Of the Rule and Constitution That We Have in the Society, of Discovering the Faults of Our Brethren Immediately to the Superior

THE Ninth Rule of the Summary of our Constitutions says as follows: “For their greater advancement in spirit, and especially for their greater humiliation and selfcontempt, everyone should be content that all his errors and faults, and all things whatsoever may be observed and noted in him, may be made known to the superior by anyone who has knowledge of them out of confession.” As a foundation of what we have got to say, it is well for all to know that, while all our constitutions are approved and confirmed by sovereign pontiffs—and there is put at the beginning of them the motu proprio of Gregory XIII, whereby they are approved—this rule and constitution of fraternal correction received the particular approbation of the sovereign pontiff, and that as the result of a judicial inquiry, which sets it in a category by itself. For in Rome a priest who had been a member of the Society, and was dismissed from it as being a restless and mutinous spirit, printed a fragment of the “Summa” of Cardinal Toledo, and in it there was a chapter saying that a certain religious order, to which he wished well for the learned men there were in it, had their rules contrary to the Gospel (Matt. viii. 15), whereby faults should be discovered immediately to the superior without previous notice given to the delinquent, and this led to many awkward consequences. Father Everard Mercurian, who was then General, complained to the Pope; and his holiness desired to see the book and our rule, and took information on the way in which the rule was carried out in the Society; and thereupon declared that not only was the rule not contrary to the Gospel, but was very far from being open to such a false accusation, and contained in it evangelical and apostolical perfection; and he ordered that part of the book to be prohibited, as was done by Cardinal Sirleto, to whom that office appertained.

This was enough to justify the rule; but for our greater satisfaction and consolation, leaving scholastic disputation and argumentations to the schools, we will treat here of two things: first, the importance and necessity of this rule; and secondly, sundry reasons which show and declare how well founded it is in reason. As for the first, the importance and necessity of this rule will be understood from another very important rule that we have, of which we spoke in the last treatise, of giving an account of conscience to the superior. All the reasons and suitable motives that our Father alleges in the Constitutions in favor of each individual’s manifesting his conscience to the superior—all these reasons, I say, bear out this rule and show the importance and necessity thereof. These reasons we set forth in that other place at length, and they may be reduced to two heads: first, to the end that superiors may be able to rule, direct, and cure; secondly, that so the superior may be able to ordain and provide better what makes for the good of the whole body of the Society For these same reasons our Father judged that it was very important that the superior should be advised of your faults and defects by anyone who knew them out of confession. He wanted to have a surety in this matter, in case you should be neglectful of a thing to which you are bound, and which is so important for your good and for the general good of the Society. Thus your brother supplies for what you ought to have done, and were bound to do, according to your institute. All this makes for your greater good and that of the order, for our greater security in our ministries, and for preventing superiors from ever putting anyone in danger of spiritual shipwreck. Under the second head many reasons may be given in confirmation and justification of this rule. Let this be the first, the practice that there is of it in other orders of ancient standing. In the order of the blessed St. Francis, they have the same ordinance that the Society has, that faults be told to the superior without previous warning to the brother that has committed them, as may be seen in the book entitled, A Quiet Conscience (Serena Conscientia), Question 104. And in the general statutes, called “of Barcelona” because they were made in a general chapter of theirs held at Barcelona in the year 1451, it is said that, when any go out of the monastery, they must after their return tell the prelate of any serious things that have happened to their companions; and that whoever fails to do this shall be punished with fasts on bread and water, and other penances at the discretion of the superior. And the same is said in the most ancient statutes of the order, in the fifth chapter. And when St. Bonaventure was general of the order, in a general chapter, with consent of the whole chapter, this ordinance was confirmed and approved; and it was enacted that any teaching to the contrary should be cast out of the order as pestilent and destructive of all regular discipline, and that anyone daring to teach it should be deprived of his books, and of active and passive voice, and even should be put in prison. And that it may be seen how ancient this teaching is, and how it has ever been the received practice among those who were aiming at perfection, Abbot Smaragdus quotes a decree of the abbots of old, Stephen and Paul, which speaks thus: “If anyone sees another doing or saying anything bad, and does not inform the superior at once without delay, let him understand that he is an abettor and accomplice in that sin, and it is as though he had sinned and done this thing; for he is not free from suspicion of complicity in a sin who, being able to remedy it, does not remedy it.” And thereupon he quotes another decree, which says thus: “If anyone knows of another’s design to fly from the monastery, and does not at once reveal it, without doubt he is partaker in his perdition, and let such a one be removed from intercourse and conversation with the rest of the religious until the other is brought back.” Thus this is not a new thing, nor proper and peculiar to us, but very ancient and common to other orders. This religious usage is founded on the end and purpose of the precept of fraternal correction, which is the amendment and cure of my brother, which commonly may be hoped for through the superior and not through any private person.

