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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Religious Life</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12748b.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="Overview and evangelical ideas on what makes up religious life"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="12748b.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/r.htm">R</a> > Religious Life</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Religious Life</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <h2>General view</h2> <p>We all have within us that vague and general <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of the religious life which enables us to recognize it when it is described as a life directed to personal perfection, or a life seeking union with <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. Under this twofold aspect it is met with in all ages and places: every <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> possesses an inclination to good, and an inclination towards <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. There are everywhere <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> that willingly follow these inclinations and consequently religious <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a>. Sometimes they attach more importance to the tendency to self-perfection, sometimes to the tendency towards <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>; in other words, to the ascetic tendency or the mystical tendency; but since <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is the end of man, the two tendencies are so similar as to be practically one. If the Creator has put into our <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> the principle of religious life, we must expect not only to find it, more and less intense, in every religion, but also to see it reveal itself in similar ways. We should not be surprised if outside the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> Church there should be <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> devoted to contemplation, solitude, and sacrifice; but we are not <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obliged</a> to conclude that our <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> practices are necessarily derived from theirs, since the <a href="../cathen/08050b.htm">instincts</a> of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a> sufficiently account for the resemblance. Such an explanation would not explain the origin of these practices: if we are indebted for the monasticism of Pachomius to the worshippers of Serapis, where did they find their inspiration? Nor would the explanation account for the results: whence comes it that monachism has covered not only the East, and <a href="../cathen/01777b.htm">Asia</a>, but also Africa, <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a>, and the whole of the West?</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>In our days the historical derivation of certain usages is a thing of small importance; we may admit without hesitation any connexion which is <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a>, but not one which is merely assumed. The <a href="../cathen/08193a.htm">Israelites</a> may have borrowed from <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egypt</a> the practice of <a href="../cathen/03777a.htm">circumcision</a>, which was the sign of their covenant with <a href="../cathen/08329a.htm">Jehovah</a>; and so certain ascetic practices, even if they had a <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> origin, were nevertheless, as employed by our <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> and religious, <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> and <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> in meaning and inspiration. Moreover, not every <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> or practice of a <a href="../cathen/05781a.htm">false</a> religion is necessarily <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">erroneous</a> or reprehensible; there may be great nobility of character among <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">Buddhist</a> <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> or <a href="../cathen/10424a.htm">Mussulman</a> dervishes, as there may be faults sullying the monastic or religious habits worn in the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> Church.</p> <p>We need not here present a comparative analysis of the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> religious life and the religious life of non-Christians, nor even compare our religious with the servants of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> in the <a href="../cathen/14526a.htm">Old Testament</a> (see <a href="../cathen/01462b.htm">ANCHORITES</a>; <a href="../cathen/01767c.htm">ASCETICISM</a>; <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">BUDDHISM</a>; <a href="../cathen/05546a.htm">ESSENES</a>; <a href="../cathen/10459a.htm">MONASTICISM</a>). But how are we to recognize the <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religious</a> life of the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> and Divine religion? Not by bodily <a href="../cathen/10578b.htm">mortifications</a>, which may be surpassed in severity by those of the fakirs; not by <a href="../cathen/05277a.htm">mystical ecstasies</a> and raptures, which were experienced by those initiated into the Greek and Oriental mysteries, and are still met with among <a href="../cathen/03028b.htm">Buddhist</a> <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> and dervishes; not even by the faultless lines of all the plans of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> religious life, for <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, who desires progress even in His <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, has permitted rough beginnings, experiments, and individual mistakes; but even the <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> making these mistakes possess in the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> religion the principles which ensure correction and gradual improvement. Besides, in its entirety, the <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religious</a> life of the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> religion must appear to us to be in conformity with the moral and social <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> of our present existence, as well as with our destiny; its intentions must appear sincerely directed towards personal sanctification, towards <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and the Divine order. The tree must everywhere be known by its fruits. Now, <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> religious life <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinitely</a> surpasses all other ascetic systems by the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> and beauty of the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> laid down in so many rules and treatises, and by the eminent <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a> of its followers such as Saints Anthony, Pachomius, Basil Augustine, Colombanus, <a href="../cathen/06780a.htm">Gregory</a>, and others, and finally, especially in the West, by the marvellous fruitfulness of its work for the benefit of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">mankind</a>. After these preliminary observations, we may confidently look for the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> religious life in the Gospel.</p> <h2>Evangelical idea</h2> <p>We cannot regard as essential everything that we find in the full development of religious life, without ignoring historical facts or refusing them the attention they deserve; and we must correct the definitions of <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholastic</a> writers, and lessen some of their requirements, if we wish to put ourselves in harmony with history, and not be compelled to assign to religious a later origin, which would separate them by too long a period from the first preaching of the Gospel which they profess to practise in the most perfect manner. The Scriptures tell us that perfection consists in the <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and our neighbour, or to speak more accurately, in a charity which extends from <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> to our neighbour, finding its motive in <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and the opportunity for its exercise in our neighbour. We say "it has its motive in God", and for that reason <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> tells us that the second commandment is like to the first (<a href="../bible/mat022.htm#vrs39">Matthew 22:39</a>); "and the opportunity for its exercise in our neighbour", as St. John says: "If any man say, I <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, whom he seeth not?" (<a href="../bible/1jo004.htm#vrs20">1 John 4:20</a>). The <a href="../cathen/14530a.htm">New Testament</a> warns us of the obstacles to this charity arising from an attachment to and desire of created things, and from the cares caused by their possession, and, therefore, besides this precept of charity, our observance of which is the measure of our perfection, the <a href="../cathen/14530a.htm">New Testament</a> gives us a general counsel to be disengaged from everything contrary to charity. This counsel contains certain definite directions, among the most important of Which are the renunciation of riches, of carnal pleasure, and of all <a href="../cathen/01381d.htm">ambition</a> and self-seeking, in order to acquire a spirit of <a href="../cathen/15506a.htm">voluntary</a> submission and generous devotion to the service of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and our neighbour.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>All <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a> are bound to obey these <a href="../cathen/12372b.htm">precepts</a>, and to follow the spirit of these counsels; and a fervour like that of the first <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a> will enable them to free themselves from attachment to earthly things in order to set their affections on <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and the things of <a href="../cathen/07170a.htm">heaven</a>; while the remembrance of the shortness of this life facilitates the sacrifice of wealth and natural pleasures. The first converts of <a href="../cathen/08344a.htm">Jerusalem</a> acted on this principle, and sold their possessions and goods, laying the proceeds at the feet of the apostles. But experience, by which <a href="../bible/08374c.htm">Christ</a> wished His faithful to be taught, soon corrected their <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">errors</a> on the Subject of the future of the world, and showed the practical impossibility of a complete renunciation by all members of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/14074a.htm">society</a> can no more continue without resources and without children than the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> can exist without the body; it has need of men engaged in lucrative professions, as well as of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> marriages and <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">families</a>. In short, according to the designs of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> who bestows a diversity of gifts, there must also be a diversity of operations (<a href="../bible/1co012.htm#vrs4">1 Corinthians 12:4, 6</a>). Every kind of career should be represented in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, and one of these should include those who make profession of the practice of the Evangelical counsels. Such <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> are not necessarily more perfect than others, but they adopt the best means of attaining perfection; their final object and supreme destiny are the same as those of others, but they are charged with the <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duty</a> of reminding others of that destiny and of the means of fulfilling it; and they pay for this favoured position by the <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a> which it entails, and the benefit which others derive from their teaching and example. This life which, in view of the great precept, follows the Evangelical counsels, is called the religious life; and those who embrace it are called religious.</p> <p>At first sight, it would seem that this life ought to unite in itself all the counsels scattered through the Gospels: that would indeed be the religion of counsels; and certainly, the more fully it inspires the desire and furnishes the means of following the Evangelical counsels, the more fully is it a religious life; but a perfect realization of those counsels is impossible to man; the opportunity of practising them all does not present itself in every man's life, and one would quickly be worn out if he attempted to keep them all continually in view. We soon learn to distinguish those that are more essential and characteristic, and more calculated to ensure that freedom from whatever hinders the <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and of our neighbour, which should be the distinguishing mark of the perfect life. From this point of view, two counsels are put prominently forward in the <a href="../cathen/14530a.htm">New Testament</a> as <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> for perfection, namely the counsel of poverty: "If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor" (<a href="../bible/mat019.htm#vrs21">Matthew 19:21</a>), and the counsel of perfect chastity practised for the sake of the <a href="../cathen/08646a.htm">kingdom of heaven</a> (cf. <a href="../bible/mat019.htm#vrs12">Matthew 19:12</a>, and <a href="../bible/1co007.htm#vrs37">1 Corinthians 7:37-40</a>, and the commentary of <a href="../cathen/04378a.htm">Cornely</a> on the latter).</p> <p>These two counsels teach us what we have to avoid; but it remains for a man to fill his life with acts of perfection, to follow <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> in His life of charity towards <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">men</a>, or, since this would be perfection itself, to devoted his life to an occupation which will make it tend towards union with <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> or the service of his neighbour; Religious life then is made perfect by a definite profession either of retirement and contemplation or of <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">pious</a> activity; The profession, negative as well as positive, is placed under the control and direction of <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> authority, which is entrusted with the <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duty</a> of leading men in the ways of <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a> and <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holiness</a>. Submission to this authority, which may interfere more or less as times and circumstances require, is therefore a <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> part of religious life. In this is manifested obedience as a counsel which governs and even supplements the two others, or rather as a conditional precept, to be observed by all who desire to profess the perfect life. The religious life which is pointed out to us by the Evangelical counsels is a life of charity and of union with <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and the great means it employs to this end is freedom and detachment from everything that could in any manner prevent or impair that union. From another point of view it is a devotion, a special <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecration</a> to <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> and <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, to whom every <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> acknowledges that he belongs. <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">St. Paul</a> tells us: "You are not your own" (<a href="../bible/1co006.htm#vrs19">1 Corinthians 6:19</a>); and again "All [things] are yours, and you are <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ's</a>, and <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> is <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a>" (<a href="../bible/1co003.htm#vrs22">1 Corinthians 3:22, 23</a>).</p> <h2>History of religious life (before A.D. 500)</h2> <h3>Persons</h3> <p>The <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> virgins were the first to profess a life distinguished from the ordinary life by its tendency to perfection; continence and sometimes the renunciation of riches, attached them specially to <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>. (See <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">NUNS</a>.) The Fathers of the first century mention them, and those of the second century praise their mode of living. Shortly after the virgins appeared those whom <a href="../cathen/04045a.htm">Clement of Alexandria</a> (Pædagog., I, 7, in P.G., VIII, 320) called <em>asketai</em> and whom the <a href="../cathen/09022a.htm">Latin Church</a> called "confessores". They also made profession of chastity, and sometimes of poverty, as in the case of <a href="../cathen/11306b.htm">Origen</a> and <a href="../cathen/04583b.htm">St. Cyprian</a>. In the Liturgy, they took rank before the virgins, and after the ostiarii or door-keepers. <a href="../cathen/05617b.htm">Eusebius</a> (<a href="../fathers/250103.htm"><em>Church History</em> III.37</a>) mentions among the "ascetics" the greatest <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pontiffs</a> of the first ages, <a href="../cathen/04012c.htm">St. Clement of Rome</a>, <a href="../cathen/07644a.htm">St. Ignatius of Antioch</a>, <a href="../cathen/12219b.htm">St. Polycarp</a>, and others.</p> <p>We find in the third century the first distinct traces of the kind of life in which the <a href="../cathen/12451b.htm">religious profession</a> becomes by degrees perfected and brought under rule, that of the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>. The note which characterizes them at first is their seclusion from the world, and their <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> of retirement. Till then virgins and ascetics had edified the world by keeping themselves pure in the midst of corruption, and recollected in the midst of dissipation; the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> endeavoured to edify it by avoiding and contemning all that the world esteems most highly and declares indispensable. Thus the life of the solitary and the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> is a life of austerity as well of retirement. The world which sent travellers (cf. the "Lausiac History" of <a href="../cathen/11425a.htm">Palladius</a>) to contemplate them was astonished at the heroism of their penance. The religious life took the form of a <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">war</a> against nature. The <a href="../cathen/11703a.htm">persecution</a> of <a href="../cathen/04666a.htm">Decius</a> (about 250) gave the <a href="../cathen/04749a.htm">desert</a> its first great <a href="../cathen/07280a.htm">hermit</a>, Paul of <a href="../cathen/14562b.htm">Thebes</a>; other <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a> too sought refuge there from their tormentors. Anthony, on the contrary, at the age of 20 years, was won by that appeal which saddened and discouraged the rich young man of the Gospel, "If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor" (<a href="../bible/mat019.htm#vrs21">Matthew 19:21</a>). He had disciples, and instituted the monastic villages, in which seekers after perfection, living retired from the world, found comfort and encouragement in the example of brethren following the same profession. <a href="../cathen/11381a.htm">St. Pachomius</a>, a contemporary of St. Anthony, brought all his <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> together under one roof, thus founding the cenobitic life.