The Role of Sound Education

We quoted this text before in Our speech of April 18, 1952, when speaking on the education of the Christian conscience, to recall that the role of a sound education is to teach man how to make a discerning use of his freedom and to dispense with the help of a teacher. May each member of the states of perfection, whether he is a Superior or an inferior, apply the Apostle's words to himself. Every danger of infantilism will then disappear, without however affecting respect for legitimate authority or sincere submission to its decisions.

We shall not retract what We said in the address We delivered on December 8, 1950, to the first Congress of the States of Perfection, in which we gave answer to objections that had been raised against an alleged lessening of the personal and social value of the religious. If his rights are subject to certain limitations, the state to which he belongs and the offering he makes of himself through obedience confer upon him a dignity that generously compensates for the sacrifice he has freely made.

Still another argument used against obedience is based on the claim that the subjection of man to a Superior would be opposed to the supreme and direct domination of God over consciences. In claiming that a man falls under the dependence of another even in his personal life and activity, does not one say that prerogatives are conferred upon the Superior that belong to God alone?

The Church, as a matter of fact, has never defended nor approved such a thesis. She looks upon obedience as a means of leading man to God. Since obedience is motivated by a desire for union with God and since it is ultimately related to the increase of charity, the Superior does not in any way constitute an obstacle placed between God and the inferior, diverting to his own profit the homage rendered to God alone.

A Superior can command only in the name of the Lord and by virtue of his powers of office, and an inferior must obey only out of love for Christ, and not for human reasons of utility or convenience, even less out of pure constraint. In this way the religious subject will preserve in total submission the joyful alacrity of one who confirms through a concrete daily pledge the total giving of himself to his only Master.

The program of your Second General Congress shows that it must deal amply with the problem of relations of communities among themselves along the lines of adaptation and revision that you are pursuing. It is therefore not Our intention to enter into details on these matters. We feel certain, furthermore, that the rules established by the Sacred Congregation of Religious will be faithfully observed.