§ 3. Obligations of Vows

The explanation of the vow of poverty is the most difficult of the three vows. Wherefore, for the sake of clarity, a general idea of that vow seems to have to be placed before the other explanations.

— I. General Idea of the Vow of Poverty. By the vow of poverty, the religious promises to God that renunciation of exterior goods or riches which is prescribed by the constitutions of the religion as the matter of the vow.

In the present discipline of the Church, by force of the vow of poverty, from common law:

1. Every professed is prohibited from the independent use, for his own advantage, of any thing estimable by price; that is, he can use no thing estimable by price as his own, whether that thing is his own property, or belongs to the community, or to another person.

2. Every professed acquires for his religion the temporal fruits of his own industry, so that if he alienates the same without permission, he is also held to restitution on account of violated commutative justice. And this industry, if we take the norm of the responses of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, March 16, 1922, concerning moneys which come to religious on the occasion of military service, is to be taken very broadly, concerning every emolument of one's own action, even one foreign to the religious state, and concerning every donation which seems in some way remuneratory of such action, as is a donation made in reward of military virtue.

3. Those solemnly professed are incapable of ownership and, after such profession, acquire all things for the religion, if this is capable; otherwise, for the Holy See (c. 582).

It is also common that those simply professed of themselves preserve their patrimony and are capable of new acquisition.

All remaining things vary, whether you consider ownership of goods or dispositions concerning goods.

For what goods can those simply professed acquire? Quite often, besides goods which connaturally accede to the patrimony, also any legacies and gifts made in view of their own person. Yet this rule is not universal: the faculty of scholastics of the Society of Jesus is less broad.

As to dispositions concerning revenues, the professed sometimes disposes by his own free judgment; sometimes the disposition must be approved by Superiors; sometimes it is defined by the Constitutions themselves.

But concerning goods, c. 583 establishes this: To those professed of simple vows in religious Congregations it is not lawful: "1. By an act between the living to abdicate the ownership of their goods by gratuitous title." The making of a testament is prescribed to novices of religious Congregations, c. 569, §3. As to the mode of disposing of goods, sometimes, but not always, permission of the Superior is to be sought.

As to sanctions, a disposition illicitly made can be opposed either to the vow or to ecclesiastical law alone or to the Constitutions. More easily are acts contrary to the vow by which something is illicitly acquired or kept than acts by which someone illicitly renounces goods. And because in religious Orders simple profession succeeded solemn profession, which by the vow of poverty excluded all independent acts concerning any goods whatsoever, those simply professed in religious Orders seem, as often as they act illicitly, at the same time to violate the vow, while so absolute a rule cannot commonly be applied to religious Congregations.

The Constitutions must be consulted; the way in which the vow of poverty is commonly understood in the Institute must be considered.

4. But all, with due permission, can perform acts civilly necessary, for example for possessing or acquiring common goods.

— II. The remote matter of the vow of poverty is an external temporal thing estimable by price; therefore not honor, reputation, the very industry of the religious, or the application of Mass, but indeed the fruits of industry, stipends received for the application of Mass. Manuscripts, insofar as they are retained with the person, fall outside this matter, as too much joined with the person; but if the writer wishes to separate them from his person, now donation or alienation without permission is prohibited by the vow itself. Cf. Sacred Congregation of Religious, July 13, 1913.

A work made by art, a painted picture, are matter of the vow. But a religious artist does not violate the vow who from the beginning promises or cedes to someone the work by which he will make a statue or picture, especially if the other has furnished the material.