</p> <p>Paul, Anthony, and Pachomius gave lustre to the <a href="../cathen/04749a.htm">deserts</a> of <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egypt</a>. We need not dwell here upon the parallel development of <a href="../cathen/14399a.htm">Syrian</a> monasticism, in which the names of Hilarion, Simeon Stylites, and Alexander the founder of the <em>acoemeti</em>, were famous, or on that of <a href="../cathen/01782a.htm">Asia Minor</a>, or give an account of the dawn of monastic life in <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> and Africa. Our task is only to depict the main features of religious life and its successive transformations. From this point of view, special mention is due to the great lawgiver of the Greek <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>, <a href="../cathen/02330b.htm">St. Basil</a>. Comparing the solitary and the cenobitic life, he points out one great advantage in the latter, namely the opportunity which it offers for practising charity to one's neighbour; and while deprecating excessive <a href="../cathen/10578b.htm">mortifications</a> into which vanity and even <a href="../cathen/12405a.htm">pride</a> may enter, he exhorts the superior to moderate the exterior life reasonably. St. Basil also permitted his <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> to undertake the <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a> of children; although he was glad to find some of these children embracing the monastic life, he wished them to do so of their own accord and with full <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, and he did not permit the liberty of a son or daughter to be restrained by an offering made by the <a href="../cathen/11478c.htm">parents</a>. <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> in the common life which he led with the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> of <a href="../cathen/07360b.htm">Hippo</a>, gives us, like <a href="../cathen/05614b.htm">St. Eusebius at Vercelli</a>, a first outline of canonical life. He instituted <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> of <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a>, and wrote for them in 427 a letter which, enriched with extracts from the writings of <a href="../cathen/06315a.htm">St. Fulgentius</a>, became the <a href="../cathen/02079b.htm">rule known by the name of St. Augustine</a>. St. Columbanus, an <a href="../cathen/08098b.htm">Irish</a> <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> (d. 615), under whose name a very rigid rule was propagated in <a href="../cathen/08098b.htm">Ireland</a>, was the apostle and civilizer of several countries of <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a>, notably of <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h3>Characteristics</h3> <p>After this rapid glance at the origin of the religious life we may now consider its principal characteristics.</p> <h4>End</h4> <p>The life of the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>, more systematized than that of the Virgins and ascetics, was, as such, entirely directed to their personal sanctification: contemplation and victory over the flesh were bound above all to lead to this result. The <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> did not aspire to <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a>, or rather they desired not to receive them. <a href="../cathen/08452b.htm">St. John Chrysostom</a> exhorted them to be animated by <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> charity which willingly consents to bear heavy burdens, and without which <a href="../cathen/05789c.htm">fasting</a> and <a href="../cathen/10578b.htm">mortification</a> are of no profit at all.</p> <h4>Obedience</h4> <p>As good <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a>, they owed obedience to their <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> in religious matters, and their profession, if they rightly understood its spirit, made prompt and complete submission easy. But religious obedience, as we understand it now, began only with the cenobitical life, and at the time of which we speak there was nothing to <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">oblige</a> the cenobite to remain in the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>. The cenobitic life was also combined with the solitary life in such a way that, after a sufficient formation by the common discipline, the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> gave <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> of his fervour by retiring into solitude in order to fight hand-to-hand against the enemy of his <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a>, and to find in independence a compensation for the greater severity of his life.</p> <h4>Poverty</h4> <p>Poverty then consisted for the <a href="../cathen/07280a.htm">hermits</a> in the renunciation of worldly goods, and in the most sparing use of food, clothing, and all necessaries. The cenobites were forbidden to enjoy any separate <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a>, and had to receive from their superior or the <a href="../cathen/12451a.htm">procurator</a> everything they needed for their use; they were not, however, incapable of possessing <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a>.</p> <h4>Chastity</h4> <p>Having once entered the religious life, the virgin, the ascetic, and the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> felt a certain <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> to persevere. Marriage or return to the world would be such inconstancy as to merit the reproach of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, "No man putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the <a href="../cathen/08646a.htm">kingdom of God</a>" (<a href="../bible/luk009.htm#vrs62">Luke 9:62</a>). Still we have no evidence to prove that there was a strict <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a>, and there were no <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> properly so called: even for virgins, the passages from <a href="../cathen/14520c.htm">Tertullian</a> and <a href="../cathen/04583b.htm">St. Cyprian</a>, on which some <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> rely, are capable of another interpretation. Certainly a <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">woman</a> who was bound to <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Jesus Christ</a> by a profession of virginity, and fell into <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, was liable to very severe canonical penalties; but <a href="../cathen/04583b.htm">St. Cyprian</a> who regarded such a <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a> as an adulterous bride of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, permitted the marriage of such as were not able to observe continency (see Koch, "Virgines Christi" in "Texte und Untersuchungen", 1907). The oldest <a href="../cathen/04670b.htm">decretal</a> we possess, that of St. Siricius to the Bishop Himerius (385), brands with <a href="../cathen/08001a.htm">infamy</a> the carnal intercourse of <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> and virgins, but the question of a regular marriage is not considered (C. XXVII, q. 1, c. 11, or P.L., XIII, 137). Schenute, it is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, introduced a form of <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a>, or rather of <a href="../cathen/11176a.htm">oath</a>, of which the Coptic text has been discovered; but the very reflections which he made before introducing it appear to show that it had no other effect than to secure the execution even in secret of the <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligations</a> already contracted by entrance into the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>: these <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> therefore may be compared to the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> made at <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>. No term is specified for their duration, but Leclercq (in Cabrol, "Dict. d'arch. chrét.", s.v. Cénobitisme) presumes that the <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> continued during the term of residence in the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>. The text is as follows, taken from the <a href="../cathen/06517a.htm">German</a> translation of Leipolt:  "Covenant. I promise (or I swear) before <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> in His holy temple, in which the word that I have spoken is my witness, that I will not defile my body in any way, I will not steal, I will not bear <a href="../cathen/09469a.htm">false witness</a>, I will not lie, I will not do wrong in secret. If I break my <a href="../cathen/11176a.htm">oath</a>, I am willing not to enter into the <a href="../cathen/08646a.htm">kingdom of heaven</a>, although I were in sight of it. [On this passage, cfr. Peeters, in "Analecta Bollandiana", 1905, 146.] <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, before whom I have made this covenant, will then destroy my body and <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> in <a href="../cathen/07207a.htm">hell</a>, for I should have broken the <a href="../cathen/11176a.htm">oath</a> of allegiance that I have taken." And later on occurs this passage: "As for contradiction, disobedience, murmuring, contention, obstinacy, or any such things, these faults are quite manifest to the whole community" (Leipolt, "Schenuti von Atripe" in "Texte und Untersuchungen", 1903, p. 109).</p> <h4>Canon law</h4> <p>The canons of the Council of <a href="../cathen/06377b.htm">Gangra</a> (330) first introduced the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a> relating to regulars by the recommendations which they address to virgins, continent <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a>, and those who retire from worldly affairs, to practise more faithfully the general <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duties</a> of <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">piety</a> towards <a href="../cathen/11478c.htm">parents</a>, children, husband or wife, and to avoid vanity or <a href="../cathen/12405a.htm">pride</a>. Other particular councils, that of Alexandria (362), of Saragossa (380), the Fifth Synod of Africa (401), and a council held under <a href="../cathen/11554a.htm">St. Patrick</a> in <a href="../cathen/08098b.htm">Ireland</a> (about 480), decided other matters connected with the religious life. The General <a href="../cathen/03555a.htm">Council of Chalcedon</a> (451) makes the erection of <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> dependent on the consent of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>. The Councils of Arles (about 452) and Angers (455) sanction the <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> of perseverance. The same <a href="../cathen/01727b.htm">Council of Arles</a> and the Synods of Carthage held in 525 and 534 forbade any interference with the <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbot</a> in the exercise of his authority over his <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>, reserving to <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> the <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> of <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clerics</a> in the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>, and the <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecration</a> of the oratory.</p> <h2>History of religious life (after A.D. 500)</h2> <h3>Monks and monasteries</h3> <p>We have now arrived at the sixth century. It will be <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> to go back a little in order to notice the immense influence of St. Basil (331-79) over the <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religious</a> life of the East and the West. The principles which he lays down and justifies in his answers to the <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubts</a> of the religious of <a href="../cathen/01782a.htm">Asia Minor</a>, that is in what are called the shorter and longer rules, inform and guide the religious of the present day. St. Benedict was inspired by these as well as by the writings of <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> and Cassian in writing his rule, which from the eighth to the twelfth century regulated, it may be said, the whole <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religious</a> life of the West. In order to put an end to the capricious changes from one house to another, the patriarch of Western <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> introduced the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a> of stability, which bound the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> to remain in the house in which he made his profession. The reforms of the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> in the tenth and eleventh centuries gave rise to aggregations of <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a>, which prepared the way for the religious orders of the thirteenth century. We may mention the <a href="../cathen/04073a.htm">Congregation of Cluny</a> founded by St. Odo (<a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbot</a> from 927 to 942) which, in the twelfth century grouped more than 200 <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> under the authority of the <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbot</a> of the principal <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>, and of the Congregation of <a href="../cathen/03792a.htm">Cîteaux</a>, of the eleventh century, to which the <a href="../cathen/15024a.htm">Trappists</a> belong, and of which <a href="../cathen/02498d.htm">St. Bernard</a> was the principal light. Less for the sake of reform than of perfection, and of adapting to a special end the combination of the cenobitic and <a href="../cathen/07280a.htm">eremitic</a> life, St. Romuald (d. 1027) founded the <a href="../cathen/03204d.htm">Camaldolese Order</a>, and St. John Gualbert (d. 1073) the Congregation of Vallombrosa. From the eleventh century also (1084) date the <a href="../cathen/03388a.htm">Carthusians</a>, who have needed no reform to maintain them in their pristine fervour. St. Basil and St. Benedict were expressly concerned only with personal perfection, to which their disciples were to be led by leaving the world and renouncing all earthly wealth and natural affections. Their life was a life of obedience and <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a>, interrupted only by work. Their <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a> principally consisted in singing the <a href="../cathen/11219a.htm">Divine Office</a>. But when it was <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a>, the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> did not refuse to undertake the <a href="../cathen/04572a.htm">cure of souls</a>; and their <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> have given to the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a>, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>, and missionary <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>. We need only recall the expedition organized by <a href="../cathen/06780a.htm">St. Gregory the Great</a> for the conversion of <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a>. Study was neither ordered not forbidden: St. Benedict, when he accepted in his <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> children offered by their <a href="../cathen/11478c.htm">parents</a>, undertook the task of <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a>, which naturally led to the foundation of <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a> and studies. <a href="../cathen/03405c.htm">Cassiodorus</a> (477-570) employed his <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> in the arts and <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">sciences</a> and in the transcription of <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a>.</p> <h3>Canons regular</h3> <p>Many <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> endeavoured to imitate <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> and <a href="../cathen/05614b.htm">St. Eusebius</a>, and to live a common life with the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> of their Church. Rules taken from the sacred canons were even drawn up for their use, of which the most celebrated is that of <a href="../cathen/03729b.htm">St. Chrodegang</a>, <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/10247a.htm">Metz</a> (766). In the tenth century, this institution declined; the canons, as the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> attached to a church and living a common life were called, began to live separately; some of them, however resisted this relaxation of discipline, and even added poverty to their common life. This is the origin of the canons regular. <a href="../cathen/02430a.htm">Benedict XII</a> by his Constitution "Ad decorem" (15 May, 1339) prescribed a general reform of the canons regular. Among the canons regular of the present day, we may mention the <a href="../cathen/03288a.htm">Canons Regular</a> of the Lateran or St. Saviour, who seem to date back to <a href="../cathen/01286a.htm">Alexander II</a> (1063), the <a href="../cathen/12387b.htm">Premonstratensian Canons</a> founded by <a href="../cathen/11100b.htm">St. Norbert</a> (1120), and the <a href="../cathen/03288a.htm">Canons Regular</a> of the Holy Cross founded at Clair-lieu, near Huy, in <a href="../cathen/02395a.htm">Belgium</a>, in 1211. The canons regular <em>ex professo</em> united <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a> with religious life, and being attached to a church, devoted themselves to promoting the dignity of Divine worship. With <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>, <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a> are accidental and secondary, and are superadded to the religious life; with canons as with the clerks regular, <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a> are the principal thing, and the religious life is superadded to the <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a>.