Ordination

When money is required for the commencement of a major project or for its continuation, the source of the requisite revenue must be clearly indicated when making the financial arrangements.

1. Planning must be undertaken by a provincial chapter after the economic council has voted on the matter.
2. When planning to meet the needs of a province or of one or other convent, the rights of convents to their property may be restricted, even to the extent of transfer or alienation of goods; but the chapters of the convents concerned must always be consulted beforehand.

1. It is difficult for individual convents or institutes to undertake major projects with their own unaided resources. In many cases the combined help of all the members and communities of a province is needed and planning is essential. Projects have to be undertaken in sequence, a sequence based on a priority of need and feasibility, so that all may help each other successively.
2. All this applies not only to once-off large-scale expenditure on the construction or restoration of buildings or the commencement of new works, but also to undertakings which require annual subsidies.

To make and change investments strictly so called, the consent of the provincial council suffices, observing the prescriptions of common law.

1. If the provincial chapter approves, and with due regard for owners’ rights, including the right to interest, financial investments, in the strict or the wider sense, should be made jointly for the entire province and not by individual convents.
2. The provincial council should make general rules about the placing of investments and the transfers that may need to be made, so that the bursar of the province, in collaboration with the economic council and after consulting independent experts, may transact business expeditiously.

The Order must also have an economic council, whose ex officio chairman is the bursar of the Order and which exercises the same functions as does a province’s economic council.

1. A province must have a council for economic matters composed of the bursar of the province and at least two competent brothers, with a chairperson appointed by the provincial chapter. To this council may be added, if it seems advisable, trustworthy lay experts. (B, n. 289).
2. It will be the duty of the economic council not only to examine all the reports to be submitted to the provincial chapter or the provincial council, but also to help the provincial council by taking a consultative vote when there is question of economic matters of major importance such as, especially, the budget, taxes, and long-range plans.
3. The norms by which the council for economic matters is governed must be included in the statute of administration.

It is the responsibility of the bursar of the Order to examine the economic administration of all the convents and institutes immediately subject to the Master of the Order, as determined by the Master of the Order.

A provincial bursar should collaborate with all conventual bursars, exchanging advice and examining administrative problems, as determined by the economic statute.

At the end of the administrative year the bursar of the Order, with the approval of the Master of the Order, must send to every prior provincial a detailed report on the economic condition of the Order in the previous year, including, especially, any extraordinary budget.