On the course of studies in clerical religious [institutes] (Can. 587-591)

Canon 587

§ 1. Every clerical religious [institute] shall have a seat of studies approved by the general Chapter or by the Superiors with due regard for the prescription of Canon 554, § 3.

§ 2. In the house of studies, the common life applies without exception; otherwise the students cannot be promoted to orders.

§ 3. If a religious [institute] or a province cannot have a house of studies duly instructed or, if it has one, if it is difficult in the judgment of the Superiors to go there, the religious students are sent either to a house of studies correctly arranged of another province or religious [institute], or to the schools of the episcopal Seminary, or to a public Catholic athenaeum.

§ 4. Religious who, for the sake of studies, are sent a long way from their own places are not permitted to live in private houses, but must be received in some religious house of their institute or, if this is not possible, [that of] some religious institute of men, or in another Seminary or pious house in which men in sacred orders are present and which has been approved by ecclesiastical authority.

Canon 588

§ 1. For the entire course of studies, religious [students] are to be entrusted to the special care of a spiritual Prefect or Master who will inform their souls about the religious life through opportune admonitions, instructions, and exhortations.

§ 2. The spiritual Prefect or Master must be endowed with those qualities that are required of the Master of novices according to the norm of Canon 559, §§ 2 and 3.

§ 3. Superiors will be sedulously vigilant that all those things that are prescribed for religious under Canon 595 are most perfectly observed in the house of studies.

Canon 589

§ 1. Religious correctly instructed in lower disciplines shall diligently pursue philosophical studies for at least two years and sacred theology for at least four years, adhering to the teachings of D[om] Thomas according to the norm of Canon 1366, § 2, according to the instructions of the Apostolic See.

§ 2. During the time of studies, offices shall not be imposed on teachers or students that would call them [away] from studies or in any manner impede them; but the supreme Moderator and in particular cases other Superiors can, in their own prudent judgment, exempt them from some community activities, even from choir, especially during the nighttime hours, as often as this seems necessary to the pursuit of studies.

Canon 590

Religious priests, excepting only those who are exempt for a grave cause by the major Superiors, or who teach sacred theology, canon law, or scholastic philosophy, after the completion of their course of studies each year, for at least five years, are to be examined by grave teaching fathers in the various disciplines of sacred doctrine opportunely indicated beforehand.

Canon 591

At least in every formal house, a minimum of once a month, there shall be the resolution of a moral or a liturgical case to which, if the Superior thinks it opportune, there can be added a lecture on a related dogmatic doctrine; and all professed clerics who are then in sacred theology studies or who have completed them and are in the house are bound to attend, unless the constitutions provide otherwise.