Conclusiones del tercer capítulo

This section analyses the Constitutions of the Society34_{. The Constitutions were}

written by Ignatius with the help of Father Polanco, who was his personal secretary (Aldama 1989; O'Malley 1993). Given the relevance of this organisational text to an understanding of what the Society is, as a Religious Order, and of how it is structured, an analysis of all the ten parts that form the Constitutions will be made hereafter.

1. The General Examen.

2. The Declarations on the General Examen.

3. The Constitutions of the Society, divided into ten chapters. 4. The Declarations on the Constitutions.

The Declarations either on the General Examen or on the Constitutions are explanations of what is stated in the Constitutions. This explanation is made in every number of the Constitutions. The Constitutions are the fundamental rule of the Society, binding its members in juridical terms according to the Catholic Church’s Canonic Law, which means that the Constitutions have legislative power.

Every Religious Order has a text with this character. As discussed earlier, several Rules were in use by the time Ignatius founded the Society. The influence of these rules in the Constitutions has been extensively researched (Hsü 1971; Aldama 1989), but will not be addressed extensively because it is beyond the scope of this research. The Constitutions will be analysed in terms of their legislative influence in the governance of the Society. All the aspects that concern the government of the Society are fully declared in the Constitutions. The fact that the Constitutions cannot be changed35 _{in their fundamental text, but that the Declarations can be updated by a}

Congregation, calls attention to the relevance of these texts in understanding the governance mechanisms of the Society and their inner charisma.

35 _{The Constitutions were approved by GC 1, in 1558, and the unalterable character}

The first, and probably one of the most important, aspects to consider when approaching the Constitutions is their structure. In accordance with a modern way of charting thought (Ong 2004), the Constitutions follow a determined order in the presentation of the subject matters (Coupeau 2010). That order is based on practical considerations, which means that the aim of the Constitutions, which is the proper governance of the entity, is only stated in the final chapters, numbers nine and ten, entitled respectively “Governance of the Society” and “The Preservation and Increase of the Society”. The Constitutions can and should be analysed according to this rationality, and bearing in mind that the aim of this legislative text is to fully regulate the governance of its members aligned with their characteristic way of missioning. This is the first major difference between the Constitutions and previous Rules; the missioning that is proper of any member of the Society is based on the assumption that all of its members are fully available to go to any part in the world: “the members of this Society ought to be ready at any hour to go to any part of the world where they may be sent by the sovereign pontiff or their own superiors” (§588). This availability was, at the time, quite unusual because life in the monasteries was characterised precisely by stability: a monk would enter a monastery and, most probably, spend his entire life in that monastery.

The Constitutions were written to assure the proper government of its members, determining how to select and train them, and how to select those who should govern the entity. In this sense, the Constitutions mark a clear shift as regards what concerns previous Rules. The Rules of other Religious Orders were, by the 16th century, focused mainly on ordinances (Aldama 1989) which detailed extensively what

should be done and at what time of the day, for example. The Constitutions do not extensively detail issues regarding the practice of everyday life precisely because of the need for flexibility and adaptability to different geographical locations. The Constitutions are therefore to be approached enlightened by the need for moderation: “Moderation in spiritual and bodily labours and the middle tenor of the Constitutions, which do not lean toward an extreme of rigor or toward excessive laxity (and thus they can be better observed), will help this whole body to persevere and maintain itself in its well-being” (§822).

The Constitutions, being always concerned with the resilience of the entity, take into consideration two dimensions of the entity that Ignatius considered fundamental:

1. How to properly shape the members of the entity. In the Constitutions, the shaping of the members of the Society is treated in the General Examen and in Chapters One through to Five.

2. How to properly govern the entity. In the Constitutions the government of the entity is treated in Chapters Eight through to Ten.

The two chapters in between, Chapters Six and Seven, treat, respectively, the characteristics of religious life and of apostolic life. Religious life is understood as being subjected to the vows of chastity, obedience and poverty. There are substantial differences between the Society and previous Religious Orders in terms of the understanding of how one should live a proper religious life. Apostolic life is concerned with the specific missions a member of the Society has. Again, the Society

distinguishes itself from other Religious Orders in the type of with which mission it is engaged. Both the religious way of life and the apostolic missions were the cause for great concern inside the Catholic Church due to its revolutionary character (O'Malley 1993). However, this present section will not address these issues here as they will be treated in the critical discussion chapter. The following chapters will analyse the Constitutions according to its original division, starting with the chapters that treat dimensions related to the conduct of individuals, and ending with the chapters concerned with the conduct of the “Corpus”.