Pope Toughens Rules on New Religious Orders

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With the way some parts of the Church in the world seem to be spinning off the rails, I’m all for the Vatican exercising more reliable and consistent authority. There are some folks out there who simply need to be reigned in.
 
I would start the Discalced Canons and Nuns Regular of Saints Peter, Paul, and Mary of the Strict Observance, and our charism would be standing around microphones playing acoustic guitars and singing the St. Louis Jesuits.
 
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Anesti33 said:
I would start the Discalced Canons and Nuns Regular of Saints Peter, Paul, and Mary of the Strict Observance, and our charism would be standing around microphones playing acoustic guitars and singing the St. Louis Jesuits.
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Sounds more like a band at Woodstock…

😇
 
We’re going to be approved by His Excellency, Fatty McButterpants, Ordinary of a downright groovy commune in Nebraska. What will His Holiness say?
 
The new orders I see starting are more along the lines of, “Well me and another guy planned to join (established order X) but that didn’t work out, so then I began to think it would be wonderful if we had an order that combined Dominican and Jesuit spirituality and do X, Y and Z service projects as well, so we started our own order and right now we have four people sharing a house in Podunktown” etc.

I’m left wondering exactly why this guy couldn’t just join an order that’s already out there because his new one doesn’t seem to be adding anything new to the party. Also, it’s hard for me to see how he’s going to attract large numbers of new recruits because his pitch doesn’t seem to be offering anything you can’t get elsewhere.
 
But here you’re talking about starting an entirely new order.

In the case the friar was referring to, they were Carmelites where there was already a Discalced Carmelite Order which has Papal Approval, and a O’Carmelite Order. Another was a Franciscan order, again, one already existed in the same area.
 
Ah, yes, the O’Carmelites of County Donegal. Their patron is Simon Patrick O’Stock…
 
JimR-OCDS said:
But here you’re talking about starting an entirely new order.

In the case the friar was referring to, they were Carmelites where there was already a Discalced Carmelite Order which has Papal Approval, and a O’Carmelite Order. Another was a Franciscan order, again, one already existed in the same area.
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Right, but splits are not always about “obedience.” Sure, someone who is staying in the original group might see that that way, but that doesn’t mean that “obedience” is really the main issue.

If that was the case, we would all be saying that the reason we have 3 first order Franciscans (the Order of Friars Minor, Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, and the Order of Friars Minor Conventual) is due to obedience issues.

Or the reason we have Carmelites and Discalced Carmelites is due to obedience issues. That’s too simplistic.

The main reason orders split is because members disagree on the mission and how the Charism is being lived. Saying that’s simply just obedience, is a very simplistic view nuanced issues.

It’s almost never, “we’re founding a new order because we don’t like Mother Superior.”

It’s usually, “we are splitting off to form a new order because we feel called to something different than what Mother Superior and the majority of the Sisters feel called to.”
 
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From the article:
A proliferation of new “institutes of consecrated life or societies of apostolic life” have been established during the latter part of the 20th century, although many of them similar to one another. In an alarming number of cases, the founders of new orders have sexually and spiritually abused their members.
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I know of such a community here in Europe. It’s an ecumenical monastery with a canonical status and a charism of praying for, and living out, Christian unity (in practice, that means it’s a Catholic monastery with some Protestant and Orthodox members).

The charismatic founder, it emerged, had been running the show in a manner close to spiritual and psychological abuse. He was asked to leave by the Vatican after several apostolic visits which all underlined the resilience of the community and his own nefarious influence on its future, and he refuses to comply.

I’m not sure though that much would have been different, had the canonical status recognition depended on the Vatican from the start. Problems started appearing further down the road.
 
What can be the canonical status of an “ecumenical monastery” in the Catholic Church?
 
Thank you for the first laugh I’ve really enjoyed in days. *The corker is that 45 years ago in college I did actually play the dang thing now and then.
 
Anesti33 said:
What can be the canonical status of an “ecumenical monastery” in the Catholic Church?
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Well, this:
OddBird said:
in practice, that means it’s a Catholic monastery with some Protestant and Orthodox members
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There were a few wild things happening at the very beginning, like the Protestant’s Lord Supper being celebrated in the church, but all this is long gone (as in gone 40+ years ago – canonical status was granted 20 years ago). They’re basically living out what it means to have “separated brethren” back into the fold, and what impact it has on community life.

The non-Catholic members have a dispensation to receive the Eucharist, as do the non-Catholic Taizé brothers (Taizé, however, does not have a canonical status).

Their then ordinary, an Italian bishop who at first eyed them with much suspicion, judged, after taking his time and observing them for about 20 years, that they were doing things correctly enough to grant them canonical status and approve their rule.
 
Anesti33 said:
What can be the canonical status of an “ecumenical monastery” in the Catholic Church?
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If any, I would have to assume they would be a Private Association of Christian Faithful, but I doubt they have that.

If I’m not mistaken, the Canon Law regarding religious Orders emphasizes members being Catholic.

So an ecumenical monastery, most likely, would not have any Canonical standing, unless it was deemed heretical and/or dangerous.

Though, one might have unofficial support, like People of Praise does from the Vatican.
 
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It had to do with the orders the friar was referring to, of which he provided spiritual assistance to.

Other splits may occur for various reasons like there isn’t the main order near them. Or as in St Teresa of Avila’s day, the Carmelite Order had lost it’s spiritual charism an became too worldly.
 
I believe the main purpose for the Pope to tighten up on the rule for approving the orders, is to keep safe those who join the order, to only see it dissolved after they dedicated their lives to it.

This isn’t going to happen with a well established order that has Vatican approval.
 
It is.

I was a bit hesitant at naming it, but after all, what happened there in the past years and months has become public knowledge, as Enzo Bianchi’s refusal to comply with the Vatican’s orders and his lashing out on social media.
 
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