is distinguished into superficial, or to correct pronunciation; literal, or to the sense of the words; spiritual, or to God and divine things. A different mortal sin does not obstruct the substance of the obligation. Recitation is prescribed, under venial sin, as continuous, so that, excepting a just cause, in one morally continuous course you recite those things which are not permitted to be separated. The individual offices must be recited in their own order: yet the substitution of another office from the same breviary is of itself venial; and, if done from error, satisfies the obligation. A change of order among the hours is venial; nor is it judged grave if in the same hour you invert the order of the parts, provided that you do not change the form too much.

As to time: the office is the burden of the day, so that the whole must be recited under grave obligation from midnight to midnight; the obligation is light of reciting before noon Matins with Lauds and the first two little hours; after noon, however, Vespers and Compline. On the ferias of Lent, after the first Sunday, Vespers, from the rubric, not under fault, are recited before the meal, just as in any part of the year Matins with Lauds are recited before the sacred rite: nor is the obligation of this under fault established. Matins with Lauds can already be anticipated on the preceding day from the second hour; and a greater anticipation is granted quite easily. Foresight of an impediment does not oblige you to anticipate on the preceding day; but a sufficiently certain opinion obliges you to recite Vespers and Compline in the morning if you foresee an afternoon impediment.

The obligation of the divine office is grave. And from the common opinion, which is demonstrated by general persuasion rather than by speculative arguments, the omission of one little hour must be reputed grave, if you except Vespers of Holy Saturday. But, unless acts of will are multiplied by cessation or inconstancy, he commits one sin who has omitted the whole office of one day.

The excusing causes are impotence, from lack of one's proper liturgical book, blindness, etc.; but a notable part which you can recite from memory, you will have to recite; grave inconvenience from external danger, or from dim eyes or from great scruples, from grave illness, or even light illness if it is joined with notable heaviness of the head, weariness of strength, or probable danger or fear of such inconvenience. In doubt there is no obligation; and convalescents, for some days, are excused by the judgment of prudent persons. A graver extraordinary occupation also excuses; for, unless you are dispensed, the obligation of the breviary must be combined with ordinary occupations. Without cause only the Supreme Pontiff can dispense from the breviary; for a just cause a Legate of the Roman Pontiff commutes the breviary, and for a brief time, from universal custom, but not from the Code, the Ordinary of the place does so. In negative doubt concerning the recited breviary, but not in positive probable doubt, the office must be paid. Pious recitation is to be procured in a suitable place. In the recitation of the breviary all scrupulosity must be guarded against. A cathedral and collegiate chapter, and religions which have choir, if four obliged to choir and actually not impeded are present, are held, with indults saved, to the psalmody of the hours and to the conventual Mass. The obligation is grave, in such a way nevertheless that the omission in choir of one little hour is not judged grave by many. The time must be estimated according to the common usage of the place.

One reciting with a companion or in choir must himself recite his proper part. And the psalms, but not the lessons and hymns, must be recited in alternate verses by all. He must also try in a human way to attend to those things which are recited by the companion, by abstaining from reflexively voluntary distraction. Distinct perception which is impeded by some cause does not obstruct validity. Any companion can be chosen. And for one reciting with a companion it is enough that the companion substantially recite his own part.

3. All priests must: a. at least every third year perform spiritual exercises according to the prescriptions of the Ordinary; b. particularly show reverence and obedience to their Ordinary: the promise made in ordination adds an obligation of fidelity; c. for three years undergo an annual examination concerning sacred studies; d. be present at collations concerning moral and liturgical matters, and at other exercises which the Ordinary has prudently commanded; e. celebrate Mass several times in the year.

III. The obligation of celibacy and of the canonical hours is not contracted by a cleric who, coerced by grave fear, has received sacred order, unless afterward, the fear having been removed, he has ratified the same ordination, at least tacitly through the exercise of the order by which he has signified that he subjects himself to the obligations of clerics. Wherefore, coercion and defect of ratification having been legitimately proved, he is reduced to the lay state by judicial sentence. This he can also obtain without judicial form from the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments.

Therefore the prudent selection of seminarians is commended also for this reason, lest afterward they be able to allege pretexts for petitioning relaxation of obligations: which harms virtue and zeal not a little. The seminary should be open to no one who would wish to enter not fully free, not led by supernatural motives, or with a temperament too prone to venery or loves.