</p> <h3>Mendicant orders</h3> <p>The <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretics</a> of the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century reproached <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">churchmen</a> with their <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> of riches, and the laxity of their lives; <a href="../cathen/05106a.htm">St. Dominic</a> and St. Francis offered on the contrary the edifying spectacle of fervent religious, who forbade their followers the possession of wealth or revenues, even in common. The <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a> are marked by two characteristics: poverty, practised in common; and the mixed life, that is the union of contemplation with the work of the sacred ministry. Moreover, the <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a> present the appearance of a religious army, the soldiers of which are moved about by their superiors without being attached to any particular <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convent</a>, and recognize a <a href="../cathen/07322c.htm">hierarchy</a> of local, provincial, and general superiors. The order, or at least the province, takes the place of the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>. Other important points may be noticed: the <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a> are founded only by favour of an express <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">sovereign pontiff</a>, who approves their rules or constitutions. They adopt the form of <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> which relates explicitly to poverty, chastity, and obedience, which was occasioned by the famous dispute in the <a href="../cathen/06217a.htm">Franciscan Order</a>. The <a href="../cathen/06217a.htm">Franciscans</a> were founded by St. Francis in 1209; they are now divided into three orders recognized as really belonging to the common stock:</p> <div class="bulletlist"><ol><li>the <a href="../cathen/06281a.htm">Friars Minor</a>, formerly called Observantines, and more recently <a href="../cathen/06217a.htm">Franciscans</a> of the Leonine Union, who may (when there is no possibility of mistake) be called simply <a href="../cathen/06281a.htm">Friars Minor</a>;</li><li>the <a href="../cathen/06281a.htm">Friars Minor</a> <a href="../cathen/04344a.htm">Conventuals</a>; and</li><li>the <a href="../cathen/06281a.htm">Friars Minor</a> <a href="../cathen/03320b.htm">Capuchins</a>.</li></ol></div> <p>The <a href="../cathen/12354c.htm">Dominicans</a>, or <a href="../cathen/12354c.htm">Friars Preachers</a>, go back to 1215. Since 1245, the <a href="../cathen/03354a.htm">Carmelites</a>, transplanted from <a href="../cathen/01777b.htm">Asia</a> into <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a>, have formed a third <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant</a> order. <a href="../cathen/01287b.htm">Alexander IV</a> added a fourth by his Constitution "Licet" (2 May, 1256) which united under the name of <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> several congregations of <a href="../cathen/07280a.htm">hermits</a>: these are the <a href="../cathen/07281a.htm">Hermits of St. Augustine</a>. The <a href="../cathen/09750a.htm">Servites</a> were added in 1256 as a fifth <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant</a> order; and there are others. (See <a href="../cathen/06280b.htm">FRIAR</a>.)</p> <h3>Military orders</h3> <p>Before we pass to a later period, it is <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> to mention certain institutes of a quite special character. The <a href="../cathen/10304d.htm">military orders</a> date from the twelfth century, and while observing all the essential <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligations</a> of religious life, they had for their object the defence of the cause of Christ by force of arms; among these were the Knights of Malta, formerly called the <a href="../cathen/07477a.htm">Equestrian Order of St. John of Jerusalem</a> (1118), the Order of <a href="../cathen/14541b.htm">Teutonic Knights</a> (1190), the Order of <a href="../cathen/14493a.htm">Knights Templars</a> (1118), suppressed by <a href="../cathen/04020a.htm">Clement V</a> at the Council of Vienne (1312), at the urgent request of the King of <a href="../cathen/06166a.htm">France</a>, Philippe-le-Bel.</p> <h3>Foundation of orders</h3> <p>The misfortunes of <a href="../cathen/03699b.htm">Christendom</a> were the cause of the foundation of orders vowed to the most excellent works of mercy, namely, the Redemption of Captives; the Trinitarians (Order of the <a href="../cathen/15047a.htm">Most Holy Trinity</a>), and <a href="../cathen/10197b.htm">Mercedarians</a> (Order of Our Lady of the Redemption of Captives). Both these date from the thirteenth century, the first being founded by St. John of Malta and <a href="../cathen/06033c.htm">St. Felix of Valois</a>, the second by <a href="../cathen/11770b.htm">St. Peter Nolasco</a> and St. Raymond of Pennafort. They follow the <a href="../cathen/02079b.htm">Rule of St. Augustine</a> and are <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a>.</p> <h3>Hospitaller orders</h3> <p>The hospitaller orders are specially devoted to the relief of bodily infirmities; most of them are of comparatively recent origin. The most celebrated of all, the <a href="../cathen/02802b.htm">Order of Brothers of St. John of God</a>, dates from 1572; the Cellite Brothers were approved by <a href="../cathen/12126c.htm">Pius II</a> in 1459; the <a href="../cathen/01555a.htm">Brothers Hospitallers of St. Anthony</a> were approved by <a href="../cathen/07457a.htm">Honorius III</a> in 1218.</p> <h3>Clerks regular</h3> <p>The <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a> were one of the glories of the later <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a>. Fresh needs led in the sixteenth century to a new form of religious life, that of the clerks regular. These are <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> first of all, even in respect of their mode of life, and their dress: they have no peculiarity of costume; they undertake all <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duties</a> suitable to <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, and attend to all the spiritual necessities of their neighbour, especially the <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a> of the young, which the <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a> had never attempted. Being clerks and not canons, they escaped at the same time the inconvenience of having a title of <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honour</a> and of being bound to any particular church; many of them take a <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a> not only not to seek for <a href="../cathen/04794a.htm">ecclesiastical dignities</a>, but even not to accept them. The first were the <a href="../cathen/14557a.htm">Theatines</a>, founded in 1524 by <a href="../cathen/03145a.htm">St. Cajetan</a> and Cardinal Peter Caraffa, later <a href="../cathen/11581a.htm">Paul IV</a>; then came the <a href="../cathen/02302a.htm">Barnabites</a>, or Regular Clerics of St. Paul, founded in 1533 by <a href="../cathen/01588a.htm">St. Anton Maria Zaccaria</a>; the <a href="../cathen/04051d.htm">Clerks Regular</a> of Somascha, founded by <a href="../cathen/08343a.htm">St. Jerome Emiliani</a>, and approved in 1540, the same year which saw the beginning of the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Society of Jesus</a>. We may mention also the <a href="../cathen/04051d.htm">Clerks Regular</a> Ministering to the Sick, called Camilians after their founder, St. Camillus de Lellis (1591). Several institutions of clerks regular, notably the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Society of Jesus</a>, make profession also of poverty in common and are thus at the same time clerks regular and <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a>.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h3>Institutes with simple vows</h3> <p>Till the sixteenth century, the orders of the West were distinguished by their object, their hierarchical organization, their patrimonial system, and the number of their <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>; but the nature of the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> remained the same. The <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, at least the essential <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> of religion, were perpetual, and made solemn by profession. Even when the tertiaries of St. Dominic and of St. Francis began to form communities, they distinguished themselves from the first and second orders by the rule they adopted but not by the nature of their <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, which remained solemn. The tertiary <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nun</a> communities of St. Dominic received (1281-91) a rule from the <a href="../cathen/12354c.htm">Dominican</a> general, Munio of Zamora; and communities, both of men and of <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a>, were founded in the thirteenth century with the tertiary Rule of St. Francis. In this way, many <a href="../cathen/03592a.htm">works of charity</a> were prevented. But in the sixteenth century <a href="../cathen/09162a.htm">Leo X</a> by his Constitution "Inter cetera", 20 Jan., 1521, appointed a rule for communities of tertiaries with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, according to which those only who promised <em>clausura</em> were <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obliged</a> to observe it. <a href="../cathen/12130a.htm">St. Pius V</a> rejected this class of congregation by his two Constitutions, "Circa pastoralis" (29 May, 1566), and "Lubricum vitæ genus" (17 November, 1568). They continued, however, to exist, and even increased in number, first tolerated, and afterwards approved by the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>; and subsequently recognized by the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, which, in view of the difficulties of the circumstances, has for more than a hundred years ceased to permit solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> in new congregations. These are the religious congregations of men and <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a> to whom <a href="../cathen/09169a.htm">Leo XIII</a> gave their canonical charter by his Constitution "Conditæ a Christo" (8 December, 1900). We may mention here an innovation introduced by St. Ignatius, who in the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Society of Jesus</a> imposed simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> for a period preceding the solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, and associated with the fathers professed by solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> and <a href="../cathen/09093a.htm">lay brothers</a> bound by simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> only.</p> <h3>Eastern orders</h3> <p>The <a href="../cathen/05230a.htm">Eastern Church</a>, even that part of it which has remained in communion with <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a>, has never known the life and many-sided vitality of the orders of the West: we find in it Monks of St. Anthony, and others of <a href="../cathen/11381a.htm">St. Pachomius</a>; almost all the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> are <a href="../cathen/02324a.htm">Basilian</a>. As the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> of the <a href="../cathen/06774a.htm">Greek Rite</a> are not compelled to leave the wives whom they have legally married, and as <a href="../cathen/03481a.htm">celibacy</a> is nevertheless <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligatory</a> for the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>, the latter are regularly chosen from among the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>. From another point of view, the unchanging East shows us in the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> of the present day, the institutions of the first ages of cenobitic life.</p> <h2>Exposition of the religious life</h2> <h3>Classical description</h3> <p>In our rapid survey of the different religious orders, we have seen something of the evolution of the religious life. The Gospel clearly shows us virginity and continence as means, and charity as the end; persecutions necessitated retirement and a first form of life entirely directed towards personal sanctification; community life produced obedience; the inconveniences caused by frequent change of residence suggested the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a> of stability; the excessive multiplication and diversity of religious institutes called for the intervention of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">sovereign pontiff</a> and his express <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of rules; the needs of <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> and body grafted the practice of corporal and spiritual works of mercy upon personal sanctification, and joined the reception of <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a> to <a href="../cathen/12451b.htm">religious profession</a>; while the exigencies and difficulties of modern times caused the making of simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> antecedent to, or in substitution for, solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>.</p> <p>In all these stages, the profession of the Evangelical counsels has been most carefully regulated by the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. In the existing structure, some parts are fixed and regarded as essential, others are accidental and subject to change; we may then ask what is essential to fully developed religious life. The religious state, to be perfect, requires;</p> <div class="bulletlist"><ul><li>the three evangelical counsels: <a href="../cathen/15506a.htm">voluntary</a> poverty, perfect chastity regarded as means to perfection; and in pursuit of that perfection, obedience to lawful authority;</li><li>the external profession of these counsels, for the religious state means a condition or career publicly embraced;</li><li>the perpetual profession of these counsels, for the religious state means something fixed and permanent, and in order to ensure this stability in practices which are not made <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligatory</a> by any law, the religious promises himself to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> by a perpetual <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a>.</li></ul></div> <p>The religious state then is defined, as the mode of life, irrevocable in its nature of men who profess to aim at the perfection of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> charity in the bosom of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> by the three perpetual <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> of poverty, chastity, and obedience.</p> <p>The religious state may exist in the proper sense without solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, as <a href="../cathen/07001b.htm">Gregory XIII</a> showed in his Constitutions "Quanto fructuosius" (2 July, 1583) and <a href="../cathen/01766d.htm">"Ascendente Domino"</a> (25 May, 1584), declaring that the scholastics of the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Society of Jesus</a> were really religious; without community life, for the <a href="../cathen/07280a.htm">hermits</a> were religious in the strictest sense of the word; without oral or written profession, since until the time of <a href="../cathen/12134b.htm">Pius IX</a>, even tacit or implied profession was considered sufficient; without express and formal <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> by <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> authority, as this has only been insisted upon since the <a href="../cathen/09018a.htm">Fourth Lateran Council</a> (1215), confirmed by the <a href="../cathen/09476c.htm">Second Council of Lyons</a> (1274). Before this time it was enough not to have been repudiated by <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> authority. However, in actual practice, the express intervention of <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> authority is required; this authority may be that of the <a href="../cathen/01640c.htm">Apostolic See</a> or of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>. Many institutes exist and flourish with the <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> alone; but, since the Motu Proprio "Dei providentis" (16 July, 1906), the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> before establishing an institute must obtain the written <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>.</p> <p>Again, the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, while not condemning the solitary life, no longer accepts it as religious. Formerly, a religious did not necessarily form a part of an approved institute; there were <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> simply called professed, as well as professed in such an institute or such a <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>. At the present day, a religious always begins by entering some approved religious <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a>; only in exceptional cases of expulsion or final secularization, does it happen that a religious ceases to have any connexion with some particular institute, and in such cases the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> becomes his only superior. The <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> insists on the use of a habit, by which the religious are distinguished from secular <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a>. A distinctive habit is always required for <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a>; the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clerical</a> habit is sufficient for men. Those approved institutes whose members may be taken for seculars out of doors, lack that public profession which characterizes the religious state, in the sight of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, according to the <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a> of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, 11 August, 1889.</p> <p>The question has long been discussed whether the religious state involves a donation of oneself, or whether the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, as such, are sufficient. By such donation the religious not only binds himself to be poor, chaste etc., but he no longer belongs to himself; he is the <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, as much as and even more than a slave was formerly the <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a> of his master. To show that this alienation of oneself is not <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a>, it is sufficient to observe that if every religious ceased to belong to himself either for the purpose of marriage, or for the possession of <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a> any contrary acts would be null and void from the beginning; now this nullity has not always existed, and does not exist for all religious at the present day. In reality then the religious state consists strictly in the perpetual engagement, the source of which is found at present in the three <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>.