Catholic Religious Orders and Congregations

Gathers the institutes of consecrated life recognized within the Catholic Church: monastic orders following an approved rule, mendicant orders, clerks regular, and the modern apostolic congregations of priests, brothers and sisters, together with confraternities and secular institutes operating under Catholic canon law. A member belongs here for holding papal or diocesan approval, or for tracing its rule and governance to the Catholic tradition, whether Roman or Eastern Catholic. It is held apart from the Anglican communities that adopted similar monastic forms after the Reformation, from the Orthodox monastic communities of the Eastern and Oriental churches, and from the medieval military and chivalric orders, which combined a religious rule with an armed mission and are grouped separately.