The prevailing culture of our Western civilisation accepts with a noteworthy difficulty the concept of authority in general and tolerates with even more difficulty its personal expressions. Historical reasons and a certain evolution of thought are at the origins of this today’s reality.

This culture seeps also into the institutes, often affecting the life-style of the members and of the religious communities.

The communities do not enjoy any exemption from a kind of disorientation with this regard. For instance, it is not rare to meet mentalities, which in the name of conscience, of autonomy and personal maturity refuse or lower the role of religious authority (as a religious said in simple expressions, “in our community we are all adult persons, we agree fraternally and share the responsibilities: what has the superior to tell us?)

Often another vision is against this one, which is equally ambiguous, on behalf of the one called to exercise the authority, and which justifies the taken decisions, stating their democratic connotations (“The Council has so decided”).

Undoubtedly, a more cultural and tolerating democratic vision, more dialogical and respectful of the personal rights, has helped the religious life to purify many attitudes of the past, to eliminate abuses and to live the relation authority-obedience with an increased equilibrium.

This, however, must not distort the nature of the fundamental values, which we must safeguard in the relations. Unluckily, because of a known spiritual pathology of our modern time, in the name of modernity and reason, we finish by transforming the meaning of the values we are unable to live.

The exercise of authority in the ecclesial life, particularly in religious life is a pillar, without which every construction is destined to collapse.  We cannot attenuate this conviction, not even in the consideration of all the synod-like structures of participation, which must rightly support the exercise of authority.

With the ecclesiology, which has characterised it, Vatican II has undoubtedly had a sensitive influence also on the way we must consider the exercise of authority in the institutes of consecrated life. A vision more in keeping with today’s cultural sensitivity, besides the specific exigencies of the consecrated life, has highlighted the concept of co-responsibility of all the convoked members, because of the same vocation and mission. This vision translates concretely into the creation of structures of participation, which allow us to collaborate actively, allowing the personal Charism, talents, competence and judgement of the members to flow into the process of the judgement of the superiors.

The nature of the religious authority

In the years after the Council, there were various theories on the nature of the religious authority. Without wanting to enter the theological debate, we deem it important to remind some of its essential aspects.

The religious authority does not have the same nature as the hierarchical one. In fact, it does not depend on the sacrament of the sacred order. Its origins are essentially charismatic and its transmission is in relation with the gift, which the religious family received when the Spirit inspired it.  These charismatic roots are particularly visible in the persons of the founders. They possess an authority of fact, thanks to a particular presence of God in their persons and projects.

Throughout Church history, there have been men and women who have expressed this authority of charismatic type, offered to them by a gift of the Holy Spirit. The exercise of this authority was not bound to any formal recognition on behalf of the hierarchy. This intervened successively to make it authentic and to declare it ecclesial.

The nature of the religious authority flows from the prophetic nature of the religious family. The Church recognises it and gives it the norms to discipline its exercise.

It is not up to the religious community to confer the authority to the superior, even if, in various ways, it can intervene for its designation.  After all, the superior is not a delegate, nor a simple legal representative of his community.

The Code of Canon Law invites the superiors to exercise in spirit of service the power, which they have received from God through the ministry of the Church.” ¹ The superiors exercise the authority corresponding to the gift of the Spirit. They represent a fundamental mediation in channelling the will of God within the aroused charismatic project.

Plurality of models, unity of service

In the institutes, the way of exercising authority is not univocal. It corresponds to the way of realising the specific charism, which is at the origin, and it must be in conformity with one’s own healthy traditions.

In a monastery, they do not exercise authority in the same way as in an institute actively dedicated to the apostolate. According to the different spiritual traditions, at times we see the superior as a father, a master, a companion, an animator of community life, the one who confers the mission.  

Behind each of these accentuations, there is a charismatic project. It is the gift of the Spirit, who has convoked the group of the faithful. It constitutes the identity of the religious family, creates its traditions and moulds its history.

These different modalities do not exclude nor oppose one another. They have a different charismatic accent, bringing to evidence the components of the life of the institutes: fraternal life, apostolate, personal research of God, etc.²

The attitude of obedience, which corresponds to the exercise of authority, in its turn, is an expression of the acceptance of the gift of the Spirit, which is at the origin of the Gospel project and the reception of the mediations, through which it expresses and realises itself.

The awareness of one’s own charismatic identity in the institutes is fundamental for the exercise of authority and to understand better the service it has to fulfil.