</p> <p>The formal intervention of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> has the effect of introducing the religious life into the public worship of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a>. As long as the promise or the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a> remains a purely personal matter, the religious can offer himself to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> only in his own name; his homage and his <a href="../cathen/07396b.htm">holocaust</a> are private. The <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, in ratifying and sanctioning his engagement, deputes the religious to profess in the name of the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> community his complete devotion to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. He is <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecrated</a> especially by solemn profession, like a temple or a <a href="../cathen/09306a.htm">liturgical</a> <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayer</a>, to give <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honour</a> to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>.</p> <p>In practice, when offering himself to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, the religious also contracts <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligations</a> to the order whose child he becomes. Does the religious state in itself contemplate any such <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> of submission to an organized <a href="../cathen/14074a.htm">society</a>, or to a director or confessor? There is nothing more natural, it is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, than that a <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a>, who does not profess himself perfect but a simple aspirant after perfection, should choose for himself a master and guide; but even this does not seem to be essential. The ancient <a href="../cathen/07280a.htm">hermits</a> were free from all such subordination; even the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a> may be a member of a religious order: the only essential obedience seems to be that which every man owes to the hierarchical Church, and to those whom she clothes with her authority.</p> <h3>Various forms</h3> <p>The essential unity of the religious life is consistent with a great variety which is one of the glories of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, and permits a larger number of men to find a <a href="../cathen/12451b.htm">religious profession</a> adapted to their needs and dispositions, and multiplies the services which religious render to <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/14074a.htm">society</a> and <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">mankind</a> in general. Besides the common end of religious life, which makes it a <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">school</a> of perfection, the different orders have special objects of their own, which divide them into contemplative, active, and mixed orders. The contemplative orders devote themselves to union with <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> in a life of solitude and retirement; the active orders expend their energy in doing good to men. If their activity is spiritual in its objects and requires contemplation for its attainment, they are mixed orders; such as those which are devoted to preaching and higher <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a>. The orders keep the name of active order if they devote themselves to corporal works of mercy, such as the care of sick <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> and <a href="../cathen/11322b.htm">orphans</a>. The dominant note of their mode of life gives us, as we have seen, <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clerical</a>, monastic, <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant</a>, military, and hospitaller orders. The <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> divide them into orders with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> and solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>: even the number of <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> differs in different institutes. There remain still two other points of difference which require to be considered, namely the juridical condition, which distinguishes religious orders from congregations, and the rule.</p> <h3>Religious life and the sacred ministry</h3> <p>If the monastic life has sometimes appeared incompatible with those sacred functions which drew the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> out of his silence and retreat (see <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a> of Gratian, c. XVI, q. 1, c. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11), the simple division into contemplative and mixed orders shows the mistake of those <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> who have represented the religious life as inconsistent with the sacred ministry, as if <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">piety</a> were opposed to charity, or <a href="../cathen/15753a.htm">apostolic zeal</a> did not presuppose and foster the <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. This <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">error</a>, which had already been refuted by <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a> in his "Contra impugnantes religionem", ch. iv, directed against <a href="../cathen/15637d.htm">William of St. Amour</a>, was renewed in the <a href="../cathen/08285a.htm">Jansenist</a> <a href="../cathen/12116c.htm">pseudo-Council of Pistoia</a> and condemned by the Constitution <a href="../cathen/02068b.htm">"Auctorem Fidei"</a> of 1794, prop. 80. In the course of the last century, Verhoeven, a professor of <a href="../cathen/09391a.htm">Louvain</a>, in a pamphlet entitled "De regularium et sæcularium juribus et officiis", maintained that, according to the spirit of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, religious ought not to take any but a secondary and supplementary part in the sacred ministry, and only when the <a href="../cathen/13675a.htm">secular clergy</a> were not sufficiently numerous for the work. His opinion was refuted by an anonymous work, entitled "Examen historicum et canonicum libri R. D. Mariani Verhoeven", written by Fathers <a href="../cathen/11742b.htm">De Buck</a> and Tinnebroeck, S.J., as opposed to experience, since religious perfection aids apostolic work; to tradition, as so many great missionary enterprises have been conducted by religious; to canon law, which approves of orders established for the purpose of the sacred ministry, and consider religious as fitted for the most important functions.</p> <p>Religious as well as seculars may be called to the episcopal office, to the <a href="../cathen/03333b.htm">cardinalitial</a> dignity, and even to the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> throne. With the exception of the <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a>, they may be appointed as <a href="../cathen/15401a.htm">vicars general</a>: of the minor <a href="../cathen/02473c.htm">benefices</a>, some are secular which should be given to <a href="../cathen/13675a.htm">secular priests</a>, some are regular, to which regulars should be appointed: <a href="../cathen/12387b.htm">Premonstratensian</a> Canons, however, may be placed in charge of secular <a href="../cathen/11499b.htm">parishes</a>. In cases of <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a>, <a href="../cathen/02473c.htm">benefices</a> are presumed to be secular, but the rule of exclusion from secular <a href="../cathen/11499b.htm">parishes</a> affects only regulars under solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. Missionary enterprise for the propagation of the Faith is usually entrusted to religious, and they may occupy <a href="../cathen/15188a.htm">university</a> chairs, and be employed in the sacred ministry as well as seculars (cf. Vermeersch, "De religiosis institutis et personis", 1, n. 495).</p> <p>It is now established that <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> and <a href="../cathen/03333b.htm">cardinals</a> chosen from a religious order do not cease to be religious, and are just as much bound by all the rules and observances compatible with their dignity and functions as a religious who is a <a href="../cathen/11499b.htm">parish</a> <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>. A religious who is a <a href="../cathen/11499b.htm">parish</a> <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> may be deprived of his office either by the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> or by the superior of his order.</p> <h2>Religious orders and congregations</h2> <p>According to its more or less complete realization, the more or less full <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> which is given to it, and the juridical condition which results for those who practise it, the religious life gives rise to religious orders or congregations.</p> <h3>Religious orders</h3> <h4>Sense of the expressions</h4> <p>The expression "ordo monasticus" at first denoted a class of <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>, as "ordo virginum" denoted a class or virgins, and "ordo sacerdotalis", the class of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>. The first founders, St. Basil and St. Benedict, thought not so much of establishing an order as of drawing up a plan of individual life, common to the use of <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> who desired to be directed in their aspirations after perfection. Each <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> was independent, and was not even bound to a definite rule; the community was left free to change the observance, and a certain option could be allowed to the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> to choose which of several rules they would follow. The reforms of Cluny and <a href="../cathen/03792a.htm">Cîteaux</a> prepared the way for the religious order in the present sense, by making all the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> subject to the authority of one supreme <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbot</a>. A century later, St. Francis and St. Dominic united their disciples in one vast association with an interior hierarchical organization of its own, and recognizable even outwardly by the identity of rule, dress, and life. From that time forward, each religious order has been a corporation of religious approved by the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. And since we distinguish institutes bound by solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> and approved by the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">sovereign pontiff</a> from institutes with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, the expression "religious order" has been naturally applied exclusively to institutes with solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. The religious order then is, properly speaking, an institute fully approved by the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, and having solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> of religious life. This full <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> for the whole Church calls into action the magisterial office of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>, for in giving it the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a> not only declares that there is nothing in the mode of life which is hurtful to <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">morals</a> or propriety, but assures the faithful that it is calculated to lead <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> to Evangelical perfection (cf. Francisco Suárez, "De religione", VII, II xvii, n. 17).</p> <h4>Two great classes of orders</h4> <p>From the point of view of their organization, the religious orders owe their division into two great classes to their very origin. The oldest, derived from <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> formerly quite independent, leave to each religious house a certain authority under a perpetual <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbot</a>. The <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> or canons also belong to a particular <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>, and special rules are made for changes, temporary or permanent, among the subjects. Such are the <a href="../cathen/02443a.htm">Black Benedictines</a> and <a href="../cathen/03780c.htm">Cistercians</a>, and canons regular. Many for a long time have only arch-abbots, visitors of the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> forming a congregation (see below), and presiding over the chapter of that congregation, <a href="../cathen/09169a.htm">Leo XIII</a> gave the <a href="../cathen/02443a.htm">Benedictines</a> their abbot-primate, who holds office for twelve years. These same orders have no provincial superiors; the visitors more or less take their place; but the powers of the abbot-general and the visitor, while they differ in different orders, are limited to certain cases, so that the local <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbot</a> remains the real ordinary superior, almost in the same way as the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> suffragan of an <a href="../cathen/01691a.htm">archbishop</a> has all the authority <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> for the administration of his <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocese</a>. In the newer orders on the contrary, the superiors (except in the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Society of Jesus</a>) are not appointed for life, but for a term of six or twelve years; the religious are not attached to a <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>, but to a province; and the houses are so little independent of each other that some refuse to recognize in the local superior the quality of a <a href="../cathen/12386b.htm">prelate</a> invested with ordinary <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a>, though most religious writers give him this position.</p> <h4>The seat of authority in the order</h4> <h5>General chapter and superior</h5> <p>In all religious orders we find the chapter, whether it be the chapter of the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> to limit the monarchical authority of the <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbot</a> and fill a vacancy, or the general chapter, to appoint for the fixed term a new superior-general, to receive the accounts of the preceding administration, and, within permitted limits, to modify the constitutions which have not the force of pontifical <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> and to pass new decrees for the whole order. The election of the superior-general is by secret ballot (Council of Trent, sess. XXV, c. vi) and generally requires the confirmation of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>. The same chapter also elects the <a href="../cathen/04423f.htm">general councils</a>, consisting of definitors-general, or assistants, and generally also the procurator-general. In most orders, the procurator-general, who is the representative of the order in all dealings with the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, is a real superior, and sometimes even a sort of vice-general, who takes the place of a general deceased, absent, or incapacitated: among the Discalced <a href="../cathen/03354a.htm">Carmelites</a> and the <a href="../cathen/07281a.htm">Hermits of St. Augustine</a> and in the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Society of Jesus</a>, he possesses no <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a>.</p> <h5>Provincial and local superiors</h5> <p>Under the superior-general, the orders not anterior to the thirteenth century have provincial superiors, who administer the affairs of the province with the assistance of a council. Sometimes they are appointed by the provincial chapter, and the local superior by the local chapter; sometimes the superior-general in council makes all important appointments. The provincial chapter or provincial congregation has then no <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a>, and can only send deputies to the general or the chapter general, in order to make known their wishes. In all places where the canonical Office is recited in choir, there is a conventual or local chapter, which does not exist in the orders and congregations of more recent foundation. Among the <a href="../cathen/03320b.htm">Capuchins</a>, the provincial is appointed by the provincial chapter, and in his council appoints the local superiors. The local superior, like the <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbot</a>, is assisted by a second, who takes his place in case of absence or incapacity: he is called prior in the <a href="../cathen/01010a.htm">abbeys</a>, or sub-prior where the superior is called prior; otherwise he is termed minister. The local superior is called guardian among the <a href="../cathen/06217a.htm">Franciscans</a>; elsewhere he is <a href="../cathen/12676c.htm">rector</a>, superior, prior, or <a href="../cathen/12517a.htm">provost</a>. The provincial and general of the <a href="../cathen/06217a.htm">Franciscans</a> are called minister-provincial and minister-general. To replace the ordinary superiors temporarily the constitutions of orders provide vicars, vice-provincials, and vice-rectors.</p> <p>The superiors have always a power of private or domestic order, called dominative, which permits them to command their subjects, and to administer <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a> according to the rules of the institute; and the first superior of the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convent</a>, by appealing to the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a> or distinctly making known his intention, can command under pain of mortal <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. Moreover, if they be <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, the principal superiors of religious orders possess the double <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a> of the <em>forum internum</em> and the <em>forum externum</em>, which makes them the ordinary <a href="../cathen/12386b.htm">prelates</a> of their subordinates. Such are certainly the generals and <a href="../cathen/12514b.htm">provincials</a>, and, according to an at least probable opinion, the first local superiors also. They have <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a> to appoint confessors, approved by the ordinary, to reserve cases to themselves (though <a href="../cathen/04027a.htm">Clement VIII</a> limited this power), to inflict spiritual censures or punishments, and to absolve or dispense from them: their power of <a href="../cathen/05041a.htm">dispensation</a> with regard to their subordinates is the same as <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> generally have over their diocesans. Various privileges are conferred upon them in addition, and their powers are often extended by temporary <a href="../cathen/07789a.htm">indults</a>, which pass, as a matter of right, from the generals of orders to those who replace or succeed them. The legislative power ordinarily exists only in the chapter general: the judiciary power of the <a href="../cathen/12386b.htm">prelates</a> does not extend to causes and offences which are cognizable by the Holy Office. The <a href="../cathen/12386b.htm">prelates</a> are at the same time fathers bound to watch over the spiritual welfare of their children, heads of the community, who are empowered to make general provision for the good order of the common life, and magistrates invested with a part of that <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">public authority</a> which Christ gave to His <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">Apostles</a>, when He said "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you." This authority is derived from the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>; and, as it is ordinary, it may be delegated.