— III. With the goods which continue to belong to the professed now set aside, the following acts violate the vow, unless they are made honest by due permission: acquisition, in such a way nevertheless that permission can easily be presumed for accepting what yields to the utility of the religion; donation and renunciation of a right already acquired, in such a way that by refusing an alms or donation not yet accepted, though it must be said otherwise of a legacy, charity alone can be injured; exchange, in such a way nevertheless that if it concerns fungible things of the same kind, such as various coins of themselves are, this scarcely seems repugnant to the vow, and, from presumed permission, is done altogether honestly; so that exchange of things wholly similar lacks grave fault, and lesser fault is present in exchanges of similar things among brothers of the same house; consumption, in such a way that if you receive and consume food or drink among outsiders themselves, probably, according to Cardinal De Lugo (De iust. et iure, d. 3, n. 53), you do nothing except a use of fact by which the vow is not injured; otherwise if you carry things home and consume them there; loan and commodatum, in such a way that, if restitution is certain and the concession has been made for a brief time, there will not have been grave violation, and less grave if you give to a brother than to an outsider; use for other ends than those which have been taxatively indicated by the prelate expressly or tacitly, as if you do not expend the whole travel allowance given for a journey and, returned home, keep it for various uses; great negligence or quasi-dissipation in using clothing, etc., or consuming things of which, as for example paper and oil, disposition is permitted to the reasonable judgment of the religious; retention of a thing beyond the time for which it is conceded, as if you retain books of common use longer, but it will not be grave if another who needs them can easily recognize the holder; concealment of a thing, even one obtained with permission, done for this reason, lest the Superior be able to take the thing away. If the thing is concealed or locked up for another end, for example lest others see it importunately, or lest a Superior of lesser grade petition revocation of the faculty, the vow will not be violated, unless the permission is judged to have been given on this condition, that nothing be closed to the immediate Superior.

— They do not violate the vow, although they can be illicit from elsewhere: administration of another's thing, made in his name; destruction of a thing, probably, if you do it merely with the mind of doing harm, taking no utility from it; acceptance of money for a pious use, whether determined, which all concede, or even, as is probable, to be defined by the religious himself, provided that he cannot use the thing also for profane uses by his own judgment; administration of a benefice, since it accedes to a spiritual thing; possession of goods in common.

What concerning a deposit properly so called, not concerning a certain simple custody of a thing furnished? A deposit seems to others repugnant to the vow, since the depositary takes on an obligation to which he cannot fully satisfy except as owner; which others deny, since it contains no act of ownership over the thing deposited.

— The permission by which the vice of proprietorship is warded off must proceed from the proper competent Superior of the religious. Wherefore, unless the constitutions subject guests to the Superior of the house in which they are staying, he will not be able to give permission except to those religious who have domicile or quasi-domicile in the house over which he presides.

Permission would be invalid if it were extorted by force or fraud. But of itself it can be general, special, express, tacit, reasonably presumed. Presumption is plainly legitimate in circumstances where the prelate is prudently judged to oppose neither the thing or substance of the fact, nor the mode by which you act, that is, permission not having first been petitioned. For then the act is made dependently upon the will of the prelate. On the contrary, permission which would be denied cannot be presumed. If the prelate, having been asked, would have conceded permission, but is opposed to the fact that you did it with himself not consulted, then either he is judged so disposed that absolutely he would not will the thing to be used by you without permission, or, the negligence being known, he would be opposed merely to the omission of permission. In the latter case, he is unwilling only as to the mode, nor is the vow injured; in the former case, he is said to be unwilling by reason of the mode as to the substance, and the vow has been violated. Displeasure which seems likely to be grave or light can be held as a sign of one or the other repugnance.

After the fact, it is of itself fitting to admonish the Superior concerning presumed permission, and not rarely the rule enjoins it. Yet to omit this is not opposed to poverty, unless the matter, not plainly past, has some successive course, as if you keep with yourself a thing accepted from a presumed faculty.

Of itself, unless otherwise established, the permission which a prelate now performing an office previously gave continues to be valid; but he cannot give permissions to himself, as to an inferior, for the later time: for he was never subject to himself.

The dissent of a greater prelate, or a simple prohibition made by the same, of itself takes nothing away from the power of a lesser prelate, who therefore can validly concede what the greater Superior has denied. Yet the latter can weaken the former's faculty in advance or after the act.

