Maróti Gábor
The
Canonical Regulation of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of
Apostolic Life: Historical Development and an Overview of the Current Law, with
Special Consideration of the Influence of the Second Vatican Council’s Communio
Ecclesiology on the Communal Forms of the Pursuit of Perfect Life
The legal
regulation of religious life belongs to one of the oldest layers of the
classical canonical tradition; however, until the Middle Ages it did not exist
as a unified codified system, but rather appeared in various normative
collections and regula traditions.
The “classical corpus of canon law,” the Corpus Iuris Canonici, did not contain
a separate and unified “book of religious law”; instead, norms concerning
religious life were dispersed across several sources, primarily within the
Decretum Gratiani and the papal collections of decretals (especially the Liber
Extra). These sources mainly regulated questions relating to the nature of
vows, monastic discipline, religious obedience, and the relationship between
religious and the clergy.
The legal framework of religious life was therefore closely intertwined with
the traditions of the regulae (for example, the Benedictine Rule), as well as
with the particular norms of individual orders, which developed in interaction
with universal canon law.
Conciliar legal
development contributed significantly to the unification of religious law,
especially during the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. The Council
of Trent (1545–1563), in several of its decrees, addressed the strengthening of
religious discipline, particularly concerning enclosure, vowed life, and the
bishop’s right of vigilance (vigilantia) (e.g. Sessio XXV, De regularibus).
Parallel to this, papal legislation and the practice of the Roman Curia further
elaborated the juridical status of religious, especially regarding vows,
property relations, and the autonomy of institutes. Religious law therefore
existed in the pre-codification era as a multilayered normative system composed
of universal law, the statutes of religious orders, and conciliar decrees.The 1917 edition
of the Codex Iuris Canonici constituted the first comprehensive codification to
organize religious law within a unified system and in a clearly distinguishable
structural unit.
The norms concerning religious were placed within Liber Secundus – De personis,
specifically under Pars II: De religiosis. This structural placement is
significant: religious appear among the “persons,” indicating that the 1917
Code primarily understood religious life as a juridical status (status),
constituting a distinct category alongside clergy and laity. Religious law thus
appeared within the framework of personal law, rather than as an autonomous
theological-functional dimension as in the CIC/1983.
The religious law of the 1917 Code regulated in detail the fundamental elements
of religious life: vows, common life, enclosure, the governance of institutes,
admission of members, the novitiate, as well as the rights and obligations of
religious. The system possessed a strongly disciplinary character,
and distinguished between various categories, for example institutes with
solemn vows and those with simple vows. Furthermore, the 1917 CIC clearly
defined the juridical relations between religious, diocesan bishops, and the
Holy See, thereby institutionalizing the balance between supervision and
autonomy.
The 1917 codification therefore represented a turning point in the history of
religious law: it transformed the previously fragmented body of norms into a
unified and codified legal system, which simultaneously became one of the
foundations of modern canonical thought.
The current Code
of Canon Law, promulgated in 1983, places religious law within Liber II (The
People of God), Part III (Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of
Apostolic Life). The religious-law material of the Code may be understood along
four major dogmatic axes. The first is the general concept of consecrated life,
which is based upon the public profession of the evangelical counsels and
ecclesial recognition. The second is the law of religious institutes, in which
vows, common life, governance, and apostolic activity constitute the juridical
structure. The third is the distinctive form of secular institutes, which unite
consecration with presence in the world. The fourth is the distinct juridical
type of societies of apostolic life, which regulate communal and apostolic life
but are not identical with institutes founded upon religious vows. Together,
these four dimensions demonstrate that religious law within the CIC is not
merely “law of religious orders” in a narrow sense, but rather the
differentiated canonical system of consecrated and apostolic life.
Canon 573 provides
the fundamental concept for the entire section: consecrated life is a stable
form of living by which the faithful, following Christ more closely under the
action of the Holy Spirit, dedicate themselves totally to God through the
profession of the evangelical counsels. This definition is not merely
disciplinary or organizational in character, but constitutes a theological-juridical
formula: consecrated life is simultaneously a state within the Church, a
juridically regulated institutional form, and a way of life of charismatic
origin.