</p> <p>In theory it extends to the <a href="../cathen/05024a.htm">spiritual direction</a> of inferiors; but for a long time the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> has shown a desire to separate the direction of the <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a> from the direction of outward conduct, or at least to take away all appearance of coercion from the former; thus the <a href="../cathen/12386b.htm">prelate</a> may hear the confessions only of those who formally express a desire to be absolved by him, and for the regulation of Communions, the religious is bound to take the advice only of his confessor. In every house several confessors should be appointed, who can easily in any particular case obtain <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a> over reserved <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sins</a>, if they have not ordinarily the <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> faculties; the <a href="../cathen/12386b.htm">prelate</a>, however, may, according to the rule, be occupied with the direction of consciences outside the confessional; this is forbidden only in the case of lay superiors, safeguarding always the liberty of inferiors to open their minds to their superiors (even when <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">laymen</a>).</p> <p>The temporal administration is subject to the general <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> which forbid the alienation of immovable <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a>, and of movable <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a> of great value, and which also discountenance wastefulness and rash contracts or borrowings (see the Constitution "Ambitiosæ"; Extrav. comm. un., De rebus ecclesiasticis non alienandis, III, 4, and the Instruction "Inter ea" of 30 July, 1909). The <a href="../cathen/12386b.htm">prelate</a> must administer like a prudent head of a <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a>, and take care that the funds are safely and productively invested. As was stated in the article <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">NUNS</a>, the <a href="../cathen/12386b.htm">prelate's</a> <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">power of jurisdiction</a> often extends to <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> of the second order.</p> <h4>Authorities outside the order</h4> <h5>Sovereign pontiff</h5> <p>Outside its own body, the order has the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">sovereign pontiff</a> as superior possessing the plenitude of authority; he has the power to suppress a religious order, as he can call it into existence. Thus at the <a href="../cathen/09476c.htm">Second Council of Lyons</a> (1274), <a href="../cathen/06798a.htm">Gregory X</a> suppressed the orders which came into existence after the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215), and <a href="../cathen/04034a.htm">Clement XIV</a> in 1773 decreed the <a href="../cathen/14096a.htm">suppression of the Society of Jesus</a>. Sometimes an order which has been extinguished rises again from its ashes. The order of <a href="../cathen/13588a.htm">Piarists</a>, or Scuolopi, founded by St. Joseph Calasanctius, which was abolished by <a href="../cathen/08020b.htm">Innocent X</a> in 1664, was re-established by <a href="../cathen/04028a.htm">Clement IX</a>; and <a href="../cathen/12132a.htm">Pius VII</a> in 1814 restored universally the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Society of Jesus</a>, which had remained in existence in White Russia (see Heimbucher, "Die Orden und Kongregationen", 101, 102, and the authors cited in Vermeersch, "De religiosis institutis et personis", I, n. 99). The <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>, a fortiori, may modify the constitutions, appoint superiors, and, in short, exercise all powers that exist in a religious order.</p> <h5>Roman congregations</h5> <p>The <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a> exercises his ordinary control through the Sacred Congregation of Religious, which, since the Constitution "Sapienti", of 19 June, 1908, is the only congregation occupied with the affairs of religious orders. Formerly, the religious of the missions were under the direction of the <a href="../cathen/12456a.htm">Propaganda</a>, which has now no authority over them except as missionaries; the others were under the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, which was abolished by the Constitution "Sapienti". There was also the Congregation of Discipline and Reform of Regulars, which was principally occupied with the maintenance and restoration of interior discipline in orders of men, and the Congregation of the State of Regulars, established by <a href="../cathen/08020b.htm">Innocent X</a> in 1652, which was replaced under <a href="../cathen/08022a.htm">Innocent XII</a> by the Congregation of Discipline, and re-established by <a href="../cathen/12134b.htm">Pius IX</a> in 1847, to advise on the measures to be taken in the circumstances of the time for <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> of men. After having issued some very important decrees on the subject of letters testimonial and simple profession, it ceased to work; and <a href="../cathen/12137a.htm">Pius X</a> suppressed both these congregations by his Motu proprio of 26 May, 1906. The authoritative interpretation of the disciplinary decrees of the <a href="../cathen/15030c.htm">Council of Trent</a> gave the Congregation of the Council a power over regulars, which it used largely before the nineteenth century; but at present its authority is limited to the <a href="../cathen/13675a.htm">secular clergy</a>. The Congregations of the Holy Office and the Index exercise over religious, as well as over the rest of the <a href="../cathen/05769a.htm">faithful</a>, their power of judging <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> charged with offences coming under the Holy Office, and of censuring books and other publications.</p> <h5>Cardinal protector</h5> <p>Most orders have a cardinal protector. The institution goes back to the time of St. Francis, who recognizes in him a governor, a protector, and a corrector; he is appointed by the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">sovereign pontiff</a>. Since the time of <a href="../cathen/08022a.htm">Innocent XII</a> (Constitution, "Christi fideium", 17 February, 1694) he has ceased to have ordinary <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a>; he is therefore nothing more than a benevolent protector, who from time to time receives delegated powers.</p> <h5>Bishop and privilege of exemption</h5> <p>Religious orders are exempt from episcopal <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a>, and in spite of exceptions to this privilege, created by the <a href="../cathen/15030c.htm">Council of Trent</a> and later, the exemption remains the rule and the exception must be <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a>. The exemption is above all personal, and also local: religious are not under the orders of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, and their <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> and churches, unless these be <a href="../cathen/11499b.htm">parochial</a>, cannot be visited by him. The <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, however, in practice does not permit the rule of local exemption to be extended to secular <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> during their stay in a <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convent</a>: only <em>familiares</em>, that is, those who as oblates or even as servants live in the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convent</a> as if they were part of the religious <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a>, benefit by it. The question whether pupils who are boarders in the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convent</a> may be called <em>familiares</em> is open to dispute. According to the <a href="../cathen/15030c.htm">Council of Trent</a>, the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> has over religious a <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a> sometimes ordinary, sometimes delegated in the name of the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, sometimes <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> may act also, as special delegates of the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>; the expression is somewhat obscure, but the object appears to have been to give the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> an incontestable right to interfere in certain cases (see Vermeersch, "De relig. inst. et pers.", I, n. 968). As the exemption of regulars is not active, that is, as it does not give independent power over a fixed territory, regulars are subject to the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> in all that concerns the administration of the <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a> to seculars, and the direction of such <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a>, due respect being paid to certain privileges attached to churches and colleges. Especially for the <a href="../cathen/01061a.htm">absolution</a> of seculars, they must be approved by the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> of the place in which confessions are heard. Besides this, the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> may interfere to permit the erection of a <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convent</a>, to approve the renunciation of <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a> made before solemn profession, to test the vocation of <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a>, to approve or condemn the publications of regulars, to control, if not to refuse, collecting from house to house, to summon regulars to processions, and settle questions of precedence, to <a href="../cathen/04276a.htm">consecrate</a> the churches of regulars, to pontificate in them, to fix the stipends of Masses, and prescribe the Collects. His name must be mentioned in the Canon of the Mass; he decides all causes which concern the Faith; he may also in certain cases exercise over regulars his coercive power.</p> <p>But (at least in regard to certain orders specially exempted) it would be incorrect to say that whenever the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> may interfere, he may also inflict censures. It is admitted also that, at least with the permission of his superior, the religious may ask the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> to exercise some of his dispensing power, in his favour, and it is understood that the <a href="../cathen/09152a.htm">Lenten</a> <a href="../cathen/07789a.htm">indults</a> and general <a href="../cathen/05041a.htm">dispensations</a> from abstinence apply to such regulars as are not bound by a special <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a> to fast or abstain. According to the principle laid down, regulars may gain the <a href="../cathen/07783a.htm">indulgences</a> granted by the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>. Except mitred <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbots</a>, who confer the <a href="../cathen/14779a.htm">tonsure</a> and <a href="../cathen/10332b.htm">minor orders</a> on their inferiors, regular superiors must apply to the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> for the <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> of their subjects: for this purpose they give dimissorial letters, by which they present their subjects to the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> with the <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> certificates, to receive <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a> from him. Except in the case of some particular privilege, the dimissorial letters should be sent to the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> of the place in which the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convent</a> is situated, and regulars can only apply to another <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> in case the former does not hold his usual ordinations, or if he consents to waive his right.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h4>Communication of privileges</h4> <p>Exemption is the principal privilege of religious orders; the others are chiefly powers of <a href="../cathen/01061a.htm">absolution</a>, and spiritual favours. Among all the <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a>, and practically among all religious orders properly so called, there exists a communication of privileges. This communication makes all favours, granted to one order only, common to all, if they are not extraordinary in their nature, or granted for some very special reason, or only for a certain term of years, or finally if no express provision forbids the communication. Thus the privilege, granted to the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Society of Jesus</a>, of having domestic <a href="../cathen/11271a.htm">oratories</a> or <a href="../cathen/03574b.htm">chapels</a> on the authorization of the religious provincial alone applies to all religious orders. Religious orders profit even by privileges granted to congregations. But at the present time the application of the principle of communication must be made with <a href="../cathen/12517b.htm">prudence</a>, especially in the case of <a href="../cathen/07783a.htm">indulgences</a>.</p> <h4>Admission, vows and dispensation, secularization and migration</h4> <p>For the reception of subjects and the taking of <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, see <a href="../cathen/11144a.htm">NOVICE</a>; <a href="../cathen/12319b.htm">POSTULANT</a>. All the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> of religious orders are ordinarily perpetual, though there are exceptions; moreover, a simple profession must precede the solemn profession, otherwise the latter is null and void. The <a href="../cathen/05041a.htm">dispensation</a> from <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, even from simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, is reserved to the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>. But the superior-general, by the dismissal of religious with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, who have not received major orders, may ordinarily remove the <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> of those <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. Those who are professed with solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, even <a href="../cathen/09093a.htm">lay brothers</a>, are very rarely dispensed from them; it is easier for them to obtain an <a href="../cathen/07789a.htm">indult</a> authorizing them to live in the world, bound by their <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. The <a href="../cathen/07789a.htm">indult</a> of secularization may be temporary or perpetual; the latter alone finally separates the regular from his order: he then owes obedience to the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>. The regular who has made solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> or who by privilege has received some major order before making these <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, can be expelled only if, after a thrice-repeated warning, he still proves incorrigible in some grave and public fault. When expelled, he incurs a suspension from which the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> alone can free him. Even one who has been set free, if he is in <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a>, is not at liberty to leave the house until he has found a <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> willing to accept him in his <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocese</a>, and some means of honest livelihood: strictly speaking, the acceptance should be final, but in practice this is not insisted upon. If he leaves the house without doing what is required, he is suspended until he has fulfilled both conditions.</p> <p>The regular may also, in theory, migrate from one order to another more severe; from this point of view, the <a href="../cathen/03388a.htm">Carthusian Order</a> is the most perfect. In practice, failing the consent of the superior-general of both the orders in question, these migrations take place only with the authorization of the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>. The professed regular who migrates into another order makes his <a href="../cathen/11144a.htm">novitiate</a> afresh therein, but retains his first profession until he has made solemn profession in his new order. Until that time, if he does not persevere in the second order, he must take his former place in the order he has quitted; and even then if, in addition to the essential <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> of religion, his first profession has laid any special <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligations</a> upon him, for instance that of not accepting any <a href="../cathen/04794a.htm">ecclesiastical dignities</a>, these <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligations</a> are not removed by his new profession. (For the <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligations</a> of religious <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, see <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">VOW</a>; <a href="../cathen/11181c.htm">OBEDIENCE</a>, RELIGIOUS; <a href="../cathen/12324a.htm">POVERTY</a>; and for the enclosure, see <a href="../cathen/04060a.htm">CLOISTER</a>.)</p> <h4>Habits and choir</h4> <p>If an order has a special habit, the members are strictly bound to wear it, and if any of them puts it off without good cause, he incurs an <a href="../cathen/05678a.htm">excommunication</a> not reserved (Const. "Ut periculosa", 2 Ne clerici vel monachi, in 6 iii, 24). This <a href="../cathen/05678a.htm">excommunication</a> appears to exist in spite of the Constitution "Apostolicæ", because it concerns the interior discipline of orders, but it applies only to those who are professed under solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. The <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> to retain the habit extends also to <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> of the order, if they are not canons or clerks regular.</p> <p>Most orders are bound to recite the Office in choir, and say the conventual Mass. The <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> of choir, at least the grave <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a>, binds the community and the superior, whose <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duty</a> it is to see that the Office is recited in common. But the religious professed under solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, who do not assist in choir, are bound from the day of their profession to recite the Office in private, even if they are not in <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a>. This <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> does not apply to <a href="../cathen/09093a.htm">lay brothers</a>, or to <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> professed under simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>.