Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/517

 PROCURATOR

451

PROFESSION

demand in England than those of any Hving writer except Tennyson. If her verses are unambitious, deaUng with simple emotional themes, they have the merit of originality and give evidence of much culture. She appears perhaps to greatest advantage in her narrative poems, several of which, such as "The An- gel's Story", "A Legend of Bregenz", "The Story of the Faithful Soul", and "A Legend of Provence", are well known in anthologies; but some of her lyrics, like "Cleansing Fires" and "A Lost Chord", have made a very wide appeal. Some of her poems, for example, "PerPacem ad Lucem" and "Thankfulness" are so devotional that they are in use as hymns.

DiCKEN.'f, Introduction prefixed to 1866 edition of Legends and Lyrics: The Month (Jan., 1866); B.\RHY Cornwall (Bryan WvLLER Procter), An Autobiographical Fragment, ed. Patmore (London. 1877); Bruce. The Book of Noble Englishwomen (Lon- don, 1878) ; Kemble, Records of a Girlhood (London. 1859) ; Idem, Records o/La(erLi/e (London, 1882); Faithfull, Victoria Regia. pref.; Reid, Life of Lord Houghton; Belloc (Lowndes), In a Walled Garden iXiOTiAon. 1902); B.OVIVVT. Autobiography (London, 1889); Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (New York, 1892); Chambers, Cyclopwdia of English Literature, III (London, 1904); Lee in Diet. Nat, Biog., 3. v.

P. J. Lennox.

Procurator, a person who manages the affairs of another by virtue of a charge received from him. There are different kinds of procurators: general, or particular, according as he is authorized to manage all the affairs of another, or only some of them; again a procurator may represent another in judicial matters {ad liles),oT in matters not requiring court proceedings {ad negolia); special procurators are the syndicits, a general agent of a university or corporation and the fiscal procurator, appointed by public authority as guardian of the law in civil, and especially in criminal proceedings.

Everybody, unless expressly forbidden by the law, has the right to appoint a procurator in affairs of which he has the free management. In selecting a Ijrocurator, a person is free, provided the choice does not fall on someone debarred by law, as excommuni- cated persons, notorious criminals, regulars without the consent of their superiors, clerics in cases for which they cannot act as law>-ers, and finally, for judicial cases, persons under twenty-five, for non-judicial cases, persons under seventeen years of age.

A procurator has the right and duty to act accord- ing to the terms of the charge committed, but a gen- eral mandate does not include cases for which the law requires a special commission. He is also allowed to elect a suljstitute, except in cases of marriages, and in general whenever, owing to the serious character of the affair, the procurator is supposed to have been chosen with the understanding that he should transact the business in person.

The power to act as procurator ceases: (a) as soon as he has fulfilled his office; (b) if with a sufficient reason he resigns; (c) if the principal or appointer revokes his mandate; but he must do this in due time, that is, while the affair still remains untouched {re integra); this revocation must be brought to the notice of the procurator before the latter completes the transaction; one of the chief exceptions to these rules is when there is question of a procuration to con- tract a marriage, in which case the revocation holds good, as long as it was made before the procurator contracted in the principal's name.

Unless the procurator acted beyond his powers, the principal must accept whatever the latter did in his name.

Febraris-Bocceboni, Bibliotheca Canonica, VI (Rome, 1885- 1902), 454; HEROENRtiTHER-HoLLWECK, Lthrbuch des kano- nischen Kirchenrechts (Freiburg im Br., 1905), n. 643; Droste- Messmer, Canonical Procedure in Disciplinary and Criminal Casea of Clerics (New York), n. 41 ; .Smith, Elements of Ecclesias- tical Law (New York), n. 756.

Hector Papi. Procurator Fiscalis. See Fiscal Pbocubator.

Pro-Datary. See Roman Curia. Profanation. See Desecration.

Profession, Religious. Historical View. — Pro- fession may be considered either as a declaration openly made, or as a state of life pubhcly embraced. The origins of religious profession date from the time when Christians were recognized in the Church as followers after perfection in the practice of rehgious life. We meet them in the third century, under the name of ascetics, called in Greek avKTyrai, and in Latin confessores. Eusebius (Hist, eccl.. Ill, xxxvii) num- bers among the ascetics the most illustrious pontiffs of the first ages, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp, and others. After these, in the fourth century, come the hermits and monks, fol- lowed in the eleventh century by the canons regular, in the thirteenth century by the mendicant orders, in the sixteenth by the clerks regular, and lastly by the members of religious congregations. Profession for a long time was made by clothing with the religious habit: the aspirant could personally put on the habit or receive it, with or without ceremony, from the abbot or from the bishop. This clothing laid upon him the obligation of poverty and chastity more as a natural consequence of a donation or consecration to God than as arising from formal vows, which did not exist at that time (cf. St. Basil, Regul» fusius trac- tata- resp. ad 14 interrogat. in P. G., XXXI, 949-,52).

The community life, established under Schenoudi, the great disciple of St. Pachomius, added an ex-plicit promise of fidelity to certain precepts. St. Bene- dict added an express promise of stability, and obedi- ence to the superior. These last promises denoted obligations created in addition to those implied by taking the habit. The first formula, which expressly mentions poverty and chastity, is that of the Con- stitutions of Narbonne, promulgated in 1260 by St. Bonaventure for the Friars Minor; then the constitu- tions of the Minims and clerks regular expressly mention the three essential vows of the religious life, as well as those which were superadded on account of the special ends of their orders. This discipline is common to religious orders and congregations. Finally the regulations {Norin(F) of 1901, published in explanation of the present practice of the Holy See, do not permit in new congregations any but the three essential vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

In the Decretal, "Quod votum," unic. De voto et voti redemptione (iii, 15) in 6°, Boniface VIII de- clared authoritatively that the vow of chastity, con- secrated by the reception of major orders, or by reli- gious profession in an approved institute, created a diriment impediment to marriage. Some communi- ties of tertiaries not belonging to an approved order were the first to introduce profession accompanied by simple vows, which is now the ordinary practice in the more recent congregations.

The Annals of the Order of St. Benedict (vol. I, p. 74) in the year 537 recognized among the Greeks three classes of religious: the novices, who wore the simple tunic; the perfect, clothed with the pallium; and the more perfect invested with the cuculla, or hood attached to a short, cloak, covering the shoulders, which was considered the special emblem of the reli- gious life. In certain monasteries of the East, a dis- tinction was made between persons wearing the short habit, luKpSaxvi"'^. and those wearing the long habit, lieya\6 ', a distinction against which St. Theo- dorus the Studite protested in his epistles (I, ep. x, in P. G., XCIX, 941-2) and which is still found among the Schismatic Coptic monks (see Kathol. Missionen, 1 Oct., 1910, p. 7 sqq.). St. Ignatius of Loyola laid down that in his order there should be a simple pro- fession, followed by more or less frequent renewal of vows until such time as the candidate should be pre- pared for the solemn or definitive profession; thia