Fraternity of the Holy Cross
Traditional Capuchin Fraternity of the Order of St. Francis
/ Pope Clement V - Exivi de Paradiso, 1312

Article 1

The Friars are not bound to every Evangelical counsel. The Friars are bound to all that pertains to the three vows

Therefore first of all since from that which is in the beginning of the said rule: “The Rule and life of the Friars Minor is this: namely to observe the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by living in obedience, without property, and in chastity.” Likewise there follows: “Having truly finished the year of probation, let them be received into obedience promising always to observe this very life and rule.” Likewise about the end of the rule: “That We may observe, as We have firmly promised, the poverty, humility, and Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ”: it had been hesitated, whether the Friars of this same Order are bound from the profession of their rule to everything, the precepts as well as counsels of the Gospel: by certain ones saying, that they are obliged to all: others however asserting, only to those three counsels, namely, to live in obedience, in chastity, and without property, and to those things, which are proposed under obligatory words in the rule.

We, adhering to the footprints of Our predecessors concerning this article, and pursuing this very article for the sake of something more clear, have considered that to the said hesitation it must be replied, that since one judges the determinate vow of whomsoever to fall sub certo, one vowing the rule cannot be said to be held from the force of a vow of this kind to those Evangelical counsels, which are not proposed in the rule, and indeed this is proved to have been the intention of blessed Francis, the author of the Rule, from this that certain Evangelical counsels are proposed in the rule, others omitted. For if by this passage: “The Rule and life of the Friars Minor is this: etc.” he had intended to oblige them to every evangelical counsel, he would have expressed superfluously and frivolously in the rule certain of those things, while suppressing others.

Since however one judges this by the nature of a restrictive term, that it so excludes the extraneous from itself, that it circumscribes all things pertaining to itself: We declare and say, that the said Friars are not only obliged merely and absolutely to those three vows ratified by the profession of their rule, but they are bound even to fulfill all those, pertaining to the aforesaid three, which are proposed by the Rule itself.

For if according to these aforesaid three so briefly and merely promising themselves to observe the rule by living in obedience, chastity, and without property, and not even to every thing contained in the rule, which these three modify, they are constrained for nothing and vainly they have professed these words: “I promise always to observe this Rule”: from which by these words no obligation would arise.

Nor for all that is it to be thought, that blessed Francis intended the professors of this rule to be equally obligated, as much as to every thing contained in the rule which modifies the three vows, or to others expressed in the same; rather he patently more ably distinguished, that in respect to certain things from the force of the words the transgression of which is mortal, and in respect to certain other things, not so: since he adds the word of “precept” to certain things of the same, or of “equipollent” to another, and in respect to other things he is content to use other words.

Likewise because besides those things, which are proposed in the rule expressly by word of precept, and exhortation, or admonition: some such things are inserted by word of imperative mood negatively or affirmatively, in as much as it has been doubted whether they are bound to these things, as to things having the force of precept. And because as We have understood, this doubt is not diminished, but augmented from that which Our predecessor, Pope Nicholas III, of happy memory, is known to have clarified, that the Friars themselves from the profession of their rule are bound to those evangelic counsels, which in the rule itself are expressed preceptorily or inhibitorily, or under equipollent words; and no less to the observance of all those things, which are indicated to themselves in the same rule under obligatory words; the aforesaid Friars have supplicated Us, that We might deign to clarify for their consciences the things to be observed, which ought to be judged by them as equipollent and obligatory in precept.

And thus We, who are delighted in their sincere consciences, attending to these because in that which respects the salvation of souls, the pars securior must be held so as to avoid grave remorse of conscience: We say that it is licit that the Friars not be bound to the observance of all those things, which are proposed in the rule under words of imperative mood, as to precepts or equipollent to precepts: it is expedient however for the Friars themselves to observe the purity and rigor of the rule, because they know themselves to be obliged to those things, as to equipollent to precepts, which here following are annotated.

But as these things are to be held, which might seem to be equipollent to precepts from the force of the words, or at least by reason of the matter about which they pertain, or from both sub compendio:

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