No one is saying that you have to accept something that is in conflict with the teachings of the faith. We’re speaking here about laws that the Sacred Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has in place. One of them is that no one is allowed to correct a member of a religious institute of pontifical right except his superior. You can complain by writing or calling on the religious superior, but you cannot assume authority over the person. The person has been deliberately excardinated to avoid these problems. Even one member of a religious order may not do so to another member of another religious order. I remember one of oiur friars once took a member of another order to task for something that was in conflict with the Church’s teachings. The next thing we knew we had a court case on our hands. The major superior of the other order filed a formal complaint with the Sacred Congregation. Our friar had to back down and offer a public apology for overstepping the bounds of authority.
What usually happens with the laity is a little different. Most major superiors don’t go as far as bringing a case against the laity in an ecclesial court, probably because most lay men simply do not attend the hearings. I can understand that, because they are very expensive to attend. You have to hire a canon lawyer to represent you. What usually happens is that most major superiors simply ignore it. That’s not a position that I would like to see anyone in. It’s not pleasant to be ignored.
In the case of a bishop, he is usually challenged by the major superior, because his contractual obligation is to report his concern to the major superior and let it drop there. If the issue is not resolved to his satisfaction, the local bishop may suspend the individual from doing ministry on diocesan property, which always includes a parish. Parishes are always diocesan property, never the property of religious orders. But that’s as far as the local bsihop can take it. He cannot correct the individual religious.
Fr. Benedict G. tells of an interesting case, which was very different from this one, but it helps here. There were a group of Franciscans whom the bishop ordered to wear a habit. The Franciscans did as the bishop asked. The major superior was ballistic. He agreed that the friars should wear the habit. But he was ballistic that a bishop had corrected a friar. He took the case to Rome and won. The bishop had to apologize to the superior for overstepping his bounds.
As I said in a previous post, this was the issue with the Legion of Christ. People wanted to correct the Legion, including bishops. The Holy Father would not allow them to do so. He ran interference each and every time. He was not the Holy Father at the time. He was Cardinal Ratzinger. But he wrote several people and told them to back off, because the Legion was a Pontifical Institute. It was not until he decided to hold an Apostolic Visitation that the corrections were made.
There are protocols and proper procedures, even for practicing charity. As I said, one does not have to go to hell in a hand basket because someone else says you should. But one does not have the full freedom to interfere in another person’s household either. If we stop and think about this, Bernard of Clairveaux was right. He was one of the authors of this policy. His idea was to stop the chaos of the time. The monks seemd to be under everyone’s authority: bishop, laity, king, lord, pope and abbot. There were too many chiefs. Francis of Assisi was also opposed to this system of charity and bound the brothers to ignore it all until they heard from their superior, the minister, the bishop or the pope. Francis did write the bishop into his rule, but not every order has the bishop in their chain of command. That’s up to the founder. It lends itself to abuse when you have too many people barking directions at anyone. It confuses especially the younger religious who are more sensitive to corrections. They don’t know to whom they should listen.
Speak with the person privately. If that does not work, speak to his superior. But do not take it upon yourself to act as if you had authority over the person or his ministry. That does not help. It only creates confusion and can backfire. To close I’ll give an example of a religious order of women who walked out on five schools without warning, because of something like this. The bishop was very upset at the laity who caused this to happen. He did not agree with the sisters, but he did not agree with the fact that the laity had put his pastors in such a bind. The sister packed their bags and left during the night. The next day the kids arrived and the schools were locked. That’s an example of where this can backfire and innocent people get caught in the battle. In this case, it was the kids.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