From a reasonable interpretation, express permission of receiving several medals, rosaries, and little images in number is tacit permission of distributing them; but permission made to someone of giving or receiving, when from the declaration of the Superior or from usage it is judged to regard all, consequently gives to others the faculty of receiving or giving. Yet one must act in good faith, lest one person seem to have been constituted through whom all mutual gifts, with the Superior unaware, pass. And unless the prelate has contradicted it, from tacit or presumed permission, religious can, when the prelate cannot be approached, give modest alms in grave necessity of the poor or when this seems to pertain to edification. The same must be said concerning slight donations which are, as it were, owed from gratitude, if the religious has certain goods conceded to himself for use. St. Alphonsus, l. 4, n. 21. And when, as in certain religions it has been accustomed to be done for clothing, a certain amount of moneys or things is so given for the support of the religious that neither the monastery must supply anything nor he himself render an account, or if he is staying outside the cloister, the faculty is judged conceded of giving to whomever he pleases that which by living more sparingly he has obtained as remaining over.

— IV. Grave Matter. 1. The question concerning grave injury of poverty is reputed difficult and is accustomed to be treated incompletely. For although today most religious are no longer solemnly professed, nevertheless present moral treatises are accustomed to examine only those cases which formerly were almost universal, namely of religious who can have nothing proper. Yet it is manifest that donation of a thing which a religious truly possesses cannot be assimilated to donation of a thing not possessed. Donation of the former, unless there were a positive prohibition, would not even be contrary to the vow of poverty. For by donating or abdicating, someone becomes poorer.

2. When there is question of the vice of proprietorship properly so called, or of acts which are prohibited by the vow to be done concerning things not proper to oneself, the more common opinion proposes this rule: the same quantity which would constitute grave theft is to be indicated as a grave injury of religion in one professing poverty. That rule rests upon a certain likeness between theft and sin against the vow of poverty: in each an undue appropriation is committed.

But this rule must be explained more; for there is absolutely and relatively grave matter of theft. Most take matter relatively grave, with account had of the riches or poverty of the monastery itself. Yet there is not question of estimating damage, which pertains to injustice, but of weighing neglect of due dependence upon Superiors, which seems to be the same whether the thing wrongly usurped belongs to a poor or to a rich one. Wherefore Palmieri, t. IV, whom Genicot follows, II, 98, thinks that an absolutely grave quantity must be taken. That opinion will be safe in a religion whose approved authors have defended it: the intention of those vowing can be judged accommodated to this, who can, not indeed turn light matter into grave, but attenuate the obligation which of itself would correspond to the matter.

But elsewhere we would not put it forward; for it seems to us alien from the true. For does not another relative consideration succeed in place of the relative consideration of damage or detriment brought? Both, justice and poverty, regard property, but in a different way: the former, that you may preserve another's property inviolate; the latter, that you may repel it from yourself. Therefore, just as under the former respect the question concerning grave matter is posed thus: what is notable spoliation of another, so under the other respect, which is our present one, this question must be solved: what is notable acquisition of a religious as such? But that this varies according to the manner of living of the one acquiring is manifest. And who will deny that a religious who, as a Capuchin Friar Minor, professes strict poverty sins gravely by a lesser quantity than a regular canon of a wealthy monastery? Wherefore we judge that the condition in which the religious who has sinned stands from his profession is to be attended to. Is it, as in most present religions, the condition of an honest priest? Matter grave in comparison with an honest priest will of itself have to be taken.

3. But a much greater quantity is required when a religious, without due permission, disposes of goods whose ownership he lawfully keeps. For then not so much the thing as the very distribution or administration is usurped. Wherefore: a. if he disposes for himself, we judge that he sins gravely when from this he draws a tenor of life which gravely derogates from the profession of poverty; b. but if he attributes to another, the quantity absolutely grave in the account of theft could perhaps be taken four or five times. And if the use was a work of piety, or something similar, the Superior will scarcely of himself be gravely unwilling.

