DECREE OF PRAISE. - It is the first step of the Holy See in the approval of a religious Institute, which thus ceases to be of diocesan right and becomes of pontifical right (can. 488, 3°).
To obtain it, a petition is sent to the Supreme Pontiff signed by the superior general and by the members of the General Council, to which are added: the testimonial letters of the bishops in whose dioceses the Institute has houses; a report on the foundation of the Institute and its current state (number and quality of members, disciplinary and economic state, etc.); the Constitutions approved by the ecclesiastical authority; the document of aggregation to the first Order if it is a matter of regular Tertiaries.
This decree is generally not granted before the Institute has given proof of a normal and continuous development, of a fervent religious life and of good economic conditions. Not infrequently with the d. of l. the Constitutions are approved for a determined time.
With the d. of l., the Institute acquires a certain independence from the Ordinaries, who can no longer change anything in the Constitutions; the right of the bishop to confirm the election of the superior general ceases; the Ordinaries may not intervene in the financial administration (with the exception of the dowries of the religious and certain goods given for worship and works of charity in the diocese); the dismissal of the professed no longer depends on them. But the authority and especially the right of control of the Ordinaries over all the relations of the religious with the outside world, with the faithful, remain intact.
Bibliography2 works
Giuseppe Creusen