Catholic religious order

Catholic religious orders are, historically, a category of Catholic religious institutes.

Subcategories are canons regular (canons and canonesses regular who recite the divine office and serve a church and perhaps a parish); monastics (monks or nuns living and working in a monastery and reciting the divine office); mendicants (friars or religious sisters who live from alms, recite the divine office, and, in the case of the men, participate in apostolic activities); and clerks regular (priests who take religious vows and have a very active apostolic life).

Original Catholic religious orders of the Middle Ages include the Order of Saint Benedict, the Carmelites, the Order of Friars Minor, the Dominican Order, and the Order of Saint Augustine. As such, also the Teutonic Order may qualify, today mainly monastic.

In the past, what distinguished religious orders from other institutes was the classification of the vows that the members took in religious profession as solemn vows. According to this criterion, the last religious order founded was that of the Bethlehem Brothers in 1673. Nevertheless, in the course of the 20th century some religious institutes outside the category of orders obtained permission to make solemn vows, at least of poverty, thus blurring the distinction.

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