</p> <h4>Orders of women (second orders)</h4> <p>In connexion with certain orders of men, there are also orders of <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a>, instituted for similar objects, and in this respect sharing in the same evolution. We say "in this respect", for the rigours of the enclosure imposed upon <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a> under solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> (see <a href="../cathen/04060a.htm">CLOISTER</a>) necessarily prevented any organization formed after the model of the <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a> or clerks regular. Orders of <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a> have sometimes an existence, and even an origin, independent of any order of men. This is the case especially with the more recent orders, such as the Sisters of the Visitation and the <a href="../cathen/15228b.htm">Ursulines</a>. Very often they are connected by their origin and their rule with an order of men. The first monastic rules, which did not contemplate the reception of <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a>, were as suitable for <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a> as for men: thus there were <a href="../cathen/02324a.htm">Basilian</a> and <a href="../cathen/02443a.htm">Benedictine</a> <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a>, simply following the Rules of St. Basil and St. Benedict. Neither the rule of the <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a> nor that of the clerks regular was suitable to <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a>. St. Francis first, and then other founders, wrote a second rule for the use of <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a> who thus constituted a second order, placed normally under the <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a> of the superior-general of the first order (see <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">NUNS</a>).</p> <h4>Third orders</h4> <p>The grant of a third rule to secular <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> gives rise to the third orders. At times it happens that these tertiaries are established in community under this rule; they are then religious, ordinarily members of a congregation with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. But, as we said above, there were communities of this character with solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, and there is a regular <a href="../cathen/14637b.htm">Third Order</a> of St. Francis, which goes back to the fifteenth century and which received modified constitutions from <a href="../cathen/09169a.htm">Leo XIII</a> (20 July, 1888).</p> <p>The associations of secular tertiaries are also called orders; they owe this to the fact that they profess the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> life under an approved rule: but these are secular orders; and religious, even those under simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, cannot validly belong to them. By his entrance into a religious order, a <a href="../cathen/11144a.htm">novice</a> ceases to be a secular, and seeks after Evangelical perfection, which is not the contradictory of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justice</a>, but is a realization of it in an eminent degree. It has also been held that a <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a> who has been a member of a third order before becoming a religious at once resumes his place in it, if he legitimately returns to the world. No one can belong to several third orders at the same time. Not all religious orders have third orders attached to them; but those which recognize an order of <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a> as their second order generally have tertiaries also. Thus there are no <a href="../cathen/02443a.htm">Benedictine</a> or <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Jesuit</a> tertiaries: the <a href="../cathen/02443a.htm">Benedictines</a> have no second order, and the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Jesuit</a> rule expressly forbids the Society to have an institute of <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a> under its authority. In later times the Oblates of St. Benedict have been assimilated to tertiaries. Third orders are distinguished from confraternities, in as much as the former follow a general rule of life, while the members of confraternities are associated for some special purpose of <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">piety</a> or charity: thus they often include both religious and <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">lay persons</a>, and the same <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a> may be a member of several confraternities. (As to the <a href="../cathen/14637b.htm">Third Order</a> of St. Francis, and the name of Order, see the Constitution "Auspicato" of 17 Sept., 1882, and "Misericors Dei filius" of 23 June, 1883.)</p> <p>The word <em>religio</em> is more strictly reserved for institutes with solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. As the religion of <a href="../cathen/12372b.htm">precepts</a> and the religion of counsels were considered distinct grades of the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian religion</a>, the rules of life laid down according to the counsels were called <em>religiones</em>. The Second <a href="../cathen/01727b.htm">Council of Arles</a>, 452, can. 25, spoke of the profession of the monastic life as <em>professio religionis</em>.</p> <h3>Religious congregations</h3> <h4>Meaning of the word "congregation"</h4> <p>There has been much change in the meaning of this word. It formerly denoted the whole body of religious living in a <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>: in this sense we find it in Cassian (Collations, 2nd preface) and in the <a href="../cathen/02436a.htm">Rule of St. Benedict</a> (chap. xvii). The edifying spectacle presented by the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> of Cluny under St. Odo (d. 942) induced many <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> in <a href="../cathen/06166a.htm">France</a> to beg the <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbot</a> to accept their supreme direction, and he undertook to visit them from time to time. Under his first two successors, numerous <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> of <a href="../cathen/06166a.htm">France</a> and <a href="../cathen/08208a.htm">Italy</a> observed the usages of Cluny, while others were reformed by <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> of Cluny. At the death of St. Odo, sixty-five <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> were under the rules of Cluny and thus formed a congregation, the members of which were no longer the individual <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>, but the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a>. In a similar manner, the union of <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> with <a href="../cathen/03792a.htm">Cîteaux</a> produced the Congregation of <a href="../cathen/03792a.htm">Cîteaux</a>: but here the celebrated <em>carta caritatis</em>, drawn up in a general chapter of <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbots</a> and <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> held at <a href="../cathen/03792a.htm">Cîteaux</a> in 1119, placed the supreme direction of <a href="../cathen/03780c.htm">Cistercian</a> <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> under the <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">Abbot</a> of <a href="../cathen/03792a.htm">Cîteaux</a>, and realized a much greater unity which prepared the way for the religious orders of a later period (see "Carta caritatis" in P.L., CLXVI, 1377). The <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> of <a href="../cathen/12387b.htm">Premonstratensian</a> Canons were early grouped in circles (<em>circarias</em>), at the head of which was a "circator" whose office resembled that of the <a href="../cathen/12514b.htm">provincial</a> of more recent orders. The <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">Abbot</a> of Prémontré Dominus Præmonstratensis, was a real abbot-general:</p> <p><a href="../cathen/08013a.htm">Innocent III</a>, by his Constitution "In singulis", which was <a href="../cathen/12454b.htm">promulgated</a> at the Fourth Council of the Lateran, and forms ch. vii, t. 35, bk. 3 of the <a href="../cathen/04670b.htm">Decretals</a>, ordered that a chapter of <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">abbots</a> and independent <a href="../cathen/12427c.htm">priors</a> of every kingdom or province should be held every third year, to ensure the fervour of the observance, and to organize the visitation of the <a href="../cathen/01010a.htm">abbeys</a> in order to prevent or correct abuses. The <a href="../cathen/15030c.htm">Council of Trent</a> (Sess. XXV, c. viii) made congregations of <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> general, ordering <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> to unite themselves into congregations, and to appoint visitors having the same powers as visitors of other orders, under pain of losing their exemption, and being placed under the <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a> of the local <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>. There have, however, been also important reforms inaugurated by one <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>, and adopted by many others, without leading to the formation of a congregation. Such was that of William <a href="../cathen/01015c.htm">Abbot</a> of Hirschau (d. 1091), who wrote the Constitutions of Hirschau, the wise provisions of which, in some measure borrowed from Cluny, were adopted by about 150 <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> having no other bond of union than a spiritual community of <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a> and merits.</p> <p>In 1566, <a href="../cathen/12018b.htm">St. Philip Neri</a> founded in <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a> an association of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> who were not bound by any <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a>; being unable for that reason to call it an order, he called it the <a href="../cathen/11272a.htm">Congregation of the Oratory</a>. <a href="../cathen/02524b.htm">Cardinal de Bérulle</a> in 1611 founded a similar institute, the French <a href="../cathen/11272a.htm">Congregation of the Oratory</a>. <a href="../cathen/15434c.htm">St. Vincent de Paul</a>, the founder of the <a href="../cathen/10357a.htm">Lazarists</a>, or Priests of the Mission, while introducing into his institute simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> of poverty, chastity, obedience, and stability, insisted that it should be called secular. These <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> are not followed by any act of acceptance by the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> or the institute. His association was called a congregation, as we see from the <a href="../cathen/03052b.htm">Bull</a> of <a href="../cathen/01294a.htm">Alexander VII</a>, "Ex commissa" (22 Sept., 1655). Thus it became usual to designate as congregations those institutes which resembled religious orders, but had not all their essential characteristics. This is the ordinary meaning generally accepted, though somewhat vague, of the word "congregation". Before long, the genus congregation was divided into several distinct species.</p> <h4>Religious congregations properly and improperly so called</h4> <p>First in order of dignity come the religious congregations properly so called. They have all the essentials of religious life, the three perpetual <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, and the <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> authority. They are even approved by the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>. They lack only one accidental characteristic of an order, namely the solemnity of the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. Such are the Congregations of the Most Holy Redeemer, of the Passion of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (or Picpus Fathers), which have even the privilege of exemption. Institutes with perpetual <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> approved by episcopal authority closely resemble the congregations properly so called. Religious congregations in the wider sense of the word are institutes which have no perpetual <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, or lack one of the essential <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, or which even have no <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> properly so called. Thus the Daughters of <a href="../cathen/15434c.htm">St. Vincent de Paul</a> make only annual <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, and as each year is completed they are free to return to the world. The Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, or White Sisters, form a religious congregation properly so called, but the <a href="../cathen/15613d.htm">White Fathers</a>, on the contrary, are not bound by any <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, but take only an <a href="../cathen/11176a.htm">oath</a> of obedience. We have spoken above of the <a href="../cathen/10357a.htm">Lazarists</a> and <a href="../cathen/11272a.htm">Oratorians</a>. The religious congregations improperly so called are sometimes designated <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">pious</a> congregations or <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">pious</a> <a href="../cathen/14074a.htm">societies</a>.</p> <h4>Division of the institutes</h4> <p>Institutes are divided, according to the quality of their members, into <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> congregations, consisting principally of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> and <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clerics</a>, and lay congregations, most of whose members are not in <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a>. Thus the <a href="../cathen/02802b.htm">Order of St. John of God</a>, though mainly composed of <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">laymen</a>, includes a certain number of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> devoted to the spiritual service of its <a href="../cathen/07480a.htm">hospitals</a> and asylums; while the Congregation of Parochial Clerics of St. Viator is composed of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> and teaching brothers placed on the same footing as religious. Several religious congregations are called tertiaries of St. Francis, St. Dominic, or some other religious order; some of these date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; others are more recent, such as the Third <a href="../cathen/12354c.htm">Order of St. Dominic</a> founded by <a href="../cathen/08733a.htm">Lacordaire</a>, which is devoted to teaching. But they must be regularly affiliated by the superior of the first order. This affiliation does not imply any dependence or subordination to the first order, but it requires as general conditions the observance of the essential points of the rule of the third order, and a certain similarity of habit: in the matter of the habit, however, many <a href="../cathen/05041a.htm">dispensations</a> have been granted  see the Decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences of 28 Aug., 1903, and 22 March, 1905, the <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a> of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars of 18 March, 1904, the Rescript of 30 Jan., 1905, and the Indult of 18 Nov., 1905, of the same Congregation (cf. Periodica de religiosis et missionariis, I, 15, p. 40; 54, p. 147; 59, p. 152; II, 102, p. 57).</p> <p>As to the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a> by which they are governed, religious congregations are divided into congregations dependent on the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, and those under episcopal authority. The latter are strictly <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocesan</a> or interdiocesan, according as they are confined to a single diocese, or are scattered over several. <a href="../cathen/09169a.htm">Leo XIII</a>, by his Constitution "Conditæ" of 8 Dec., 1900, gave to the congregations their official character; and a set of regulations of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, of 20 June, 1901, known by the name of Normæ, traces the general lines on which the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> wishes the new institutes to be constructed and the old ones reorganized.</p> <h4>Religious congregations dependent on the Holy See</h4> <h5>Approbation</h5> <p>Before a congregation can be placed under pontifical government, it must have received a <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a>, in which commendation is bestowed on the congregation itself, and not merely on the intention of the founder and the object of the institution; then follows a <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a> confirming the existence of the congregation, and approving its constitutions, first by a trial of some years, and then finally. Before the Constitution "Sapienti" (29 June, 1908), by which <a href="../cathen/12137a.htm">Pius X</a> reorganized the <a href="../cathen/13147a.htm">Roman Curia</a>, two congregations were occupied with the <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of new institutes, the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, and the <a href="../cathen/12456a.htm">Congregation of Propaganda</a>; the latter approved those institutes which were founded in missions and in countries subject to its <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a>, and those intended exclusively for foreign missions. Since the Constitution "Sapienti", the new Congregation of Religious alone has the power of <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a>, and the religious of the whole world are under its <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a>: If they are missionaries, they owe obedience also to the <a href="../cathen/12456a.htm">Propaganda</a> in all matters connected with their missionary character.