Canon law allows the faithful to establish private associations. However, if you want to do ministry in a diocese under that name, then you have to become a public association. Only the local bishop can acknowledge you as a public association. This is done by a letter that he writes for the association. There are many kinds of public associations. Not all of them are religious communities or societies of priests. The Legion of Mary is a public association of the faithful. The Maryknolls are a clerical association of the faithful, obviously public, because they function within the Church withher blessing, but they are not male religious. They are secular priests.
You asked how hard it is to move from each of these stages to the next. They are not really stages. They are what we call a canonical status. Each canonical status brings with it some obligations and some privileges. That’s why most religious communities never become Canonical Congregations of Pontifical Right. They are not interested in asking for this, because they do not need to be submitted to the Holy Father to live their religious life. As long as they have a bishop who gives them canonical approval, that’s enough to make them a religious community. These men or woman just want to live the religiuos life. They are not really interested in the privileges that come with Pontifical Right. Usually the bishop may feel that a community deserves these priveleges and submits the name of the congregation to Holy See for Pontifical status. Of course this has certain privileges. One of them is that the community just needs a bishop’s permission to enter his diocese. Once they have that permission, they can begin their ministry or create their institutions without having to answer to the bishop. The bishop cannot suppress them once he gives them permission to erect a community in his diocese. The bishop has to go to Rome to get Rome to ask the religious community to leave his dioceses. The bishop can forbid them to enter any parish or institution that belongs to the diocese. But he cannot forbid that they run their own.
Another privilege that comes from being a Pontifical community is that the Church frees you from accountability to the laity. In other words, the laity cannot make claims to the religious community, a secular order or a society that has Pontifical Right. This has created many problems today, because most lay people do not know about Pontifical Right. This was very well understood once-upon-a-time when the Church was smaller and people had constant contact with bishops and even with Rome.
Today, we have less direct contact with bishops and the Pope. Most lay people do not know that they do not have a legal right to ask religious for accountability to them. So, people demand accountability in different situations. When they get no response, they get angry.
I’ll give you an example. People are still seathing over Fr. Jenkins, Notre Dame and President Obama. The truth is that Fr. Jenkins belongs to the Brothers of the Holy Cross. The Brothers are a congregation of Pontifical Right. Only the pope can ask them for an explanatioin. The bishops cannot ask, the laity cannot ask, the cardinals cannot ask. I guess everyone can ask. They don’t have to respond. That’s what I’m trying to say. They are protected by the Pope. Unless the Pope says that Fr. Jenkins has to explain, he does not have to do so. We may argue that he should do so out of kindness, but we can’t force him. The Church protects him. This was done to avoid having lay people dictating to religiuos how to live or how to do ministry. It was also important because many wealthy families tried to control religious. Others wanted to tell religious orders who to accept. While the Church has always encouraged the apostolate of the laity, she has always wanted to keep the laity at arms length from her religious. In a certain sense, it does protect the religious life from outside influences. Unfortunately, many religious have not taken advantage of that privilege and have gone looking for outside influences to bring into the religious life.
Along with privileges, there are also restrictions. A religious who belongs to a religious community of Pontifical Right cannot leave without a dispensation from the Holy See. No bishop, no major superior, and no Congregation in Rome can grant the dispensation unless the Holy Father delegates that authority. This has been done. Sometimes there are too many requests for the pope to handle. The Holy Father delegates this authority to a Prefect. But he can take it back whenever he wants to do so. That’s one restriction. Another restriction, if you can call it that, is that a pope can call any institute of Pontifical Right to serve anywhere in the world. This is not the case with the diocesan congregations. The diocesan congregations are for the service of a diocese, even though they are religious. A bishop can send some to another diocese of that bishop will accept them. But the Holy Father will not call diocesan religoius to abandon their home diocese to serve someplace else. That would be unfair to the diocese that founded the congregation.
I hope this helps everyone understand what it means to be of Pontifical Right.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
