RELIGIOUS
758
RELIGIOUS
have all the essentials of religious life, the three per-
petual vows, and the approbation of ecclesiastical
authority. They are even approved by the Holy See.
They lack only one accidental characteristic of an
order, namely the solemnity of the vows. Such are
the Congregations of the ^Icist Holy Redeemer, of
the Passion of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary
(or Picpus Fathers), whi(^h have even the privilege of
exemption. Institutes with perpetual vows ap-
proved by episcopal authority closely resemble the
congregations properly so called. Religious congre-
gations in the wider sense of the word are institutes
which have no perpetual vows, or lack one of the
essential vows, or which even have no vows properly
so called. Thus the Daughters of St. Vincent de
Paul make only annual vows, and as each year is
completed they are free to return to the world. The
Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, or White
Sisters, form a religious congregation properly so
called, but the White Fathers, on the contrary, are
not bound by any vows, but take only an oath of
obedience. We have spoken above of the Lazarists
and Oratorians. The religious congregations im-
properly so called are sometimes designated pious
congregations or pious societies.
(c) Division of the Institutes. — Irstitutes are di- vided, according to the quahty of their members, into ecclesiastical congregations, consisting principally of priests and clerics, and lay congregations, most of whose members are not in Holy orders. Thus the Order of St. John of God, though mainly com- posed of laymen, includes a certain number of priests devoted to the spiritual service of its hospitals and asylums; while the Congregation of Parochial Clerics of St. Viator is composed of priests and teaching brothers placed on the same footing as religious. Several religious congregations are called tertiaries of St. Francis, St. Dominic, or some other religious order; some of these date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; others are more recent, such as the Third Order of St. Dominic founded by Lacordaire, which is devoted to teaching. But they must be regularly affiUated by the superior of the first order. This affiliation does not imply any dependence or sub- ordination to the first order, but it requires as general conditions the observance of the essential points of the rule of the third order, and a certain similarity of habit: in the matter of the habit, however, many cUspensations have been granted — see the Decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences of 28 Aug., 1903, and 22 March, 190.5, the Decree of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars of IS March, 1904, the Rescript of 30 Jan., 1905, and the Indult of 18 Nov., 1905, of the same Congregation (cf . Periodica de reUgiosis et missionariis, I, 15, p. 40; 54, p. 147; 59, p. 152; II, 102, p. 57).
As to the law by which they are governed, religious congregations are divided into congregations depend- ent on the Holy See, and those under episcopal au- thority. The latter are strictly diocesan or inter- diocesan, according as they are confined to a single diocese, or are scattered over several. Leo XIII, by his Constitution "Condita;" of 8 Dec, 1900, gave to the congregations their official character; and a set of regulations of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, of 20 June, 1901, known by the name of Norma;, traces the general lines on which the Holy See wishes the new institutes to be constructed and the old ones reorganized.
(d) ReUgious Congregations dependent on the Holy See. — (i) Approbation. — Before a congregation can be placed under pontifical government, it must have received a Decree, in which commendation is bestowed on the congregation it.sclf, and not merely on the intention of the founder and the object of the in- stitution; then follows a Decree confirming the exist- ence of the congregation, and approving its con-
stitutions, first by a trial of some years, and then
finally. Before the Constitution "Sapienti" (29
June, 1908), by which Pius X reorganized the Roman
Curia, two congregations were occupied VNith the
approbation of new institutes, the Congregation of
Bishops and Regulars, and the Congregation of
Propaganda; the latter approved those institutes
which were founded in missions and in countries sub-
ject to its jurisdiction, and those intended exclusively
for foreign missions. Since the Constitution
"Sapienti", the new Congregation of Religious alone
has the power of approbation, and the religious of the
whole world are under its jurisdiction: If they are
missionaries, they owe obedience also to the Prop-
aganda in all matters connected with their mis-
sionary character.
Except the approbation of tertiary communities (of both the sexes) with simple vows by the Con- stitution "Inter cetera" of Leo X (20 Jan., 1521) to which we have already alluded, the formal appro- bation of a religious institute with simple vows by the Holy See does not date back very far: the Brief of Clement XI " Inscrutabih " (13 July, 1703), ap- proving the Constitution of the English Virgins (In- stitute of Mary), is perhaps the first instance in the case of women, while Benedict XIV in 1741 approved the Congregation of Passionists. But on 26 March, 1687, Innocent XI, by his Constitution "Ecclesiie Catholicije", erected the hospitaller confraternity of the Bethlehemites into a congregation, and Clement VIII, on 13 Oct., 1593, approved with simple vows the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God. These two congregations were transformed into rehgious orders, the one by a Constitution of Clement XI (3 April, 1710), and the other by a Constitution of Gregory XV in 1621 : but later, in consequence of a decree of the Spanish Cortes, the Bethlehemites were gradually extinguished. Institutes improperly called religious have been approved since the seventeenth century: we have already mentioned the Oratorians, approved in 1612, and the Priests of the Mission, approved in 1632: to these may be added the Sul- picians, approved in 1642, the Eudists in 1643, and the Secular Priests of the Venerable Holzhauser in 1680. For a long time the Holy See, while approving the constitutions of nuns, refused to recognize the institutes themselves. The approbation formerly contained certain qualifying words, "citra approba- tionem conservatorii " ("without approbation of the institute"), which have now disappeared. Ordinarily the Holy See proceeds by steps; it requires first that the institute shall have existed for some time under the approbation of the ordinary, then it approves the constitutions for some years, and last of all grants a final approbation. Religious congregations also re- ceive a cardinal protector, whose office is more im- portant in the case of an institute of nuns.
(ii) Authority of the Ordinary. — Although es- tablished under pontifical government, religious con- gregations are not free from the jurisdiction of the diocesan ordinary. Congregations of men owe him the common obedience of all the faithful, and of clerics, if their members are tonsured or in Holy orders. Use, rather than positive law, permits the superiors, being priests, to consider themselves as quasi-parish priests of their religious subordinates. For confessions even of their own subjects, they must be delegated by the bishop; and all approved con- fessors of the diocese may absolve these religious, who are subject also for reserved cases to diocesan law. The temporal administration is withdrawn from the authority of the ordinary: this is the case also with institutes of nuns. Certain institutes are entirely exempt from e])iscopal jurisdiction; such are the Passionists, the Missionary Fathers of the Sacred Hearts, or Picpus lathers, and the Redemptorists. Without being strictly jjrelates, the superiors of an