4. Several things which are accustomed to make the prelate, whose permission removes the vice of poverty, less unwilling attenuate the gravity of the sacrilege, so that there is need of a greater quantity for lethal sin. Hence, if there is question of edibles and drink, especially for the present use of the religious, unless the thing was extraordinary and precious, grave fault will be absent; the fault is also of itself lighter if from common things you illicitly take for yourself or give to brothers of the same house than if you give to outsiders; if you intend a useful use than if a vain one.

And it is clear that when use alone is usurped, the value of the use is to be considered.

On the contrary, because the prelate is judged more unwilling, several wish that one sins more gravely against the vow if at the same time he has injured justice than if he has injured religion alone.

5. Small sacrileges, although often repeated, do not seem to coalesce. Yet he sins gravely from the beginning who deliberately accepts small things with the mind of progressing to grave matter; and he who, from several things preserved, has with himself a grave value which he cannot retain without grave guilt.

— A religious injures justice, whether toward the religion or toward outsiders, who damages, steals, retains for himself, or gives to others what by right belongs to the community or to others, all these things being understood as is explained in the treatise On Justice. But when the detriment belongs to his own religion, although the very severity of discipline and the lesser faculty of disposing in a prelate, who is not owner but administrator, does not allow that the religious be judged a son under family power, nevertheless, because the goods of the religion yield to the utility of the religious, their case seems able to be estimated more benignly than that of outsiders, so that you can increase somewhat, for example by half, the quantity required for grave sin.

The cases are:

a. of injury without sacrilege: as if a religious, merely from the mind of doing harm, brings damage upon another's thing, or as confessor unjustly dispenses someone from restitution;

b. of sacrilege without injury: as if the religious otherwise applies or hands over to another what he could consume unproductively for a certain end; if he takes for himself what the prelate would not have denied him; if what he has spared of money, for example on a journey, he expends otherwise in the same moral time; if from outsiders he accepts something consumable by use and offered exclusively to himself;

c. of sacrilege concurring with injury: as if he does not hand over to the religion the fruits of his own industry, for example Mass stipends received.

And grave injury can be light sacrilege, and conversely: as if a religious snatches a modest quantity from a poor person, or, conversely, takes for himself a great amount of money from a person lightly unwilling.

— Because permissions and obligations of religious are judged to have been made or undertaken for no temporal profit of the Institute but for the sake of religion, sloth or laziness of a religious does not seem to be condemned as injustice. A religious will make restitution to the community by avoiding expenses which he could lawfully make from common goods, by handing over to the community what he could have applied to other uses. Yet for that reason he must not deprive himself of things which are referred to his own honest support.

— On Common Life and on Peculium. A threefold account of common life can be distinguished. The first is had when, other things being equal, religious are clothed, fed, and treated in a morally equal way. Other things being equal, insofar as Superiors at the same time with paternal charity provide for the peculiar necessities of a weaker body, and, with attention to the end of the Institute, procure what special studies or ministries can require.

Another account is observed if religious obtain necessary things for themselves from the community, formally or equivalently. Formally, as when things are bought with common money; equivalently, as when things bought with another's money are handed over to the free disposition of the Superior, and are conceded for use to the religious for whom they were destined by the buyer only dependently upon the will of the Superior and precariously.

Finally the third account demands that things be administered commonly, and that there be no portion of common things which the religious, beyond what present necessity morally requires, is permitted to possess, administer, or hold for his own uses.

The first account of common life procures uniformity; the other, common possession; the third, common administration.

