By HANNAH BROCKHAUS
VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Pope Francis amended canon law on March 26 to create a new mechanism for dismissing a religious man or woman who has deserted their community.
Under the new law, promulgated by the Pope in an apostolic letter issued motu proprio, superiors can declare a member dismissed ipso facto if they have been illicitly absent from the community for more than a year and cannot be located.
“Community life is an essential element of religious life,” Francis stated in the letter, titled Communis vita (“Common life”) and issued March 26. He cited canon 665 of the Code of Canon Law, which provides that “religious must live in their own religious house observing common life and cannot be absent without permission of their superior.”
Under the current provisions of canon 694, which the motu proprio reforms, the ipso facto dismissal of a member of a religious community can be declared for two reasons: that he or she has “defected notoriously from the Catholic faith,” or “has contracted marriage or attempted it, even only civilly.”
With this change, Pope Francis added the ground of desertion of the community.
Now, if a member of a religious community is “absent from the religious house illegitimately, in accordance with canon 665 § 2, for twelve months without interruption” they too can be declared dismissed from the community, provided that their superiors are otherwise unable to locate or contact them.
Depending on the constitution of the religious order, decrees of dismissal must be confirmed by the Holy See or by the local bishop.
Francis noted that canon law already provides a procedure for dealing with the illegitimate absence of a religious member, whereby a religious superior may begin the process of dismissal after at least six months’ absence, but that this process is difficult to conclude with legal certainty when the religious member’s whereabouts are unknown.
The new norms go into effect April 10, 2019. Diocesan bishops already have the ability in law to petition the Congregation for Clergy to laicize priests who have deserted their ministry and cannot be located, though in the case of a priest he must be absent for five years before any action can be taken.
The Pope explained that he made the change for religious “to help the institutions observe the necessary discipline and be able to proceed to the dismissal of the illegitimately absent religious,” especially in cases where they cannot be found.
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