25 The Seraphic Father commanded that the Rule and the Life of the Friars Minor should be the following: to observe the "holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ" living in obedience, without possessing any property, and in all chastity, and this not according to one's own whims or individual interpretation of the Rule, but according to the commands of the Roman Pontiffs, canonically elected. For those who eagerly longed "to follow this manner of life. . . they had to be, first, diligently examined by the Father Ministers concerning their Catholic Faith and their reception of the sacraments of the Church; whether they believed all these things and were firm in their intention to profess them until death." Those who had already become members of the Order must for no reason leave except it be "by order of Our Lord, the Pope." To the clerics of the Order it is prescribed that they celebrate "the divine office according to the calendar of the Roman Church"; to the friars in general it was commanded that they should not preach in the territory of a bishop without his permission, and that they should not enter, not even for reasons of their ministry, the convents of sisters without a special faculty from the Apostolic See. No less reverence and docility towards the Apostolic See is shown by the words which St. Francis uses in commanding that a Cardinal Protector should be appointed for the Order: "In obedience, I enjoin the Ministers to ask the Lord Pope for one of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church to be the guide, protector and corrector of this Brotherhood; so that subordinate at all times and submissive, at the feet of the same Holy Roman Church, and thus firm in the Catholic Faith, . . . we shall observe, as we have faithfully promised to do, the holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ." ( Rule of Friars Minor, passim )
Source: Rite Expiatis (Vatican.va)