While growing up, my mom made me go to church. Catholic, of course hence the upcoming question. The church I went to was run by a Redemptorist order.
I have heard of the Jesuits, the Franciscans, and Redemptorists. Surely there are 100’s (or 1000’s) of other orders out there. Until very recently I just assumed all priests belonged to an order.
What are the differences? I now know that non-order priest take no vow of poverty, and are regulated differently. Although one Redemptorist priest from my old church went on to assume a major role in the diococese administration, so order priest are not necessarily prohibited from doing work outside the order.
I am also curious of the history of orders? When founded? For what purpose?
Members of a religious order usually aren’t priest (it means they can’t give sacraments, hear confessions, say a mass, etc…).There’s usually only one priest in a given monastery.
Members of religious orders make pertetual vows and usually live together in a monastery (though most of their activities could take place outside the monastery). Priests live in the world, perform mass and give sacraments, more generally are the shepherds of catholic people (including the monks when they are themselves member of a religious order). Monks are primarily supposed to pray in the behalf of mankind, not to be involvel in worldly affairs (yes, it’s extremely simplistic, and many members of religious orders are actually very involved in wordly activities, it’s only a broad generalization).
And there indeed dozens of religious orders (Jesuits, Franciscans, Salesians, Capucins, Benedictines, Dominicans, Lazarists, etc…)
Not necessarily. Involving the child abuse cases, the religious orders were saying that they had a serious moral issue with just kicking a priest, who is vowed to poverty, out on the street with nothing. Instead, they can be placed in monastaries, away from the public.
Religious orders have such monastaries, but I do not believe that most “order” priests live there. They run ministries that are very public. In the church I went to while growing up, all of the priests could perform mass and give sacrements, unless there were a few hidden. There was also a few nuns living on the church campus, as well as a school through the 8th grade. Visiting non-Redemptorist priests occasionally gave sermons.
Today, the church is in a different demographic position. Some of the middle-class neighborhoods have become more affluent, while other areas nearby are populated by central american immigrants, where crime and poverty abound. There are english and spanish masses. My mom is a devout catholic, and luckily, bilingual.
There could be an order or a geographic area where this is true, but it is certainly not the rule.
In the Franciscan and Benedictines houses with which I am familiar, the priests slightly outnumber the brothers, so a one-priest-per-house rule would be very difficult to maintain.
Their web site has been down all day, but when it comes back, the Catholic Encyclopedia - 1919 edition can provide a lot of historical perspective.
Basically, the church has had liturgical leaders (which role evolved into the priesthood) from the very beginning. These men reported to the local bishops and are the predecessors of the secular or “bishop’s” priests.
At least as early as the fourth century, various people began organizing themselves into religious communities. (I am not sure whether they were following the lead of some pagan religions with much older religious houses or whether they were simply inspired by a similar desire to gather in a community for prayer.) The earliest orders were based on the idea of retiring from the world for prayer and contemplation, but by the medieval period there were orders performing works of charity outside thier monasteries and convents.
Most orders were founded when someone perceived a need for an activity and organized a group to carry out that action, then petitioned Rome to be recognized as an order. Many smaller orders have shrivelled up and died out for lack of membership and new ones are still being created.
Women become sisters (nuns) while men have the option of either becoming brothers (monks) or seeking to be ordained to the priesthood.
Priests who are also members of religious orders are bound in obedience to their abbotts, priors, or heads of chapter. However, the local bishop has the general oversight of his diocese and no one can celebrate mass or hear confessions without his approval, even if they are members of an order. Usually bishops are more than happy for the assistance of religious orders in establishing parishes, building and running schools, etc., so there is rarely strife or open warfare between a bishop and an abbot.
[AustinPowers]Yes, yes, that is completely… wrong.[/AustinPowers]
The religious orders are just a group of priests and brothers devoted to a particular goal. They may or may not live in a monastary. There is no fixed number of preists per monastary.
Some groups include the Jesuits, Fransiscans, Paulists, Dominicans. And there are many women-only groups.
There are many dozens of orders active in the United States, and many hundreds throughout the world. As has been pointed out above, members of orders take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. In addition, they usually live in community (although this varies from order to order). Each religious order had a founder or founders who wanted to meet a particlar need or respond to a specific situation. Those orders whose mission (or “charism” or “apostolate”) addresses concerns which continue to be relevant tend to survive, but many religious orders have come into and gone out of existence (usually by merging with another order) in the past.
In addition, orders vary in how they are organised and governed. There is no single organisation called “the Benedictine Order” for example. Rather there are a number of different societies and congregations which seek to follow the rule of St Benedict, and the terms “Benedictines” refers to all of them. Some of these societies and congregations are quite centralised; others are looser associations where each individual monastery is largely self-contained and self-governing. By contrast, the Jesuits are a single, and fairly centralised, organisation. And other models of organisation and government are found.
As to history, some orders are very old - the Benedictines were founded by St Benedict, who died around the year 547. Others are newer - Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1946.
If I remember (or was taught) well, Jesuit members are supposed to be priests, even if they don’t give sacraments or Mass. So, in a Jesuit monastery (wherever they exist), you would expect all members to be priests…