Religious order (Catholic)
 | This article possibly contains original research. (February 2010) |
Catholic religious orders are one of two types of religious institutes ('Religious Institutes', cf. canons 573–746 [1]), the major form of consecrated life in the Catholic Church. They are organizations of laity and/or clergy who take solemn vows (in contrast to the simple vows taken by the members of religious congregations) and who live a common life following a religious rule or constitution under the leadership of a religious superior. According to the Annuario Pontificio, there are four branches of religious orders:
- Monastic orders: orders founded by monks or nuns who live and work in a monastery and recite the divine office.
- Mendicant orders: orders founded by friars or nuns who live from alms, recite the divine office, and have active participation in apostolic endeavors.
- Canons Regular: orders founded by canons and canonesses regular who recite the divine office and generally are in charge of a parish.
- Clerks Regular: orders founded by priests who are also religious men with vows and have a very active apostolic life.
Their intention is to imitate Jesus more closely, mainly, but not exclusively, by observing evangelical chastity, poverty, and obedience, which are the three evangelical counsels of perfection (cf. canons 599–601 [1]). They bind themselves to this form of living by taking public vows in accordance with the norms of church law. They may additionally profess to obey certain guidelines for living, since each order has its peculiar charism. Religious vows are to be distinguished from Holy Orders, the sacrament which bishops, priests, and deacons receive. Hence, members of religious orders are not part of the hierarchy, unless they are also ordained priests or deacons (sometimes referred to as "priest-monks" or "hieromonks" – a term more commonly found among the Orthodox than among Roman Catholics).
Religious orders only differ from religious congregations in the nature of their vows (solemn rather than simple). Even though the names are used interchangeably, technically, they are not the same.
Religious rules
Religious orders generally follow one of the four great religious rules: Rule of St Basil, Rule of St. Benedict, Rule of St. Augustine, and the Rule of St. Francis.[2]
For example, a large number of the religious orders in the Catholic Church ( Benedictines, Trappists, Cistercians, etc.) observe the Rule of St Benedict, a collection of precepts for what is called contemplative religious life; others follow the Rule of St Augustine that stress self-denial, moderation, and care for those in need, whereas the Rule of St Basil, one of the earliest rules for Christian religious living, tends to be followed by monastic communities of the Orthodox Church. In addition, the individual Orders have their own regulations for the practical living out of their chosen Rule so as to be able to serve their own Order's charism more fully.
Authority structure
A Religious Order is characterized by an authority structure where a superior general has jurisdiction over the order's dependent communities. An exception is the Order of St Benedict which is not a religious order in this technical sense, because it has a system of "independent houses", meaning that each abbey is autonomous. However, the Constitutions governing the order's global "independent houses" were approved by the pope. Likewise, according to rank and authority, the abbot primate's "position with regard to the other abbots [throughout the world] is to be understood rather from the analogy of a primate in a hierarchy than from that of the general of an order like the Dominicans and Jesuits." [3]
History
Roots in Egypt and Syriac- and Greek-speaking East
From the earliest times there were probably individual hermits who lived a life in isolation in imitation of Jesus' 40 days in the desert. They have left no confirmed archaeological traces and only hints in the written record. Communities of virgins who had consecrated themselves to Christ are found at least as far back as the 2nd century. There were also individual ascetics, known as the "devout", who usually lived not in the deserts but on the edge of inhabited places, still remaining in the world but practicing asceticism and striving for union with God, although extreme ascetism such as encratism was regarded as suspect by the Church.[4]
Paul of Thebes (fl. 3rd cent.), commemorated in the writings of St Jerome, is regarded as the first Christian hermit in Egypt, his withdrawal into the desert apparently having been prompted by the persecution of the Christians at the time. Saint Anthony was the first to leave the world specifically to live in the desert as a monk; St Athanasius speaks of him as an anchorite. In upper Egypt, sometime around 323 AD, Saint Pachomius decided to organize his disciples into a form of community in which they lived in individual huts or rooms (cellula in Latin), but worked, ate, and worshipped in shared space. Guidelines for daily life were drawn up (a monastic 'rule'); and several monasteries were founded, nine for men and two for women. This method of monastic organization is called cenobitic or "community-based". Towards the end of his life St Pachomius was therefore not only the abbot of a monastery but also the head of an entire order of monasteries.