This conciliar background is likewise confirmed by the first article of
Perfectae caritatis, according to which the pursuit of perfect charity through
the evangelical counsels derives from the teaching and example of Christ and
becomes a sign of the heavenly Kingdom within the Church.
The current Code
first provides the common norms applicable to all institutes of consecrated
life in canons 573–606. These canons define the fundamental juridical contours
of institutionalized consecrated life: the public profession of the evangelical
counsels, the role of the competent ecclesiastical authority, respect for the
intention of the founders and the particular charism of the institute, as well
as the distinction between pontifical-right and diocesan-right institutes.
The dogmatic significance of these common norms lies in the fact that the CIC
treats consecrated life not as a form of private piety, but as a juridical
reality belonging to the public life of the Church.
This is also indicated by the fact that the erection, approval, modification,
and suppression of institutes are not merely internal communal matters, but
juridical acts entrusted to the competence of ecclesiastical authority.
Canonical commentary literature generally interprets this to mean that within
consecrated life charismatic origin and institutional recognition are not
opposing poles, but mutually presupposing elements.Following the
common norms, the Code addresses religious institutes in canons 607–709.
According to canon 607, religious life is that form of consecrated life in
which members profess public vows, live a fraternal life in common, and bear
witness to Christ and the Church through a certain separation from the world.
This definition is significant because it structures religious life around
three juridically relevant elements: public vows, common life, and a particular
form of separation and witness according to the institute’s proper way of life.
In this manner, the Code distinguishes religious life from other forms of
consecrated life.The internal
structure of the section concerning religious institutes is highly detailed.
The Code regulates the erection and suppression of religious houses, the
governance of institutes, the role of superiors and councils, chapters,
temporal goods, the admission of candidates, the novitiate, profession of vows,
the formation, rights and obligations of members, apostolic activity, as well
as separation from and dismissal from the institute. This section therefore
encompasses the entire juridical arc of religious life: from admission, through
incorporation and formation, to the termination of membership. Within the
system of the Code, religious law here demonstrates most clearly its
institutional character: personal vocation becomes a juridical bond of
membership, while the profession of the evangelical counsels becomes a system
of defined rights and obligations.The governance of
religious institutes constitutes a particularly important dogmatic issue. The
CIC simultaneously upholds religious autonomy and ecclesiastical institutional
supervision. Institutes possess their own law, which the current Code of Canon
Law generally treats under the category of ius proprium;
this includes constitutions, statutes, and other internal norms. At the same
time, this proper law may not stand in opposition to universal law or to the
supervision of the competent authority of the Church.
Commentaries on religious law regularly emphasize that the role of ius proprium
is especially significant within the CIC/1983, because the Code intentionally
entrusts many matters to the proper law of institutes.
The norms
governing admission, novitiate, and profession constitute the juridical core of
religious identity.
The Code distinguishes between aspiration (the preliminary candidate stage),
the novitiate, temporary profession, and perpetual profession (four stages);
these are not merely stages of spiritual development, but stages in the juridical
deepening of membership.
The purpose of the novitiate is the testing of vocation and the discernment of
the institute’s life; profession, meanwhile, is the public assumption of the
evangelical counsels, which entails juridical effects before the Church.
Religious profession is therefore not a private promise, but a public
ecclesiastical juridical act
through which the person is incorporated into the juridical order of a specific
institute.The apostolic
activity of religious likewise appears within the Code under a dual form of
obligation. On the one hand, religious apostolic activity arises from the
institute’s own charism and mission; on the other hand, it is integrated into
the local ecclesial community and therefore requires ordered cooperation
between the diocesan bishop and the competent religious superiors.
The key postconciliar document concerning this issue is the instruction Mutuae
relationes, which interprets the relationship between bishops and religious
from the perspective of their integration into the life and holiness of the
Church, and explicitly states that through the action of the hierarchy God
consecrates religious for service among His people. Without this identity-defining
background, the CIC’s norms concerning religious apostolic activity cannot be
fully understood in their proper depth.