The second reason by which this rule is justified, and shown not to contain any such rigor or difficulty as some imagine, is that what is enjoined upon us and practised in the Society is to tell the fault of our brother to the superior as spiritual father, that he may correct the offender with his fatherly charity and love; and that he who has fallen, or was on the point of falling, may rise and amend, as is also declared in the twentieth of the Common Rules, which says thus: “If anyone knows of any grave temptation of another, let him warn the superior thereof, that he by his fatherly care and providence may be able to find suitable remedy.” Thus the other’s fault is not told to the superior as judge, nor in such a way as to enable him to proceed to punish it, but as to a father who may be able to improve and not hurt him, by the proper remedy being applied to his case, and the ill consequences being prevented that might ensue if the superior did not know and apply the remedy (Suarez, “De Poenitentia,” sect. 4, p. 22).

Thirdly, this is confirmed by Father Master Nadal, a man distinguished for learning and virtue, with this good reason. We see, he says, in the Church of God, as well in ecclesiastical as in secular government, that for elections to offices inquiry is made into things very private, according to the nature and requirements of the office. This is not done as a first step to punishment, although something may be found that deserves it; but because I want to know to whom I am entrusting my church, or my house, or my property, or my soul. But in the Society all are eligible for missions, that being proper to our institute; for which missions is required a very solid, not a weak and frail virtue that may come to ruin and destroy the good name of the order. The superior, therefore, may inform himself and be informed of these private matters, and lay down this rule for it, that he may be sure not to make a mistake in a matter of such importance as this, a matter that so much concerns you and the whole order.

In the fourth place, that it may be seen how reasonably this rule is framed, let us put in the scales on the one side the harm that ensues to you from your fault’s being told to the superior as to a father, and on the other the losses and inconveniences that come of its not being told; and see which scale weighs the heavier. The harm to you is a little shame, and a trifling loss of credit that you seem to yourself to suffer; but the harm that may and generally does ensue on the other side, when these things are not told to the superior, is first of all the fact that the mischief remains to be remedied, and as it is not remedied nor checked, it is apt to grow, and even to spread and infect others. Moreover, the usual outcome is apt to be your disgrace and a note of infamy to your order, since after all, sooner or later, in one way or another, the whole matter comes out; and what might before have been remedied with a little holy water, if you had told it to the superior at the outset, as you should have told it, will now have to come to be dealt with by cauteries of fire and the surgeon’s knife—I mean, dismissal from the Society—vastly more than a little shame and that slight loss of credit which you think you sustain by the superior’s knowing your fault. So I say that not only is there nothing done against charity by discovering to the superior the fault of your brother, but there is an obligation of doing so, an obligation which you should scruple to neglect, an obligation so serious that it may amount to a mortal sin to neglect it; not by virtue of the rule, since our rules do not bind under sin, as we have said above, but for the gravity of the matter and the serious consequences and mischief that may and often do ensue, of which he is the cause who might have prevented them by giving notice in time, and did not when he should have done so. The blessed St. Basil says, exhorting hereto: “To hide your brother’s sin and refuse to reveal it to the superior is nothing short of helping the sick man who is on his deathbed to die quickly.” Sin covered up and dissembled is like an interior abscess, that spreads and spreads within till it reaches the heart and proves fatal. And as he would do us a good turn who should open the abscess and expel the poison locked in there, even though it cost us some pain; and on the contrary he would play the part of an enemy who under pretext of compassion should refuse to open the abscess and cast the purulent matter out, so, says St. Basil, he does not the work of a friend, but of an enemy, who cloaks over the fault of his brother, and refuses to lay it open to the superior as to a physician and father, to treat and remedy it; this is like helping a man to die. St. Augustine, speaking on this subject, says: “Think not that it is ill done on your part when you reveal this to the superior; rather you would do ill in cloaking your brother’s misdeed over. You might have corrected him, and by silence and dissimulation you let him perish. If he had a sore on his body, and wished to hide it for fear of the cautery, would it not be cruelty of you to keep silent about it, and a work of charity and mercy to reveal it? How much more so in regard of the inward sores of the soul?”

