MISSIONARY STATUTES. - Since many missionary circumscriptions are entrusted to religious, numerous relationships arise between the institutes to which the missionaries belong and the missions themselves.
Many rescripts and instructions of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide have dealt with this complex matter since its origin, and since the last century attempts have been made to regulate it with regard to certain Orders or religious congregations by means of the S. m., which are a collection of norms determining the rights and duties of the ecclesiastical superiors of the missions and of the superiors general of the respective Orders or religious congregations. If they concern a special mission they are called particular; general if they regulate relations with all the missions entrusted to an Order or a religious congregation. At present the general S. m. are in force for the missions entrusted to the Capuchins, Dominicans, Discalced Carmelites, Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Society of the Divine Savior, Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Order of Friars Minor, Society of the Divine Word, Congregation of the Sons of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Congregation of the Priests of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Congregation of the Missionaries of Maryknoll, Belgian Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict, Congregation of the Passionist Fathers, Pious Society of St. Francis Xavier, Congregation of the Holy Cross, Consolata Mission Institute, Order of the Holy Cross, Servants of Mary.
The more recent ones have a more uniform arrangement of the matter treated, which generally includes questions concerning the ecclesiastical and religious superiors and their mutual relations, the formation, sending and support of missionaries, as well as the administration and distinction of goods between the missions and the religious institute. In some cases they also speak of the organization that the various institutes have internally for promoting the progress of their own missions.
In this regard, particular mention is due to the constitutions of several institutes dependent on Propaganda with an exclusively missionary purpose. In this matter, however, the instruction of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide of 8 Dec. 1929 has a fundamental value.