The Code of Canon
Law devotes a separate title to secular institutes in canons 710–730. Members
of secular institutes live in the world and there strive for the perfection of
charity through the evangelical counsels and for the sanctification of the
world from within. This form constitutes a distinct canonical type of
consecrated life: it is not religious life, because it does not presuppose
religious common life or religious separation from the world, yet it is truly
consecrated life because it is founded upon the ecclesially recognized
profession of the evangelical counsels.
Vita consecrata also expressly mentions secular institutes when placing them
among the diverse charisms and new forms of life brought forth by the Holy
Spirit. The juridical peculiarity of secular institutes lies in the fact that
they simultaneously preserve the internal logic of consecrated life and secular
presence. Their members do not withdraw from secular social environments, but
live their consecrated vocation within them.
This canonical construction establishes a delicate balance: it preserves the
public ecclesial character of the evangelical counsels while not identifying
them with the religious form of life.Societies of
apostolic life are regulated by the Code of Canon Law in canons 731–746.
According to canon 731, their members pursue the purpose of the society not
through religious vows, but through the pursuit of a particular apostolic
purpose and through fraternal life in common; members of some societies may
also assume the evangelical counsels, though this does not render them
religious institutes. This distinction is dogmatically fundamental: societies
of apostolic life are not identical with institutes of consecrated life,
yet within the structure of the Code they appear within the same part, though
in a separate section, because their way of life, communal structure, and
apostolic purpose intersect with them at many points. From the perspective of
canonical typology, societies of apostolic life constitute intermediate forms.
The Code therefore regulates separately their erection, governance, membership
relations, and patrimonial matters. The addressees of Vita consecrata expressly
include societies of apostolic life, which clearly demonstrates that although
canonically they are not identical with institutes of consecrated life, from
theological and pastoral perspectives they belong to the broader ecclesial
horizon of consecrated and apostolic life.
An interpretation
of the entirety of religious law is impossible without the Second Vatican
Council’s decree Perfectae caritatis. The document expressly concerns the
appropriate renewal of religious life, and already in its opening article
connects life according to the evangelical counsels with the teaching of
Christ, the sign-function fulfilled within the Church, and the necessity of
disciplinary renewal. The religious-law section of the Code of Canon Law may
therefore be read as the juridical codification of this conciliar renewal: it
preserves institutional stability while at the same time granting a major role
to charism, proper law, and the particular patrimony of institutes. Without
this conciliar background
canons 573–746 could easily appear to be merely organizational regulations; in
reality, however, they constitute the juridical expression of the ecclesiological
place of consecrated life.
Frisk,
M.J., Brief Historical Overview of
Consecrated Life, in. Marian Library Studies, 2013. 31.1: (11-28.) 12.
Krawczyk,
P., Diversity of Monastic Life in the
Historical Perspective, in. Kościół i Prawo, 2023. 12.2: (187-200.) 190.
The
purpose of the council was the reform of religious life and the elimination of
abuses, which contributed to religious law increasingly becoming a strictly
supervised area of ecclesiastical discipline.
Green,
T.J., Reflections on the People of God
Schema, in. Canon L. Soc'y Am. Proc., 1978. 40: 13.
Fox, J., General Synthesis of the Work of the
Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law, in.
Jurist, (1988.) 48: 800.
Tibi, D.,
The Law for Institutes of Consecrated
Life and Societies of Apostolic Life: An Introduction to Canons 573-746.
in. Liturgical Press, 2025. 27.
Casey,
M., The evolution of new forms of
consecrated life, in. Studia canonica, 2002. 36.2: 463.
Meo,
Y.W., Canon Law as the Universal Law of
the Catholic Church and the Proper Laws of Institutes of Consecrated Life,
in: Forum (Filsafat dan Teologi Indonesia, ISSN 0853-0726), 2023. (47-54.) 49.
Bosco,
J., Typology of the "Institutes of
Consecrated Life" (ICL) and "Societies of Apostolic Life" (SAL)
in CIC and CCEO, in. Iustitia, vol. 5, 2014. (93-99.) 95.