The Greeks (e.g. St Basil the Great of Cappadocian Caesarea) and the Syriac-speaking east have their own monastic traditions (e.g. St Ephrem of Nisibis and Edessa).
Gaul
The earliest forms of monasticism in Western Europe involved figures such as Martin of Tours, who after serving in the Roman legions converted to Christianity and established a hermitage near Milan. He then moved on to Poitiers where he gathered a community around his hermitage. In 372 he was called to become Bishop of Tours, where he established a monastery at Marmoutiers on the opposite bank of the Loire River. His monastery was laid out as a colony of hermits rather than as a single integrated community.
John Cassian began his monastic career at a monastery in Palestine and Egypt around 385 to study monastic practice there. In Egypt he had been attracted to the isolated life of hermits, which he considered the highest form of monasticism, yet the monasteries he founded were all organized monastic communities. About 410 he established two monasteries near Marseilles, one for men, one for women. In time these attracted a total of 5,000 monks and nuns. Most significant for the future development of monasticism were Cassian's Institutes, which provided a guide for monastic life and his Conferences, a collection of spiritual reflections.
Honoratus of Marseilles was a wealthy Gallo-Roman aristocrat, who after a pilgrimage to Egypt, founded the Monastery of Lérins, on an island lying off the modern city of Cannes. Lérins became, in time, a center of monastic culture and learning, and many later monks and bishops would pass through Lérins in the early stages of their career.
Italy
The anonymous Rule of the Master (Regula magistri), was written somewhere south of Rome around 500. The rule adds administrative elements not found in earlier rules, defining the activities of the monastery, its officers, and their responsibilities in great detail.
Benedict of Nursia was the most influential early Western monk.[citation needed] He was educated in Rome but soon sought the life of a hermit in a cave at Subiaco, outside the city. He then attracted followers with whom he founded the monastery of Monte Cassino around 520, between Rome and Naples. His Rule is shorter than the Master's, and somewhat less legalistic.[citation needed] By the 9th century, largely under the inspiration of the Emperor Charlemagne, Benedict's Rule became the basic guide for Western monasticism.[citation needed]
Ireland
The earliest Monastic settlements in Ireland emerged at the end of the 5th century. The first identifiable founder of a monastery was Saint Brigit, a saint who ranked with Saint Patrick as a major figure of the Irish church. The monastery at Kildare was a double monastery, with both men and women ruled by the Abbess, a pattern found in many other monastic foundations.
Commonly Irish monasteries were established by grants of land to an abbot or abbess, who came from a local noble family. The monastery became the spiritual focus of the tribe or kin group. Irish monastic rules specify a stern life of prayer and discipline in which prayer, poverty, and obedience are the central themes. However Irish monks read Latin texts, both spiritual and secular, with an enthusiasm that their contemporaries on the continent lacked. By the end of the 7th century, Irish monastic schools were attracting students from England and from Europe.
Irish monasticism spread widely, first to Scotland and Northern England, then to Gaul and Italy. Columba and his followers established monasteries at Bangor, on the northeastern coast of Ireland, at Iona in Scotland, and at Lindisfarne, in Northumbria. Columbanus, an abbot from a Leinster noble family, traveled to Gaul in the late 6th century with twelve companions. Columbanus and his followers spread the Irish model of monastic institutions established by noble families to the continent. A whole series of new rural monastic foundations on great rural estates under Irish influence sprang up, starting with Columbanus's foundations of Fontaines and Luxeuil, sponsored by the Frankish King Childebert II. After Childebert's death Columbanus traveled east to Metz, where Theudebert II allowed him to establish a new monastery among the semi-pagan Alemanni in what is now Switzerland. One of Columbanus's followers founded the monastery of St. Gall on the shores of Lake Constance, while Columbanus continued onward across the Alps to the kingdom of the Lombards in Italy. There King Agilulf and his wife Theodolinda granted Columbanus land in the mountains between Genoa and Milan, where he established the monastery of Bobbio.