The dissimulation that some are wont to practise, by way of keeping what they call the law of men of honor, is no act of charity. There are some who take it for a point of honor and good breeding not to go with stories of other people’s faults to the superior, and feel great repugnance to giving evidence against them, taking it to be a degradation; and they say they have no mind to go talebearing, nor to do harm to anyone, or get anyone into the superior’s black books. This is not the spirit of religion, much less of the Society, but laws of the world, evil codices, secular cabals and cliques very prejudicial to religion. It is not talebearing, it is not doing harm to your brother; it is doing him good. The opposite course is doing harm to him and to the order. How can it be right or reasonable to be unfaithful to your order to please some particular person? To whom are you more bound, to this individual or to the order? To be “a close and safe man,” and have a reputation for that, is a thing that one should take for an insult and a degradation; there is no degradation in being loyal to your order and keeping its rule. And St. Basil concludes: “Let none, then, conceal the sin of his brother, lest, instead of loving him and doing him good, he be the cause of his final ruin.” Seek not, then, means of concealment to hide the malady and infirmity of your brother, but manifest it straightway to the physician whose office it is to tend and remedy it, before it becomes incurable and calls for the cautery and the knife. This will be true love and true charity. In this way you will save your brother; in the other way perhaps you will contribute to his ruin.

These reasons, and others that theologians and saints allege, are sufficient proof that this rule is quite just and holy, even though the religious makes no renunciation of his right. Such renunciation is not made in other orders; but in the Society there is, besides what has been said, another particular reason, which is that anyone wishing to enter the Society has the rules given him, and a Summary of the Constitutions which he has to observe, where this rule is set down. And they ask him if he will be content to submit to these rules, and in particular in point of this very rule his consent is expressly asked to what is said in it. And every six months during the first two years of his novitiate, before he is admitted to his vows, the rule is once more put before him, and the same question asked. And the master of novices has a rule to explain to the novices more in particular the things in which afterwards they may find some difficulty, among which this rule is specified, and so it is done. And they say that they are content to submit to it for their greater spiritual good and their greater abasement and humiliation, as the rule says, which is another particular help to the further smoothing down of this difficulty.

It is certain that each one, when he enters religion, may for his greater perfection cede the right which he has in the matter, and consent to all his faults’ being made known immediately to the superior, without his being first warned in private. Each man is master and administrator of his own honor and fame; and for his own good and spiritual advancement he may agree to lose it with the superior, or with whomsoever the superior wishes, so long as there is no particular circumstance which obliges him not to part with it, as it is certain that there is no such circumstance in this case. As a man may lawfully reveal to the superior his sin, however grave and secret it may be, so also he may give leave to another to reveal it. This is what they do who enter the Society, by the consent which we have mentioned. The consent asked of them is to the doing of what is prescribed in the said rule, and they answer that they give it; which is nothing less than a cession of their rights. Supposing one in confession, or in confidence, tells me of a grievous sin, and I say to him: “To make better sure of a remedy, would you like or be satisfied that I should speak of it to the superior, he being a very learned and a very prudent man?” and he says, “Yes, I am satisfied,” it is clear that by the tenor of those words he cedes the right that he had that his fault should be told to nobody, and that I acquire a right to be able to consult my superior about it.

Add to this the ordinary practice of this rule which the novices see in the Society for two years before they take their vows. This is notice enough to give them to understand that they have renounced their right in the matter, even though they were not told in particular and expressly that they renounce it. It is in the same way that the Carthusian monk renounces the natural right that he has to preserve his life by eating meat, by the usage there is of this in his order, although he does not say in particular and expressly that he renounces it—and that is a greater right than the right to reputation. Again, he who is ordained to the sacred order of subdiaconate renounces the right of marrying, and becomes bound by a solemn vow of chastity, although he does not make any such vow in particular and expressly. So our Father Francis Borgia, when he was General, replied to some provincial congregations in Spain, who asked him whether persons entering the Society renounced their right in this matter. And the General of the Society has the right to declare the meaning of our constitutions, as is stated in our bulls and privileges.

Finally, since the writing of the above, what we have said has been determined in the Sixth General Congregation, and ordered to be explained to the novices, And as is observed there, the general congregation has the privilege from the apostolic see of explaining doubtful points of the institute. The congregation there adds that those words of the rule, “by anyone who knows them out of confession,” apply to things noted and observed by the giver of the information, and not to things which the persons involved impart to another in confidence by way of asking advice for their direction and aid.

Hereby are allayed all the difficulties and occasions of complaint that might occur, since scienti et volenti non fit iniuria—“to one who knows and is satisfied with the thing, no injustice is done.” You were told, to start with, when you were received, that such was the practice here, and you said that you were glad to submit to it. If since then you resent and feel aggrieved at your faults’ being told to the superior, do not throw the blame on the rule, nor on your brother who keeps it; do not complain of that, but of yourself, that, whereas now you ought to have more virtue and humility than when you first began, you have less, since you are no longer in the state of mind in which you then were. This is the whole hub of the difficulty which some make about this rule; and so our Father puts in the text of the rule that foundation which is necessary for its support, which is humility and desire of spiritual advancement. If we had that, we should rejoice at others’ knowing our faults, that we might be held in less esteem; how much more in being corrected and admonished for them! Little humility and virtue can he have, who has not enough even for this.