To the second and third account of common life peculium is opposed. But peculium is distinguished into that of perfect right, which the Superior now cannot take away, and that of imperfect right, which can be circumscribed or taken away by the Superior. Peculium of perfect right is opposed to the vow of poverty, just as it is commonly understood in present law; peculium of imperfect right is not of itself repugnant to the vow, but if there is question of lasting peculium and one received, as it were, by customs, it is alien from the mind of the Church. She urges everywhere the prudent restoration of common life. But a custom which is opposed to the Code cannot be tolerated unless centenary or immemorial, insofar as Ordinaries have judged this opportune.

2. Now the Code, c. 594, §1, prescribes that "in any religion common life be observed by all, even in those things which pertain to food, clothing, and furniture." Besides, in §2 it is enjoined that whatever religious, even Superiors, acquire by their own industry or by reason of religion, and whatever goods come to an Order by reason of the solemn profession of members, be mixed with common goods, and that any money and all securities be deposited in the common chest.

With this prescription of the second paragraph saved, the common life of which in §1 seems able to be understood as it is imposed by the constitutions. This is confirmed by c. 2389. For canon 2389 commands Superiors gravely to admonish, and, if amendment has not followed, to punish religious who in a notable matter violate the law of common life as prescribed by the constitutions.

— There does not exist a special virtue of poverty, since riches and the possession of them are of themselves indifferent. But excessive affection toward temporal goods, just as in another person, so also in a religious, is to be charged as a sin which, according to the varying case, will be opposed to varying virtue.

— Matter of the Vow. By the vow of chastity, which coheres intimately with the profession of sanctity, a religious is prohibited, from the motive of religion: a. from all lust, internal and external; b. from marriage during profession.

For the common understanding of the matter has it thus: that the material object of the vow is the same as that of the virtue. Yet it can happen that, with the virtue intact, only the vow of chastity is violated, and conversely. One who is bound by a simple vow contracts marriage illicitly but, with peculiar exception saved, validly. If he uses the same, he will indeed injure the vow but not the virtue of chastity. And he who, himself free of lust, induces someone to sin with another person, will have sinned against the virtue, but not against the vow.

Some charge the violation of a solemn vow as a stricter sacrilege; but that the species varies on account of solemnity is not demonstrated.

Marriages honorable of themselves, with a pact of continence and therefore with a vow of chastity, can be composed together. But in the vow of chastity of religious, a vow of celibacy is judged to be contained, as is proved by the canonical penalties themselves to be alleged immediately below.

— Juridical Effects. "Religious who have professed solemn vows attempt marriage invalidly" (c. 1073).

Besides, "a marriage not consummated between baptized persons, or between a baptized party and a non-baptized party, is dissolved... by the law itself through solemn religious profession" (c. 1119).

With a special disposition set aside, as in the Society of Jesus, a simple vow of chastity does not dirime marriage. And by no simple profession is a marriage merely ratified dissolved. But by simple profession nuptials are prohibited; and every vow of chastity of religious, since it is public, is reserved to the Holy See. Concerning the effect of dismissal or departure with indult, cf. below, nn. 154, 157.

— Penal Sanction. Those solemnly professed who presume to contract marriage even civilly only, just like persons who presume to contract nuptials with them in the same way, are punished with an excommunication latae sententiae simply reserved to the Holy See. If there is question of those professed of perpetual simple vows, the excommunication latae sententiae is reserved to the Ordinary (c. 2388).

On account of the word "presume," every ignorance, with affected ignorance alone excluded, excuses from the censure. But the Ordinary to whom the excommunication is reserved, since the Code defines nothing further, seems to be the one to whom the penitent is actually subject.

— Account of the Vow. The vow of obedience of religious is a promise made to God of the obedience which is owed in religious life.

1. Whom one must obey. By force of the vow of obedience, the religious must obey: a. that hierarchical prelate who commands him as a religious by power of jurisdiction. This is, as to Orders and Congregations of pontifical law, the Supreme Pontiff (c. 499, §1) and the regular Prelate, at least exempt; as to diocesan religions, also the bishop or quasi-bishop; b. those who are placed over the internal governance of the religion or house: therefore the religious Superior properly so called, and also, if usage bears this, others to whom the Superior has communicated his power, as to a Prior, sub-Prelate, or Minister, sub-Rector. But usage rather has it that, at least when the Superior of the house is present, he alone is to be obeyed from the vow. Yet in other matters the authority of the Superior himself, and thus the vow, could be violated.

