4.-  For the moment let’s be satisfied with just divesting ourselves of democratic or monarchic models of government and fix well in our mind:

1)      that the council is not an organ of government understood in the second sense, but only of collaboration in the superior’s government [Note: Decree  “Experimenta” of SCRIS of 1972] except the cases in which a collegial action of government is provided for. The only case covered by Canon Law in which collegial power is given and in which the council does not act as a consultative organ, but in role of deliberating organ as a government organ understood in the strict sense is that of the dismissal of a religious. (Can. 699);

2)      that the government, in whatever way it is exercised, always, also in case of its exercise by authority, must be seen as an evangelical and spiritual service;

3)      that in the life of our congregations, not differently from what happens in “Church” reality, an integration must be made between the demands and the “vertical” dimension, from the top to the bottom and representable in the form of a triangle or a pyramid which emphasizes the hierarchical powers of the pope, bishop pastor and superior at different levels, and the demands and the “horizontal” dimension representable in the form of a circle and sphere which emphasize participation, communion and “communiality” which are more proper to councils, synods, chapters or general congregations, of the general council both when it participates in a decision with deliberative vote and when it participates with consultative vote, and also when the members collaborate with the superior for the animation of the universal body even to the most particular levels.