</p> <p>Except the <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of tertiary communities (of both the sexes) with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> by the Constitution "Inter cetera" of <a href="../cathen/09162a.htm">Leo X</a> (20 Jan., 1521) to which we have already alluded, the formal <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of a religious institute with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> by the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> does not date back very far: the <a href="../cathen/03052b.htm">Brief</a> of <a href="../cathen/04029a.htm">Clement XI</a> "Inscrutabili" (13 July, 1703), approving the Constitution of the English Virgins (Institute of Mary), is perhaps the first instance in the case of <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a>, while <a href="../cathen/02432a.htm">Benedict XIV</a> in 1741 approved the Congregation of <a href="../cathen/11521d.htm">Passionists</a>. But on 26 March, 1687, <a href="../cathen/08021a.htm">Innocent XI</a>, by his Constitution "Ecclesiæ Catholicæ", erected the hospitaller confraternity of the <a href="../cathen/02534b.htm">Bethlehemites</a> into a congregation, and <a href="../cathen/04027a.htm">Clement VIII</a>, on 13 Oct 1593, approved with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> the <a href="../cathen/04052b.htm">Clerks Regular of the Mother of God</a>. These two congregations were transformed into religious orders, the one by a Constitution of <a href="../cathen/04029a.htm">Clement XI</a> (3 April, 1710), and the other by a Constitution of <a href="../cathen/07004b.htm">Gregory XV</a> in 1621: but later, in consequence of a <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">decree</a> of the Spanish Cortes, the <a href="../cathen/02534b.htm">Bethlehemites</a> were gradually extinguished. Institutes improperly called religious have been approved since the seventeenth century: we have already mentioned the <a href="../cathen/11272a.htm">Oratorians</a>, approved in 1612, and the Priests of the Mission, approved in 1632: to these may be added the <a href="../cathen/13378a.htm">Sulpicians</a>, approved in 1642, the <a href="../cathen/05596b.htm">Eudists</a> in 1643, and the <a href="../cathen/01643a.htm">Secular Priests</a> of the <a href="../cathen/07439b.htm">Venerable Holzhauser</a> in 1680. For a long time the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, while approving the constitutions of <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a>, refused to recognize the institutes themselves. The <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> formerly contained certain qualifying words, "citra approbationem conservatorii" ("without <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of the institute"), which have now disappeared. Ordinarily the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> proceeds by steps; it requires first that the institute shall have existed for some time under the <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of the ordinary, then it approves the constitutions for some years, and last of all grants a final <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a>. Religious congregations also receive a cardinal protector, whose office is more important in the case of an institute of <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a>.</p> <h5>Authority of the ordinary</h5> <p>Although established under pontifical government, religious congregations are not free from the <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a> of the <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocesan</a> ordinary. Congregations of men owe him the common obedience of all the <a href="../cathen/05769a.htm">faithful</a>, and of <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clerics</a>, if their members are <a href="../cathen/14779a.htm">tonsured</a> or in <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a>. Use, rather than positive law, permits the superiors, being <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, to consider themselves as quasi-parish <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> of their religious subordinates. For confessions even of their own subjects, they must be delegated by the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>; and all approved confessors of the <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocese</a> may absolve these religious, who are subject also for reserved cases to <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocesan</a> law. The temporal administration is withdrawn from the authority or the ordinary; this is the case also with institutes of <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a>. Certain institutes are entirely exempt from episcopal <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a>; such are the <a href="../cathen/11521d.htm">Passionists</a>, the Missionary Fathers of the Sacred Hearts, or Picpus Fathers, and the <a href="../cathen/12683a.htm">Redemptorists</a>. Without being strictly <a href="../cathen/12386b.htm">prelates</a>, the superiors of an exempt institute, being <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, receive from the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> the <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">power of jurisdiction</a> in addition to the governing power belonging to all superiors, male or <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">female</a>. (For a comparison of these religious with regulars properly so called see the dissertation of Fr. Salsmans, S.J. in Vermeersch, "Periodica de relig. et miss., " V, p. 33). It is to be remarked that the exemption of the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convent</a> does not always imply the exemption of the church. Sometimes the authority of a superior-general of a congregation of men extends to a congregation of sisters of a similar institute; but in practice the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> no longer approves of any but independent congregations. Whether exempt or not, congregations may never be established in a <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocese</a>, and may not open a new house, without the permission of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>.</p> <h5>Organization of the institute</h5> <p>Congregations approved by the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> have the organization of religious orders: and the less rigorous enclosure of institutes with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> even permits the sisters to be organized in the same manner as orders of men. We find then at the head of the institute a superior-general assisted by a council, which, in the more important matters, must approve the measures proposed; then ordinarily provincial superiors with their councils, and local superiors. The superior-general, his councillors, and the procurator-general are always appointed by the general chapter. In fact, in congregations as in religious orders, the general chapter is the supreme power. It can, however, neither change the constitutions nor make <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> properly so called; its orders remain in force until the chapter following. The general chapter meets for the election of the superior-general; if this takes place only every twelve years, there may be a meeting of the chapter after six years for the transaction of business. With this exception the chapter is not summoned without the consent of the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>. Besides the general and his councillors, the secretary-general, procurator-general, <a href="../cathen/12514b.htm">provincials</a>, and two delegates appointed by the provincial chapter take part in this chapter. If the congregation is not divided into provinces, the superiors of important houses and one delegate from each house take the place of the <a href="../cathen/12514b.htm">provincials</a> and delegates of the provincial chapter. The latter consists of the <a href="../cathen/12514b.htm">provincial</a>, his councillors, and the superiors of important houses, accompanied by a delegate from each house. The provincial chapter has ordinarily no other appointment to make than that of delegates to the chapter general. This chapter receives the accounts of the general administration, elects by secret ballot the general and his assistants or councillors, and deliberates over all important affairs of the congregation. Sometimes the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">sovereign pontiff</a>, who may appoint directly to all offices, reserves to himself the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> to confirm the <a href="../cathen/11093a.htm">nomination</a> of the superior-general. The latter is generally elected for six or twelve years: in the Society of the Sacred Heart, the election is for life. Ordinarily he makes provision in his council for all charges which are not within the discretion of the chapter general. Every three years he is bound to submit to the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> an account in the form prescribed by the <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a> of 16 June, 1906.</p> <p>Whether a <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> or not the superior, as head of the house, has authority over all who live in it, and derives from the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a> of obedience his power to command according to the approved constitutions. He is recommended, especially if he is not a superior-general or provincial, to make moderate use of his faculty to command in virtue of <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> obedience. Sometimes even he can do this only in writing. Although he controls the temporal administration, the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> requires that a separate <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a> shall have charge of the accounts, even in the houses, and that a third shall deal with expenditures. The <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> insists also that all valuables shall be kept in a chest with a triple lock, so that it can be opened only by means of three separate keys, which are to be kept by the superior, the <a href="../cathen/12451a.htm">procurator</a>, and one of the councillors. In respect of their temporal administration, the congregations are independent of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, but they are bound to observe the rules prescribed by the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, especially the precautions taken for the preservation of dowries and other funds (see the <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a> "Inter ea" of 30 July, 1909, Vermeersch, "Periodica" 331, V, p. 11). Even without belonging to an exempt congregation, the superior, if a <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a>, obtains without difficulty the faculty of giving his subjects dimissorial letters for ordinations; and if such faculty is granted him, then, in respect of the certificates to be delivered, the competent <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> etc., the rules are the same for congregations as for religious orders.</p> <p>We have treated of the admission of subjects, the novitiate, and simple profession under the titles: <a href="../cathen/11144a.htm">NOVICE</a>; <a href="../cathen/12319b.htm">POSTULANT</a>; and <a href="../cathen/12451b.htm">RELIGIOUS PROFESSION</a>. Ordinarily, and always in the more recent orders, temporary <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> for some years preceded perpetual <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>: these <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, even temporary, are reserved to the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>. While the superior has the power to dismiss religious who have not made perpetual <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, he has not always the power to release them from their <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligations</a>, and in that case it is <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> to have recourse to the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>. Religious who have received any of the major orders in the institute, and those who have made perpetual <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, cannot be dismissed without the formalities prescribed for the dismissal of <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> professed with solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. Dismissal involves a suspension which is reserved to the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>; and the <a href="../cathen/15506a.htm">voluntary</a> departure of a religious who, as a religious, has been admitted to <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a>, even of one whose temporary <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> have expired, is not regular unless he has found a <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> and means of subsistence. The sanction is the same as for one professed with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> in a religious order. Secularization is seldom granted to members of a religious congregation, but recourse is had to <a href="../cathen/05041a.htm">dispensation</a> from <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. Migration from one congregation to another cannot take place without the consent of the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, and it is usual to ask for that consent before entering a religious order, though there is no law forbidding such entrance.</p> <h4>Religious congregations under episcopal authority</h4> <h5>Approbation</h5> <p>After the Constitutions of <a href="../cathen/12130a.htm">St. Pius V</a>, which were opposed to simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> could only tolerate congregations without solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>. Such congregations naturally desired to be under the control of some <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> authority, which could only be that of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>: by degrees a custom grew up which gave <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> an incontestable right to approve religious congregations, and this right received express recognition from the Constitution "Conditæ" of <a href="../cathen/09169a.htm">Leo XIII</a> (8 Dec., 1900), the first part of which is wholly devoted to the <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocesan</a> congregations: its first articles contain a solemn warning against the rash creation of new ones, and any excessive increase in their number. More recently the Motu proprio "Dei providentis" (16 July, 1906) declared the necessity of pontifical authorization before any episcopal <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a>. When it is desired to form a new congregation, the ordinary forwards to the Sacred Congregation of Religious the name of the founder, the object of the foundation, the name and title chosen for the new institute, a description of the habit to be worn by the <a href="../cathen/11144a.htm">novices</a> and professed members, the work to be undertaken, the resources, and the names of similar institutes existing in the diocese. When once the consent of <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a> has been obtained, the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> may authorize the institute, respecting all things decreed by the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>; and in revising the constitutions, he will take care that they are always in conformity with the Normæ of 1901. It is to be remarked that in the <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a> of 1906, the expression "religious institute" has a very wide meaning, and by the terms of that <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a>, this procedure is to be followed for all associations, whose members have a distinctive name and habit and devote themselves to their own personal perfection, or to works of <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">piety</a> or charity: <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> are not required. But, on the other hand, the institute thus formed remains episcopal; the ordinaries exercise over it all the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">rights</a> mentioned in the Constitution "Conditæ" (ch. i), except the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> to modify anything that the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> has specially laid down.</p> <h5>Authority of the bishop</h5> <p>This Constitution formulates the principle of full and exclusive submission to the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>; from which we conclude that the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">rights</a> of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> are limited only by the principle of natural <a href="../cathen/08571c.htm">justice</a> and equity, which demands respect for acquired <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">rights</a>; by the nature of the institute, which must give its religious the means of making progress towards perfection according to the <a href="../cathen/12372b.htm">precepts</a> of the Gospel; and by the plain exceptions of pontifical law. We say "the plain exceptions", because Decrees of the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, which do not clearly refer to <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocesan</a> institutes, only give directions to <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> without restraining their power; moreover, in the immense variety of cases, prescriptions which are useful to institutes under pontifical government would be very troublesome to those whose life is <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocesan</a>; and the latter in the immediate control of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> often find the same security that the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> seeks to give by a new regulation to congregations dependent upon itself.</p> <p>We have now to distinguish between <em>diocesan</em> and <em>interdiocesan</em> institutes.</p> <h5>Diocesan institutes</h5> <p>Congregations which exist in but one <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocese</a> are dependent only on a single <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>: he approves the institute, authorizes the erection of new houses, may forbid the extension of the institute into another diocese, and may for sufficient reasons close a house, or suppress the institute itself: but he must take care, during the liquidation, not to violate the canonical <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> concerning the disposal and alienation of <a href="../cathen/12466a.htm">ecclesiastical property</a>. He may receive subjects himself, visit the houses to inquire into the religious discipline and temporal administration, and reserve to himself the approval of the most important acts. The Constitution "Conditæ" requires the superior in a <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convent</a> of <a href="../cathen/15687b.htm">women</a> (and we may say the same of male superiors) to be appointed by election; the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> may not only preside at the election, but also confirm or annul it; and when any grave cause prevents the holding of a regular election, he may, while awaiting a favourable opportunity for assembling the electors, even make provision for the internal government of the institute. He is bound, however, except in case of express provision in the constitutions, to leave the hands of the superior free to administer the institute and even to transfer the members (Reply of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, 9 April, 1895).</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h5>Interdiocesan institutes</h5> <p>If the institute has houses in several <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">dioceses</a>, each <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> has authority over the houses in his own diocese; the consent of all is <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> to touch the institute itself. Ordinarily the difficulties which may be created by this situation may be removed by asking for pontifical <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> for the institute. Often also the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> of the <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocese</a> of origin, in order to prevent difficulties and disputes, refuses to allow the extension into other <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">dioceses</a>, unless it is agreed that he shall have full authority over the <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religious</a> life of the institute.