Ordination

A province must have a standard form in conformity with which bursars of convents and permanent administrators must present their economic reports to their respective superiors and councils.

The annual accounts of every convent and institute must be submitted for examination by the provincial council.

1. Each month, the convent syndic must give an account to the council of all revenues and expenses, debits and credits.
2. Each year, the superior of a house, the conventual prior, the vicar provincial, and the regional prior must send to the prior provincial an accurate and complete account, prepared by the syndic. It must include a budget for the following year, prepared after consultation with the conventual chapter – if the provincial chapter shall have so determined – and approved by the council of the convent or the vicariate. Copies must be kept in the files of the respective syndic.

No brother may have a personal account in a bank except with the permission of his superior; in which case another brother designated by the superior must also have the right to withdraw money.

1. Entities of the Order are to define in their chapter legislation and/or statutes the proper procedures for financial operations (administration, safe keeping of valuables and negotiables, investments and banking) in a manner suitable to their local conditions (K, n. 384).
2. In each province ethical norms shall be established for the assessment and investment of monies. The prior provincial together with his council should see to this task, having consulted the economic council and promoter or provincial commission for Justice and Peace. Taking these norms into account, the provinces and houses should consider in which banks it is right to deposit their funds (cf. § III) and in which companies it is right to invest.
3. Only in banks of assured security may money be deposited and, in accordance with n. 555, it must be deposited in the name of the respective moral juridical person or institute to which it belongs.
4. The bank must be chosen by the administrator him self with the consent of the superior.

§ I. – Every syndic or administrator must keep secure and orderly files. At the end of his term of office, he must give all records to his successor.
§ II. – Administrators appointed to a particular task must, once it has been completed, give all records to the respective syndic.

All money and capital goods of any kind, all income and expenditure must be recorded accurately in account books. Debits or any other financial obligations, as well as claims or credits, must also be clearly recorded in them.

While maintaining the radical right of convents to administer their own goods, provinces may decide on partial centralization in their economic statute in order to achieve better and more efficient administration.

1. The goods of societies or associations which assume before the State a civil legal personality on behalf of a convent, a province, or the Order are really our own goods and
   must be treated as such.
2. Therefore, the legal representative of the civil person which acts on behalf of a convent, a province, the Order, or an institution belonging to them may take only those actions which, according to our law, a competent superior or administrator may take; and he is strictly obliged to carry them out not as he decides, but as instructed by the competent official.
3. The same applies to other administrators and to each associate who by voting or in any other way takes part in administration. In all such cases, legal precautions must be taken
   lest any loss be sustained from the death of a brother or from any other cause.
4. If the legal representative is a lay person his/her rights and obligations must be determined in a special contract.

By ecclesiastical law, the Order, each province, and each convent has its own juridical personality. When this is not recognized by the State, each must acquire a civil personality as determined by the province’s statute or the Order’s.