2. The remote matter of the vow is contained in all those things which either are explicitly presented by the rule or constitutions, or belong to it reductively, insofar as they are at least very suitable for the observance of the rule: thus mutual services, suitable punishment of delicts. For religious vow obedience according to their religious manner of life. St. Thomas, 2, 2, q. 104, art. 5 ad 3.

Although the matter is disputed, internal acts do not seem able to be directly prescribed, since obedience owed to man cannot exceed the mutual conversation of men, which is circumscribed by external things.

In doubts concerning power, the presumption stands for the Superior, at least when the matter belongs to the genus in which it is established that the Superior can command; in doubts concerning the honesty of the matter, if the Superior prescribes what is probably honorable, he seems to have to be obeyed, though Lessius is contrary, c. 41, n. 76. In negative doubts, let the subject simply commit himself to the governance of Superiors.

— The proximate matter of the vow of obedience comprehends precepts strictly such, which are imposed on religious as such by force of dominative power or even of jurisdiction.⁽¹⁾ Precepts strictly such, that is, by which the Superior intends to oblige conscience; on religious as such, that is, precepts which are referred to their proper state, not to the common condition of citizens or the faithful, such as precepts concerning the observing of sacred times; by force of dominative power or even of jurisdiction, so that he also will have violated the vow who has transgressed a rule obliging under sin. Yet one must see how the vow is commonly understood in the religion of the one vowing. But violation of the special law of religious or of laws which have been made for religious does not seem contrary to the vow unless it brings forth properly so-called precepts.

In many religions today, the Superior is not judged properly to command, not even under light sin, through the very words: "I strictly prescribe"; "I enjoin under precept"; but it is necessary that he command in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of holy obedience, or by at least some other manner clearly express his will of obliging conscience.

Therefore he sins against the vow:

1. Who impedes the precepts themselves while he tries to withdraw himself from the dominion of Superiors in perpetuity or for a time: through apostasy, flight, or by illicitly procuring his own expulsion.

2. Who virtually violates the precepts when, even on the occasion of a simple command, he absolutely declares: "I do not wish to obey, I will not do it," understanding that of every matter or of some grave matter. If he limits it to a small matter, which seems to him useless or ridiculous, the violation will not have been grave.

3. Who violates a precept obliging under sin.

Violation of the vow of obedience is sacrilege; and besides, a sin, generally light, against observance toward the Superior to whose dominative power the religious is subject. If the Superior, which he is not presumed to do, has used his power of jurisdiction in commanding, the sin will also be opposed to that virtue to which the matter prescribed pertains.

⁽¹⁾ There are those (Suarez, Rel., tr. 7, l. 10, c. 2, n. 5; Sanchez, Dec., 4. 11, 25) who think that it remains entire for the Superior, when he prescribes by force of jurisdiction, either to urge or to omit the obligation of the vow. Rather, from our very definition of religious obedience, we would take away the opposite opinion from Lugo. Cf. Lugo, Paenit., 10, 172.

— An Opportune Manner of Prescribing. It pertains to the gentle governance of Superiors that they rarely induce the guilt of sin by their precepts. But a religious who does not obey the more broadly preceptive will of the prelate, although he is not a transgressor of his vow, nevertheless will offend observance toward the Superior, charity toward the community, and humility; and habitual disobedience of this kind does not seem to be excused from grave guilt, whether on account of the sadness by which it affects the Superior and Brothers, or on account of the common detriment which it effects, or on account of the danger of expulsion which it thus prepares. It is not rarely said to transgress the virtue of obedience, or obedience commonly so called. Yet the special virtue of obedience does not intervene here.