The way to recognize a new Institute of consecrated life: Speaking of some recent approval

Abstract

Some processes of transformation and internal division in some institutes of consecrated life already approved are the cause to the recent approval of new institutes. Their approval offers some particular difficulties. The process to approve these new institutes needs previously a task of discernment about the authenticity, newness, utility and vitality of these new charisma and also the accompaniment of their promoters. The diocesan authority and the Holy See share this responsibility. The bishop cannot erect a new institute in his diocese without previously consulting the Holy See, but the Holy See’s opinion does not affect to the validity of the act of establishment of the new institute (c.579). On the other hand, even if there are not a written rule about it, based on a consolidated praxis, the Holy See claims the exclusive competence on the approval of any new institute born from the division of an old one. Anyway, the due respect to the autonomy of the life of any consecrated life institute (c.586) means that the bishops and the Holy See, in the case of internal division, cannot interfere arbitrarily in their life and government. Nor even they can claim to be the authorized interpreters of their foundational charisma ordering the split of the institute and erecting a new one with one of the parts. Those in charge in first place of taking care of their own patrimony are all the members of the institute and, most of all, those who are in their government.