Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/257

Rh of any rule, or of any religious body, or order; or entail any other effects soever.

CHAPTER XVI.

Moreover, no renunciation, or obligation made earlier, even though upon oath, or in favour of any pious object soever, shall have force, unless it be made with the permission of the bishop, or of his vicar, within the two months immediately preceding profession; and it shall not otherwise be understood to obtain its effect, unless the profession have followed thereupon: but if made in any other manner, even though with the express renunciation of this privilege, even upon oath, it shall be invalid and of no effect. When the period of the noviciate is ended, the superiors shall admit those novices, whom they have found qualified, to profession; or they shall dismiss them from the monastery. By these things, however, the holy synod does not intend to make, any innovation, or to prohibit, but that the religious order of clerks of the Society of Jesus be able to serve God and His Church, according to their pious institute, approved by the holy Apostolic See. And, furthermore, before the profession of a novice, whether male or female, nothing shall be given to the monastery out of the property of the same, either by parents, or relatives, or guardians, under any pretext soever, except for food and clothing, for the time in which they are under probation; lest [the said novice] be unable to leave on this account, that the monastery is in possession of the whole, or of the greater part of his substance; and he be not easily able to recover it, if he should leave. Yea rather the holy synod enjoins, under the pain of anathema on the givers and receivers, that this be by no means done; and that, to those who leave before their profession, all things that were theirs be restored to them. And the bishop shall, if need be, enforce even by ecclesiastical censures that this be performed aright.