</p> <h4>Superior, vows, ordination</h4> <p>In institutes under episcopal authority the ordinary <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a> is vested in the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, never in the superior: the latter has the ruling power which is given him by the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, and the internal authority which he possesses as head of the house. The <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>, except the <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vow</a> of perpetual chastity, if it has been absolutely taken, are not reserved to the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>. The dismissal of subjects does not require the formalities prescribed by the <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a> "Auctis admodum" (4 Nov., 1892) which has been mentioned in connexion with orders and congregations properly so called; and the religious in <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">Holy orders</a> do not incur the suspension inflicted by that <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">Decree</a> on those who are expelled, or on those who depart <a href="../cathen/15506a.htm">voluntarily</a> without having found a <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> or means of subsistence. In fact, the members of these institutes have always their <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, who has taken the responsibility of ordaining them. Exception however, must be made if the institute has obtained an <a href="../cathen/07789a.htm">indult</a> permitting the superior to deliver to his subjects letters of <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordination</a> which bind only the institute: in such a case a subject who left the institute having received major orders in this manner, would be suspended until he had found a <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> and means of subsistence.</p> <h4>Religious state of the members</h4> <p>The question has been raised whether members of an episcopal institute are really in the religious state, provided, be it understood, that they are bound by the three perpetual <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Our answer is in the affirmative, because the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, being the ordinary authority instituted by Christ himself, truly gives <a href="../cathen/08065a.htm">canonical institution</a> to the association.</p> <h2>Religious rule</h2> <p>To complete our description of the religious life, we have now to deal with the rule or <a href="../cathen/04320a.htm">constitutions</a> by which religious are governed.</p> <h3>Historical survey</h3> <p>In the earliest times, the younger <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> were accustomed to seek and follow the advice of some older <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monk</a> in order to realize the ideal of monastic life; and very soon those who were renowned for their wisdom and <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holiness</a> saw their instructions observed by a large body of disciples. Others drew up a rule of life for the use of candidates for the life of perfection. The necessity for such a rule chiefly affected the cenobites, for whom it was <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> also to organize common life and a hierarchical constitution.</p> <p>The first rules were plans of perfect life, with details differing according to <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a>, times, and places, but framed upon the Gospel as their common fundamental rule. The first <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> found their first rule in the <a href="../bible/act000.htm">Acts of the Apostles</a>, iv, 32-5, where we are told how the owners of <a href="../cathen/12462a.htm">property</a> <a href="../cathen/15506a.htm">voluntarily</a> gave it up for the benefit of the whole community: this passage was called the rule established under the Apostles (St. Possidius, "Life of St. Augustine", c. v., in P.L., XXXII, 37). When intended for <a href="../cathen/01462b.htm">anchorites</a>, the rules contained only individual counsels; those intended for cenobites dealt also with the entrance into the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a>, the probations, the <a href="../cathen/07322c.htm">hierarchy</a>, obedience, and common life. Sometimes they were codifications of received usages, observed and subsequently collected by the disciples of some famous <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a>, sometimes they were the authentic work of the <a href="../cathen/04171a.htm">saint</a> whose name they bore; not to mention the mixed character of certain rules composed with the help of authentic writings, but first published without any intention of making them a rule properly so called. <a href="../cathen/11381a.htm">St. Pachomius</a> gradually compiled, according to the varying needs of the times, a body of rules, the authentic text of which is not now in existence; certain <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a> give us more information on the subject of the rules of his disciple, Schenut. We possess the <a href="../cathen/02436a.htm">Rule of St. Benedict</a>; the Rules of St. Basil and <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> are of the mixed class. The answers of St. Basil to the questions of the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> form the first; the second consists in great measure of extracts from a letter addressed by <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> in 423 to the <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a> of <a href="../cathen/07360b.htm">Hippo</a> (Ep. 211 in P.L., XXXIII, 960-5). Of the first class are the rules which are circulated under the names of Saints Anthony, Isaias, Serapion, Macarius, Paphnutius, and others. We need not wonder that legend has attributed to some of the rules a superhuman origin: the Rule of <a href="../cathen/11381a.htm">St. Pachomius</a>, for instance, soon after its appearance, was said to have been dictated or even written on tablets by an <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angel</a>; hence it acquired the name of the "Angel's Rule". These rules had no binding force, except sometimes for the inhabitants of a <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> during the term of their residence. In many <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> various rules were observed: the monastic life did not derive its unity from the rules.</p> <p>As orders began to approach more nearly to the modern form, and new ones were established having their own special objects in addition to <a href="../cathen/12451b.htm">religious profession</a>, each institute had its own rule, which was in fact a plan of life after the spirit of the Gospel, imposed on the religious to help them work in common for the special objects of their institute. Such a rule is identified with the institute itself, and the <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> to persevere in the latter includes the <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> to observe the former. The rule takes this form among the canons regular, and more definitely in the <a href="../cathen/10183c.htm">mendicant orders</a>. The Roman Council of 1139 recognized three rules, those of <a href="../cathen/02436a.htm">St. Benedict</a>, <a href="../cathen/02322a.htm">St. Basil</a>, and <a href="../cathen/02079b.htm">St. Augustine</a>; and the <a href="../cathen/09018a.htm">Fourth Council of the Lateran</a> (1215) refused to recognize any religious institutes which did not observe a rule approved by the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>. <a href="../cathen/08013a.htm">Innocent III</a> and <a href="../cathen/07457a.htm">Honorius III</a> afterwards approved the Rule of St. Francis. Thus a new note was added to the rule, the <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> of the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>; and the rule became a canonical law, governing the religious, although in the beginning it was only a private compilation. A new step has recently been taken: until 1901, the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a> was content to examine the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> of new institutes without troubling much over details; but as in the progress of legislation certain clauses were repeated and new ones introduced in their place, it was decided in 1901 to enact a more uniform type of rule for new institutes: thus the Normæ of 28 June, 1901, were drawn up, to be a common mould for the formation of all new institutes with but few exceptions. Henceforth the rules will be mainly the work of the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Holy See</a>, and all congregations will be, as regards their chief lines, organized in the same manner. The substance of the rule has also been greatly changed. In the beginning it was simply a short code of asceticism, with such directions as were <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> for the organization of common life; and in the orders properly so called, there were added to this code the regulations required by the special object of each institute: at present asceticism and the rule of life are kept distinct, and the only things to be treated of in the rule are the points of common observance.</p> <h3>Rules and constitutions</h3> <p>In canonical language we distinguish between rules and constitutions: history easily explains this terminology. As already stated, the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215), c. Ne nimia. De religiosis domibus, etc. (iii, 36) confirmed by the <a href="../cathen/09476c.htm">Second Council of Lyons</a> (1479) c. Reigionum un., ibid. in 6 (iii, 12) had forbidden new foundations of orders. The prohibition was understood in this sense that no order should be constituted under a new rule; and the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">sovereign pontiffs</a> themselves insisted on the adoption of an old rule for the institutes they approved. Therefore, following the example already set in the eleventh century by St. Romuald, who adapted the <a href="../cathen/02436a.htm">Rule of St. Benedict</a> to the <a href="../cathen/07280a.htm">eremitical</a> life, the founders chose a rule already received in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, adding such prescriptions as were required by the special object of their institutes. These prescriptions were called "constitutions". The term "rule" is, therefore, at present used only to denote one of the ancient rules, and more particularly the four great rules, each of which serves as a fundamental law to many institutes, namely;</p> <div class="bulletlist"><ul><li>the <a href="../cathen/02322a.htm">Rule of St. Basil</a>, or rather the collection of his rules divided into two classes, those expounded in detail, and those more concise;</li><li>the <a href="../cathen/02436a.htm">Rule of St. Benedict</a>;</li><li>the <a href="../cathen/02079b.htm">Rule of St. Augustine</a> formed with the help of his letter 211 to <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">nuns</a>, his <a href="../cathen/07448a.htm">sermons</a> 355 and 356, concerning the <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">morals</a> of <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clerics</a> (P.L., XXXIII, 358 sqq., and XXXIX, 1568) and some additions of Fulgentius; and lastly;</li><li>the Rule of <a href="../cathen/06221a.htm">St. Francis of Assisi</a>, confirmed on 29 Nov., 1223, by the Constitution "Solet" of <a href="../cathen/07457a.htm">Honorius III</a>.</li></ul></div> <p>The more recent <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> not only those which contain decisions on special points, but also those which apply only to particular orders or congregations, are properly called constitutions; the rule is always recommended by its antiquity: where there exist both a rule and constitutions, the rule, without having any greater force, nevertheless contains the more general and consequently more stable elements, which are also common to many religious orders or congregations. From this point of view, institutes are classified as follows: the more ancient orders, if not reformed, have only the rule of their founder; most orders have both rules and constitutions, and venerate the author of the rule as a soft of patriarch; while some orders and many congregations with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> have constitutions which with them take the place of a rule. The <a href="../cathen/02322a.htm">Rule of St. Basil's</a> governs most <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> of the <a href="../cathen/06774a.htm">Greek Rite</a>; the <a href="../cathen/02436a.htm">Rule of St. Benedict</a> is the principal rule of the Western Monks; and was called simply "the Rule". It governed also some <a href="../cathen/10304d.htm">military orders</a>, such as those of Alcántara, and the <a href="../cathen/14493a.htm">Templars</a>. The <a href="../cathen/02079b.htm">Rule of St. Augustine</a> is common to the canons regular, the <a href="../cathen/07281a.htm">Hermits of St. Augustine</a>, and many institutes whose special object required a somewhat less strict form of government: thus the <a href="../cathen/12354c.htm">Friars Preachers</a>, the <a href="../cathen/09750a.htm">Servites</a>, and the <a href="../cathen/02802b.htm">Religious of St. John of God</a> have this rule besides their own special constitutions. Many congregations of hospitallers of both sexes are governed in the same manner. The Rule of St. Francis is observed by the three branches of his first order; the second order and many congregations of tertiaries also follow a rule of the same saint. The <a href="../cathen/03354a.htm">Carmelites</a>, the Minims, the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Society of Jesus</a>, the <a href="../cathen/11521d.htm">Passionists</a>, and the <a href="../cathen/12683a.htm">Redemptorists</a> all have their own constitutions only.</p> <h3>Binding force of the rule</h3> <p>At the present day the rules and constitutions are ecclesiastical laws, and therefore <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligatory</a>, at least in their preceptive parts: but the <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> varies. In the Rule of St. Francis, for instance, some articles bind under mortal <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, others under venial <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>; that of the <a href="../cathen/03354a.htm">Carmelites</a> binds under venial <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> only: and Francisco Suárez considers (De religione, VIII, I, iii, n. 8) that without some special indication expressed or implied in cases of <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a> we must presume a venial <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a>. Apparently the <a href="../cathen/02436a.htm">Rule of St. Benedict</a> and certainly the Constitutions of the <a href="../cathen/12354c.htm">Friars Preachers</a> and the <a href="../cathen/14081a.htm">Society of Jesus</a> do not bind directly, except to the acceptance of the penance imposed for their infringement; nor is this spontaneous fulfilment of the penance always binding in <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a>. Even then, the rule is a law, not a pure counsel: if a religious should profess himself independent of it, he would commit a grave offence against obedience; if he disobeys, he deserves reproof and punishment, and it rests with the superior to impose under <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a> the observance of each point of the rule. Moreover, in the motive which leads to a violation of the rule, or in the effect of such violation, there is generally an irregularity which makes the act a venial <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>.</p> <h3>Collections of rules</h3> <p>In very early times, there were collections of rules; we may mention that which in the language of the period, <a href="../cathen/02467a.htm">St. Benedict of Aniane</a> (d. 821) called the "Concordia regularum", which was republished with additions by the librarian <a href="../cathen/07397a.htm">Holstenius</a> (d. 1661) at <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a> in 1661 and in <a href="../cathen/11480c.htm">Paris</a> in 1663. Brockie brought out a more perfect edition (Augsburg, 1759), which is reproduced in P.L., CIII, 393-700. <a href="../cathen/14695a.htm">Thomas of Jesus</a>, a <a href="../cathen/03354a.htm">Carmelite</a>, published (Antwerp, 1817) commentaries on most of the rules.</p> <h2>Perfection of the different religious institutes</h2> <p>If we wish to compare the different religious institutes from the point of view of their relative perfection, the excellence of the object gives the first rank to the mixed institutions, and to the contemplative institutes priority over the active. Perfection depends upon the harmonious combination of the means employed towards the end, the quality of the works to which the institute is devoted, and even the number of its means of action. The strictness of the observance, by putting further away the <a href="../cathen/11196a.htm">occasions of sin</a>, is another reason of superiority, and above all, the strictness of obedience, which is now considered as the principal <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligation</a> of religious life. However, by canon law, respect is paid rather to the outward austerity of the life, and the <a href="../cathen/03388a.htm">Carthusians</a> are considered the most perfect from that point of view. Institutes consisting of <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clerics</a> and those with solemn <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a> have for this reason a certain superiority over lay institutes and those with simple <a href="../cathen/15511a.htm">vows</a>.</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="cenotes"><h2>Sources</h2><p class="cenotes">VERMEERSCH, <em>De religiosis institutis et personis,</em> I (ed. 2. 1907); II (ed. 4, 1909); IDEM, <em>Periodica</em> (from 1905); HEIMBUCHER, <em>Die Orden und Kongregationen der katholischen Kirche</em> (Paderborn. 1907-08); BASTIEN, <em>Direct. canon. à l'usage des congrég. à v ux simples</em> (Maredsous, 1911); MOLITOR, <em>Religiosi juris capita selecta</em> (Ratisbon. 1907).</p></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Vermeersch, A.</span> <span id="apayear">(1911).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Religious Life.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12748b.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Vermeersch, Arthur.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Religious Life."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 12.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1911.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12748b.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Douglas J. Potter.</span> <span id="dedication">Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.</span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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