Sunday, February 22, 2009

When it's time to abandon a religious order...

Anyone who knows two bits about Church history knows that some religious orders go through a process of becoming so full of sin and rot that all or most of the best talent then have no choice but to leave.

Here's what the Vatican Council has to say on this ever present phenomenon:

"If after consulting the appropriate Ordinaries, the Holy See decides that certain communities or monasteries no longer offer any reasonable hope of flourishing, these should be forbidden thereafter to accept novices. If it can be done, they should be absorbed by a more vigorous community or monastery which approximates their own purpose and spirit."

-Vatican Council II: Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life, number twenty-one.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

concerning the Jesuits the wise words of Clement XIV in Dominvs ac redemptor are now actual then it were in 1774:

"Actuated by so many and important considerations, and, as we hope, aided by the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; compelled, besides, by the necessity of our ministry, which strictly obliges us to conciliate, maintain, and confirm the peace and tranquility of the Christian republic, and remove every obstacle which may tend to trouble it; having further considered that the said Company of Jesus can no longer produce those abundant fruits, and those great advantages, with a view to which it was instituted, approved by so many of our predecessors, and endowed with so many and extensive privileges; that, on the contrary, it was very difficult, not to say impossible, that the Church could recover a firm and durable peace so long as the said Society subsisted"