CLC General Norms:
Life and Government of the Community
(Summary)

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The General Assembly is the supreme governing body of CLC. It meets every five years to decide the ordinary business....

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

The Executive Council is responsible for the ordinary government of the Community....

ESTABLISHING NEW COMMUNITIES

Though the CLC is one, it may nevertheless comprise groupings of National Communities according to common specifics or relating to territory....

The World Community officially establishes a single national community in a given country....

The Church authority which grants official approval to a national, regional or local community is the World Christian Life Community®, canonically approved by the Holy See, with the consent of the bishop or bishops concerned; for communities established in places belonging to the Society of Jesus or in those whose charge has been confided to it, the consent required is, according to the pontifical documents, that of the General or Vicar General of the Society of Jesus, who may delegate this authority to the provincial or to the ecclesial assistant....

NATIONAL COMMUNITIES

Each National Community as a branch of the World Community establishes its own statutes in conformity with the General Principles and General Norms....

LOCAL COMMUNITIES

• Members participate in the life of the community at several concentric levels. The local community level (also called small CLC community or simply group) is the most appropriate for a communal continuation of the dynamics of life generated by the Spiritual Exercises. These small communities practice the type of prayer and relationships which foster a process of integration of faith and life by offering to all members a permanent communal verification of their spiritual and apostolic growth.
• Experience shows that for this end it is of great help that these communities by composed of no more than 12 members of like qualities, such as age, occupation, or state of life, and that they meet weekly or biweekly so that the process carries over from one meeting to the next.

• Each local community, withing a framework of a wider community... adopts its process for accepting new members, its own programs, service, and the content and format of its meetings. All members participate periodically in celebrating the Eucharist and share responsibility for the life of their local community and for the wider community in which this is inserted. Thus, the entire community decides all its affairs except those it delegates to its leaders.
• The principal responsibility for coordination in each local community is vested by the members in its elected coordinator, who works in close collaboration with the guide and possesses such powers as are delegated by the community.
• The guide, well formed in the Ignatian process of growth, helps the community to discern the movements at work in the individuals and the community, and helps them to maintain a clear idea of the CLC goal and processes. The guide assists the community and its coordinator to find and to use the means needed for the community's formation and its mission. The guide's participation in the life of the community is conditioned by the objectivity needed to carry out effectively the role of guide. The guide is chosen by the community, with the approval of the national or regional community.

ECCLESIAL ASSISTANT

• The World Ecclesial Assistant to the Christian Life Community® is appointed by the Holy See after receiving a list of names from the World Executive Council. The World Christian Life Community® accepts as its Vice-ecclesial Assistant the Jesuit who, after consultation with the World Executive Council, is appointed by Father General of the Society of Jesus as head of the Jesuit Secretariat for CLC in Rome.
• National, regional, diocesan or other Ecclesial Assistants are proposed by the CLC Executive Councils at the equivalent level, but their appointment is reserved to the competent authority. Generally at the national, regional and diocesan levels, the Ecclesial Assistant is a priest; in special cases the competent authority may assign the function to any other qualified person, always taking account of the role that the CLC expects from its assistants (GP 14)....
• At the level of the local community the link with the Ecclesial Assistant will normally be maintained through the local community guide.
• The term of office for a national, regional or diocesan Ecclesial Assistant is four years. This may be renewed....

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