Mother superior

She is bound to God, the church and her community by vows or promises and is subordinate to her superior.

The superior is required to view her office as a service to the community, whose unity she must protect, and to encourage the sisters, by her example and the use of her authority, to lead an exemplary religious life.

Canon law states that superiors "are to exercise their power, received from God through the ministry of the Church".

In order for members of the consecrated life to be appointed or elected to the office of superior, a suitable time is required after perpetual profession or promises, to be determined by proper law, or if it concerns major superiors, by the constitutions.

Canon law mentions the superior of a nunnery with papal enclosure as the person who has to consent if the local bishop desires to enter the convent "and, for a grave cause and ... of permitting others to be admitted to the cloister and the nuns to leave it for a truly necessary period of time".