SOCIETY WITHOUT PUBLIC VOWS. - I. NOTION. - They are thus defined by the CIC in can. 637 § 1: "Societies of men or of women, in which the members imitate the manner of life of religious, living in common under the rule of superiors according to approved constitutions, but are not bound by the usual three public vows," that is to say, of poverty, chastity and obedience. In substance, therefore, such s. are characterized by four positive elements: common life, hierarchical government, approved constitutions, and the endeavor to imitate religious in the pursuit of evangelical perfection.
They lack a note essential to the canonical religious state: public vows, that is, received by the legitimate superior in the name of the Church (can. 1308 § 1) and as such recognized by the same. Common life brings them close to Religions (v.) and differentiates and distinguishes them from secular institutes and from associations of the faithful. The absence in them of public vows does not exclude every idea of vows; on the contrary, there are found s. that emit promises or vows, professing one or another of the so-called "evangelical counsels" or even all three, but in private form, that is, without their being received in the name of the Church or recognized by it as public.
The CIC has thus framed, insofar as it differentiates them among themselves, within the norms that regulate the religious state, also these institutes, male and female, in which the stable common life is hierarchically set up on the model of true religious families.
II. HISTORY
The 12th century saw the first societies of common life without public vows in the Beguines of Belgium, founded by Lambert of Bègue in 1186, who take only the vow of chastity (temporary), but live in common. The forerunner, however, of such societies is held to be the Dutchman Gerard Groote, who, around 1370, founded in southern Germany the Brethren of the Common Life, without vows and under the Rule of St. Augustine, for preaching and the education of youth. Evidently, the juridical bond that binds the members to one another creates a very wide range of societies: from the Priests of the Mission, commonly called Lazarists, founded by St. Vincent de Paul and approved by Urban VIII in 1632, who take the three usual vows, but in private form, although these are vows by reserved privilege, to the White Fathers of Cardinal Lavigerie for the African Missions, who make only an oath of obedience. The Daughters of Charity, founded by St. Vincent, take private and temporary vows; the Company of St. Paul of Cardinal Ferrari has common life and substantially private vows. The Society of the Catholic Apostolate (Pallottines) makes a promise of stability and observes the three evangelical counsels. The Institute of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri (Oratorians), founded in 1575 and approved in 1612, has neither vows nor promises: since 1942 it has constituted a federation of autonomous houses, called "Congregations," in which priests and laymen live in common life without vows, under the authority of the "father" or provost, elected every three years, in order to sanctify themselves in the free observance of the evangelical counsels.
Around these types of societies countless others are grouped, such as the Society of Paris for Foreign Missions (1658), the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions of Milan (1851), the Society of the Divine Word (1875; which, however, has recently been transformed into a true and proper religious congregation); the Society of the Missionaries of St. Joseph of Mill Hill (1897); Sulpicians, Venerini Pie Teachers, Filippini Pie Teachers, Oblates of St. Charles, Fathers of Christian Doctrine, etc.
III. LEGAL REGIME
To these communities and societies [s.], which have approved constitutions, the canonical criteria in force for religious congregations apply in general. Thus societies too can be clerical or lay, of pontifical or diocesan right, exempt or non-exempt (exempt societies are, for example, the Pallottines and the Lazarists).
The form of government of societies is left to the constitutions, which determine and circumscribe it. In general, the law that regulates congregations applies to them (can. 674), for example, as regards erection and suppression (can. 671), as regards generic government, in what is not established by the constitutions (can. 675), the admission of new members (can. 677), the observance of enclosure (can. 679 § 2), etc. One must, however, also have regard to the nature of the individual societies in subjecting them or not to the common law of religious congregations.