Particularly
important is canon 578, according to which the patrimony of every institute —
namely the intention of the founder, the approved purpose, nature, spirit, and
traditions — must be faithfully preserved. This is one of the key norms of
religious law because it connects positive juridical regulation with the
historical and spiritual identity of the charism.
Shakal,
D., The canonical status of members of
Institutes of Consecrated Life, in. Studia canonica, 2009. 43.2: 297.
Campion,
E., The Proper Law of an Institute of
Consecrated Life in the Latin Church, in. A Consideration of C. 587 CIC.
2017. 49.
The
literature concerning institutes of consecrated life generally treats this
subject as an autonomous major dogmatic unit within the De Populo Dei book, in which the ecclesiology of communio and
institutional law intersect.
Bauer,
N.A., The State of Consecrated Life: Vita
et Sanctitas Ecclesiae, in. Jurist, 2015. 75: 71.
Mcdermott, R., Schema of Canons on
Institutes of Life Consecrated by Profession of the Evangelical Counsels:
Revision or Update?, in. Canon L. Soc'y Am. Proc., 1980. 42: 124.
Macha,
A., The Juridical Identity of the
Societies of Apostolic Life Compared to Institutes of Consecrated Life in the
Light of the Present Code of Canon Law (CIC/1983), Can. 731: A Comparative
Study, 1994.
Green,
T.J., Reflections on the People of God
Schema, in. Canon L. Soc'y Am. Proc., 1978. 40: 7.
Campion, E., The Proper Law of an Institute of
Consecrated Life in the Latin Church, in. A Consideration of C. 587 CIC.
2017. 9.
Frisk,
M.J., Brief Historical Overview of
Consecrated Life, in. Marian Library Studies, 2013. 31.1: (11-28.) 23.
Fox, J., General Synthesis of the Work of the
Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law, in.
Jurist, (1988.) 48: 718.
This is
the point at which personal vocation, liturgical-ecclesial publicity, and
juridical bond become inseparable from one another.
Meo, Y.W., Canon Law as the Universal Law
of the Catholic Church and the Proper Laws of Institutes of Consecrated Life,
in: Forum (Filsafat dan Teologi Indonesia, ISSN 0853-0726), 2023. (47-54.) 50.
Casey,
M., The evolution of new forms of
consecrated life, in. Studia canonica, 2002. 36.2: 444.
Bosco,
J., Typology of the "Institutes of
Consecrated Life" (ICL) and "Societies of Apostolic Life" (SAL)
in CIC and CCEO, in. Iustitia, vol. 5, 2014. (93-99.) 94.
For this
reason, the relevant canonical literature frequently treats secular institutes
as one of the most refined differentiations within the section on consecrated
life in the CIC/1983: these institutes demonstrate that consecration can be
realized not only in monastic, conventual, or apostolic communal forms, but
also within a secular environment.
Tibi, D.,
The Law for Institutes of Consecrated
Life and Societies of Apostolic Life: An Introduction to Canons 573-746.
in. Liturgical Press, 2025. 91.
They are
not religious institutes, because their identity is not derived from religious
vows and the state arising therefrom; however, neither are they merely
associations, because their distinctive communal life, apostolic purpose, and
ecclesiastical recognition provide them with a stable juridical form.
Within
the magisterial background following the Second Vatican Council, particular
importance belongs to Pope John Paul II’s post-synodal apostolic exhortation
Vita consecrata, promulgated on 25 March 1996. According to the document,
consecrated life is rooted in the example and teaching of Christ and
constitutes a gift of God to the Church through the Holy Spirit; the profession
of the evangelical counsels renders visible in the world the chaste, poor, and
obedient manner of life of Christ. This theological interpretation does not
replace the norms of the CIC, but illuminates their inner meaning: religious
law is not merely a collection of membership, governmental, and disciplinary
regulations, but the juridical order of a particular ecclesial form of life.
Fox, J., General Synthesis of the Work of the
Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law, in.
Jurist, (1988.) 48: 784.
DICTAMEN CIVILIS