We must see this exercise first as an act of obedience. Effectively, in a community we do not have one who commands and others who obey. All obey the will of God, which manifests itself within the charismatic patrimony of the religious family.

The service of the religious authority

The religious authority must be exercised in a field of dialogue, of listening, exchange consultation and as ample as possible involvement in the taking of decisions.  The ecclesial right expresses this vision in the obligation for the superior of having her own council³.

This authority is essentially a service. The religious who has adhered to a Gospel project of life is in a state of dependence on the will of God, which the religious authority will help to discern.

The superior does not command according to his own taste and criteria, but as a faithful interpreter of the charismatic project of his own religious family. To be authentically such, he must be in a constant attitude of listening to the Word.

The service, which the authority fulfils, becomes manifest through a process by which everyone seeks the will of God to welcome and realise it. The religious authority is an indispensable mediation going beyond a vision limited to the functions of a good organisation, of programmes and management of the works. The eminence of the service consists in helping concrete persons to search the will of God, indicating concrete journeys.

By doing so, the authority fulfils also a service of community animation according to the spirit and the identity of the family, as well as a service of unification, by creating communion and imparting the mission, in faithfulness to the Gospel project proper of the institute.

The right recognition of the authority does not oppose the principle of co-responsibility, by which all the members must offer the service of spiritual animation of their own family, since all of them have received its “spirit”. Each one, therefore, must animate and awake the energies of the other, favouring a collective dynamism to realise a common project.

The more the service of authority is capable of making important decisions, as the fruit of a common will, and the more it is efficacious, because in this way all partake in the discernment of God’s plan for the community.

The difficult balance: authority-individual

In living the relation authority-individual in religious communities, there are some equally dangerous tendencies, such as individualism and authoritarianism.

The individualism, decease of our Western civilisation, sees authority at the disposal of the members; authoritarianism reputes the dictates of the authority above the rights of the individuals.

There are religious communities in which the group in power does not allow the expression of individual talents. In others, instead, the members do not allow the exercise of authority in the name of one’s own autonomy, conscience or identity of the adults.

These spiritually “pathological” manifestations are an obstacle for the community. They prevent it from radiating its gift and edifying the church with it.

It is up to the individual persons to make of the charism a living and operating reality. Authority is such when it allows the radiation of the charism, thanks to the life of its members. In assigning the mission, the authority allows the personal talents to bear fruit within the collective gift, which must mark deeply the individual work.

The authority renders a precious service when it does not render obedience banal, lowering it to military forms of submission, of infantile docility or, worse, of personal irresponsibility. It is important not to kill the initiative, nor to empty the sense of participation. The authority enriches the single personalities, when it neither centres, nor absorbs or intervenes in everything⁴.

True obedience does not destroy responsibility and choice. It does not oppose obstacles, but favours the human growth and the personal freedom. Only the free choice makes our convictions authentic, our growth true and our testimony credible. Forms of coercion might compel to change behaviours, but do not mould the heart of persons⁵.

Conclusion

Today, less than ever, the world tolerates the religious unable to take decisions or to assume a position. It reacts rightly to every form of obedience reduced to human and spiritual infantilism.

The religious authority must stimulate the persons to grow to evangelical maturity. It has the task of making visible and concrete the will of God, which always demands to assume a responsibility, to make choices, to operate a conversion, to make a journey.

The religious authority is truly such, when it helps the community to answer the fundamental questions it has to face in order to be faithful to oneself. It is truly such when it does not choose to serve the order and organisations, but to promote the fulfilment of the Gospel in the light of the members and the community choices.

Its service, in this sense is more in the capacity of giving dynamism to the hope of all, rather than in the exercise of a mere control of reality⁶.

NOTE

1. Codice di Diritto Canonico, can. 618. [Torna al testo]

2. Cfr. A. Pigna, Consigli evangelici. Virtù e Voti, Edizioni OCD, Roma 1990, p. 459. [Torna al testo]

3. Codice di Diritto Canonico, can. 627. [Torna al testo]

4. Cfr, J. M. Guerrero Guerrero, in Dizionario Teologico della vita consacrata,  Ancora, Milano 1994, pp.108-118. [Torna al testo]

5. Cfr. J. Chittister, Il fuoco sotto la cenere. Spiritualità della vita religiosa qui e adesso, San Paolo, Cinisello Balsamo 1998, pp 147-149. [Torna al testo]

6. Cfr. J. M. Guerrero Guerrero, Autorità…, p. 1. [Torna al testo]