Consequently, the superiors of societies have over their subjects a dominative power, arising from a valid and recognized juridical bond, or at least from the tacit contract by which members are as it were incorporated into the society; they can therefore impose the observance of the constitutions even under pain of sin, and, by virtue of can. 1312 § 1, render the vows of subjects invalid and null. If moreover the society enjoys the privilege of exemption, the superiors also have the power of jurisdiction in the internal forum and in the external forum, and, by virtue of can. 1313, 2°, they can dispense subjects from non-reserved vows. Furthermore, in clerical societies it is the right of superiors to administer Viaticum and Extreme Unction to dying subjects, members, novices, aspirants, servants, young people, guests of at least one day, who live together in the house (can. 514 § 1). They must also make the profession of faith and the anti-modernist oath upon assuming power (Pontifical Commission for the Interpretation of the CIC, 25 July 1926) and are bound to the temporariness of office (can. 505), even when they are placed over houses that do not belong to the society (ibid.). Their rights and their duties must be inferred, besides from the constitutions, also from the common law of religious congregations.
Male societies of pontifical right, like Religious orders, have a procurator general (v.) who represents them officially before the organs of the Holy See.
With ecclesiastical approval, the society is elevated and constituted as a moral person; and both the provinces into which it may be divided and the individual houses, subordinate or autonomous, likewise become subjects of law capable of ownership (can. 676 § 1). In this too, therefore, the assimilation to religious congregations is clear as regards the application of the common law. The regime of goods is therefore regulated by can. 532-37 (can. 676 § 2).
Individual members, however, not being bound by the public vow of poverty, must harmonize with their constitutions the acquisitions, alienations and administration of their personal goods. But the revenues acquired by them intuitu societatis for the works undertaken by the respective institute, for example, for preaching, for schools, etc., are devolved not to the members, but to the common treasury of the society (can. 676 § 3; cf. can. 580 § 2). Thus there also goes to the society what a member acquires through his own industry or particular ability in a lawful activity. The constitutions will determine whether and to what extent the member acquires the use and usufruct of his own goods, gifts, etc., and what use he may or must make of them.
Societies and their members are subjects capable of receiving privileges and spiritual graces. Lay members too enjoy the immunities, rights and privileges proper to the clerical state. But, without a special indult, the privileges proper to the religious state are not for them (can. 580); the special indult is granted, for example, to the Lazarists, the Pallottines, etc., who thus also have communication with true religious. The reason for this difference is that the assimilation of societies to Religious orders is only partial, that is, in the general and generic directives of the life of the society, but not on the juridical plane. Therefore one who enters a society does not contract the obligations characteristic of public vows; nor, if he fails in them, can he be considered before the Church guilty of sacrilege. And when he has no bonds of private vows or oaths of perseverance, he can freely return to the clergy or to the world, according to his personal state. If however he had been dispensed from the oath, from promises, from private vows after six years of bond, he contracts certain incapacities, analogously to religious in the same conditions (can. 642). Also as regards generic obligations the general principle holds: since societies remain within the sphere of the secular state, the obligations of members are inferred first of all from the constitutions, and subsidiarily from the common law of the clerical state, unless the nature of the society and the text and context of the law require otherwise.
As regards the sacred studies to be undertaken before priestly Ordination, the members of societies are, as a principle, assimilated to seminarians, that is, to members of the diocesan clergy; but jurisprudence and ecclesiastical practice tend rather to bring them onto the plane of Religious orders in the provisions on the matter that are gradually issued. Thus, although the principles of their substantial belonging to the diocesan clergy remain in force and, as such, they must obtain a canonical title of Ordination and, for dimissorial letters, depend on the local Ordinary, the Holy See is accustomed, by way of privilege, to grant them that they be ordained titulo mensae communis or missionis and gives their superiors the faculty to give them dimissorial letters.
Societies, finally, are assimilated to Religious orders, according to their own juridical degree, in what concerns the transfer of members from one society to another or from a society to a Religious order (can. 632 ff.), and the abandonment, voluntary or forced, of the society (can. 637 ff.), always taking into account the prescriptions of their constitutions and their special tenor of life. This means that the procedure to be used in individual cases is analogous to the procedure fixed for religious of the corresponding juridical degree, and the juridical condition of those leaving is analogous to the juridical condition of religious leaving. As regards penal law, cans. 2386, 2389, 2410, 2413 are also applied to members, provided they are in the clerical state with common life. Other penal canons, according to doctrine, can be applied to members, although they refer, in themselves, to religious properly so called.
Bibliography9 works
Agostino Pugliese