COMMON LIFE. - In canonistic language it has a twofold meaning. It can indicate: 1) living together under the same roof with mutual relations; 2) the special manner of observing religious poverty, as is today required by the Church.
I. COMMON LIFE AND THE SECULAR CLERGY
In the first sense, common life exists in every institute or community; but it concerns canonical legislation insofar as the CIC (can. 134) makes a lively recommendation of it to the secular clergy. In the first centuries, the clergy (for example, at Jerusalem: Acts 2:44; 4:32) lived with the bishop, supported by the offerings of the faithful, administered under the bishop's authority (v. CANONICI REGOLARI DI S. AGOSTINO). From the 5th century, religious assistance to scattered populations, the invasions of the Germanic peoples, and the emergence of the ius Ecclesiae propriae decentralized the lower clergy, with a consequent division of goods that was never again halted. This occasioned many evils (cf. the Pseudo-Isidorian canons: 2, 9, C. XII, § 1, etc.), leading to the cessation of common life among the clergy. An attempt at revival came with Alexander II, who, inspired by St. Peter Damian (v.), apostle of the renewed common life among the clergy, especially canons, sought to restore the ancient discipline (c. 6, D. 32). But already Gregory VIII (1187) noted the impossibility of a general restoration of common life and merely gave bishops the faculty to introduce common life where circumstances permitted (c. 9, X, III, 1). These attempts to renew common life among the clergy gave a broad impulse to the regular canons, so called in contrast to the secular canons. The best-known modern attempts to restore common life among the clergy are those of St. Philip Neri (v.) with the Institute of the Oratory (v.), of St. Charles Borromeo (v.) with the Oblates (v.), of J.-J. Olier (v.) with the institution of the Sulpicians (v.), of B. Holzhauser (v.) with the Bartholomites (v.), of François Pallu (v.) and of Pierre Lambert de la Motte (v.) with the Seminary for Foreign Missions, etc. In the last century, serious difficulties (scarce clergy, the need to coordinate activities, reduced economic resources, the need to strengthen the spiritual life and to give an example of disinterestedness and to safeguard the observance of chastity) gave rise to new institutions tending to favor common life, also in the field of missions, such as the Missionaries of Africa (v.). In Tonkin too the missionaries adopted common life, and the example was pointed out by the S. Congr. of Prop. Fide to the Chinese vicars apostolic (Collectanea, t. II, Rome 1907, p. 181). Recently common life among the clergy has been put into practice in the great cities, among priests dedicated to pastoral life. It has been recommended by the CIC and earnestly by Pius XII (encyclical Menti nostrae, 23 Sept. 1950: AAS, 42 [1950], p. 692 ff.). The implementation of common life among the clergy entails cohabitation, a common table, a suitable external discipline; it does not necessarily include poverty and obedience as a vow. This is the type of common life that is still observed in the Societies of common life without vows.
II. COMMON LIFE IN RELIGIOUS LIFE
In religious orders the common life is a consequence of the vow of poverty (v.), its application and defense, a sure means of preserving and restoring discipline. By virtue of incorporation into the institute through vows, all goods, with the safeguards sanctioned by cann. 569, 580, are to be conferred and administered in common; whatever each one receives enters the common mass, without the individual, even a superior, being able to claim any right; from the mass each one receives the same food, clothing and other necessities. Moreover, the religious must apply all his energies for the utility of the institute in the ways fixed by the superior; whatever he produces through his own activity (industria sua) and receives as a religious belongs by right to the community. Contrary to the common life is the peculium (v.) properly so called. The Church demands the full observance of the common life, striking its violation with grave penalties (cann. 587 § 2, 2389). The common life in concrete terms is relative to the poverty professed by each Institute (can. 594), nor does it admit of a contrary custom.
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