The superiors of Salesian communities can now be consecrated laity or, as they call them, coadjutor brothers.
A fact that the congregation has described as a historic milestone because, until now, this position was only in the hands of priests.
This is one of the points approved by the General Chapter of the Salesians, which will conclude on April 12. But despite the approval of the change, watch out for the fine print.
This novelty will not be embodied in an institutional form, that is to say, none of the constitutions will be modified, as it did not receive a 2/3 majority of the votes.
Therefore, the implementation will be done on an experimental basis. This means that it will only be implemented at the local level and on a case-by-case basis.
D. PASCUAL CHÁVEZ
Rector Major Emeritus of the Salesians
Number 13, concerning the request to the Rector Major to avail himself ad experimentum of the pope's Rescript to appoint, with the consent of his council, a Salesian Coadjutor as director of a community, reaches the required absolute majority, half +1, and thus is approved.
It is not the first institution to do something similar. The Franciscans have been requesting for decades that their major superior isn't priest as a rule. And the reason given was that St. Francis of Assisi was not a priest.
Pope Francis considered the proposal and decided to change canon 588 of the Code of Canon Law in 2022.
With this modification, it was authorized that this position could be held, discreetly and in individual cases, by a consecrated laity.
ARCHIVE, 2022
MSGR. JOSÉ RODRÍGUEZ CARBALLO
Former Secretary, Dicastery for Consecrated Life
This is an important novelty because until now the major superiors always had to be clerics. If it is a clerical institute, from now on, therefore, they can also be lay brothers and this explains better the jurisdiction that religious sisters have where the superior general is certainly a non-clerical sister and also other lay institutes where the superior general is also a layman.
The debate over whether non-priest members can lead religious communities is a complex issue that is increasingly taking place in many congregations.
JH
