The Rights of Superiors

Major superiors cannot arbitrarily decide this according to their own tastes and impressions, even though they are in good faith and completely sincere. If the major Superior is also the founder, and if his personal ideas have been approved by the Church as the norm of a state of perfection, he is always free to appeal to his own intentions. But if this is not the case, he must revert to the idea of the founder as it is expressed in the Constitutions approved by the Church.

When a Superior proposes the true spirit of the founder to the members of a community, he is exercising his right and the inferiors must in conscience obey. The rights of Superiors and the duties of inferiors are correlative in this sense.

The Church and the Sovereign Pontiffs still intend to defend rights and exhort men to their duties, but without going beyond just limits. In order to avoid aggravating one side or the other and to preserve peace, it is sufficient that each individual should recognize and follow this rule, which has been the rule of the Church and the Popes for centuries and is still in force.

As regards present difficulties concerning religious obedience, it has been noted that the movement of adaptation has created a certain amount of tension in this field; not through a lack of sincere desire to aim at perfection through obedience, but because there is today particular emphasis upon certain aspects of obedience that even serious and conscientious religious would like to see disappear.