List of Catholic religious orders
As per the Annuario Pontificio, these are the existing approved and recognized Catholic religious orders:
| Mendicant orders | |||
| Official Name | Acronym | Nickname | |
| Ordo Augustiniensium Discalceatorum | O.A.D. | Discalced Augustinians | |
| Ordo Minimorum | O.M. | Minims | |
| Ordo Augustinianorum Recollectorum | O.A.R. | Augustinians Recollects | |
| Ordo Fratrum Discalceatorum B. Mariae V. de Monte Carmelo | O.C.D. | Discalced Carmelites | |
| Ordo Servorum Mariae | O.S.M. | Servites | |
| Ordo Fratrum Minorum | O.F.M. | Franciscans | |
| Ordo Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum | O.F.M. Cap. | Capuchin Franciscans | |
| Ordo Fratrum Minorum Conventualium | O.F.M. Conv. | Conventual Franciscans | |
| Ordo Fratrum Praedicatorum | O.P. | Dominicans | |
| Ordo B. Mariae Virginis de Mercede | O. de M. | Mercedarians | |
| Ordo Fratrum Beatissimae Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo | O. Carm. | Carmelites | |
| Ordo Fratrum Sancti Augustini | O.S.A. | Augustinians | |
| Ordo Ssmae Trinitatis | O.SS.T. | Trinitarians | |
| Tertius Ordo Regularis S. Francisci | T.O.R. | Brothers of Penance | |
| Monastic Orders | |||
| Official Name | Acronym | Nickname | |
| Ordo Cartusiensis | Cart. | Carthusians | |
| Ordo Sancti Hieronymi | O.S.H. | Hieronymites | |
| Ordo Cisterciensis | O. Cist. | Cistercians | |
| Ordo Cisterciensis Strictioris Observantiae | O.C.S.O. | Trappist | |
| Ordo Libanensis Maronitarum | O.L.M. | Baladites | |
| Ordo S. Benedicti | O.S.B. | Benedictines | |
| Ordo Basilianus S. Iosaphat | O.S.B.M. | Basilians | |
| Ordo Basilianus S. Iohannis Baptistae, Soaritarum Melkitarum | B.C. | ||
| Ordo Fratrum S. Pauli Primi Eremitae | O.S.P.P.E. | Pauline Fathers | |
| Ordo Basilianus Ssmi Salvatoris Melkitarum | B.S. | ||
| Ordo Maronita Beatae Mariae Virginis | O.M.M. | ||
| Cleric Regulars | |||
| Official Name | Acronym | Nickname | |
| Congregatio Clericorum Regularium S. Pauli | B. | Barnabites | |
| Ordo Clericorum Regularium vulgo Theatinorum | C.R. | Theatines | |
| Ordo Clericorum Regularium a Somascha | C.R.S. | ||
| Ordo Clericorum Regularium Matris Dei | O. M. D. | ||
| Ordo Clericorum Regularium Pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum | Sch. P. | Piarists | |
| Ordo Clericorum Regularium Ministrantium Infirmis | M.I. | Camilians | |
| Societas Jesu | S.J. | Jesuits | |
| Canon Regulars | |||
| Official Name | Acronym | Nickname | |
| Congregatio Ssmi Salvatoris Lateranensis | C.R.L. | ||
| Sacer et Apostolicus Ordo Canonicorum Regularium S. Augustini | C.R.S.A. | Canon Regulars | |
| Ordo Fratrum Domus Hospitalis Sanctae Mariae Teutonicorum in Jerusalem | O.T. | ||
| Candidus et Canonicus Ordo Praemonstratensis | O. Praem. | Norbertines or Premonstratensians | |
| Ordo Canonicorum Regularium Sanctae Crucis | O.R.C. | Order of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross | |
| Congregatio Helvetica o Sancto Mauritio Agaunensis | C.R.A | ||
| Canonici Regulares Ordinis S. Crucis | O.S.C. | Holy Cross | |
See also
References
- ^ a b Code of Canon Law from Intratext
- ^ "Religious life". Catholic Encyclopedia. newadvent.org. 1911.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters:|month=and|coauthors=(help) - ^ See "The Benedictine Order" in New Advent, Catholic Encyclopedia
- ^ 1 Timothy 4:1–5
Sources and external links
- Concerning 'Religious Institutes' in The Code of Canon Law 1983
- The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
- VISION Vocation Guide comprehensive directory of men's and women's religious communities in the U.S. and Canada with links and vocation opportunities]
- Institute on Religious Life links to many Catholic religious communities
- Directory of Catholic Religious Orders on the Internet (men and women)
- Template:Dmoz
- VocationMatch.com match service to assist men and women to find a Catholic religious community
- Vocation Network searchable directory of men's and women's Catholic religious communities in English and Spanish
- Vocations Online directory of men's and women's Catholic religious communities in the USA
- Differences Between Religious Orders A comparison of the differences between religious orders
