Starting One's Own Order

[ATeutonicKnight]

First, know I don’t know where to put this, so if a moderator would like to direct me to the right place that would be great.

Anyway, how does one start an Order? I have a beautiful idea for an Order, and I’m very tempted to start one myself. What are the processes and headaches? How hard would it be to make a Monastic Order that allowed the Monks to go off the property and evangelize when they weren’t living in contemplation and community? Can this be done?

 

[Trishie]

It has to be God’s will, and the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. It needs careful and wise spiritual direction.
To begin an order is a task of enormous difficulties and heartaches, and many pitfalls.
It can take many decades to obtain approval for a new Order.
Your desires to preach sound Franciscan. There are a number of branches of Franciscans.
Your desire also has Dominican aspects…also an Order of preachers.
You may like to explore the options. A thought, anyway.

vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P1Y.HTM…and following pages

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=116416

 

[InspiritCarol]

Could I tag on to this question another related one?

How do we know if that “beautiful idea” has already been done?

I’m having a tough time trying to find a good resource on the different orders out there.

 

[Trishie]

How do we know if that “beautiful idea” has already been done?

True. And this is why the need for research.
Aside from the Orders, there are many 'Institutes" that have not yet been approved officially as Orders and have waited may decades.

Here are a few Religious Orders listed: catholic-hierarchy.org/country/xrel.html
The comment on that website warns:
Note: The above lists are substantially incomplete. They currently only include orders with members who are/were bishops.
Therefore it doesn’t list any female Orders either.
There is a chance that any of these, or any Orders or Institutes not listed,
are Orders fitting many a person’s beautiful ideal and desire to serve.

May God guide you.

 

[Trishie]

It is not an easy task to begin an Order. It will require housing, ongoing financial support, education and formation, wise and readily available spiritual direction. There is a need to find suitable persons who have a genuine vocation, and this too can contain many challenges.
It certainly needs to be done at God’s express will or it would be an overwhelming undertaking. It can be anyway, as many of the Saints and persons who have set about the process of forming an Order, can testify for their own histories.

May God’s will be done.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

This is a topic that comes up from time to time on here. In addition to these responses I suggest that you do a search.

It is important to get the terminology correct.

The Church forbid the creation of new religious orders at the Council of Trent. What we have now are Societies of Apostolic Life, Congregations, Public Associations of the Faithful.

You would first have to lay out what the charism would be. You would need to find like minded people who wanted to live such a life. Then you would need to contact your bishop and work with him to erect your community canonically.

 

[auderyja]

First, know I don’t know where to put this, so if a moderator would like to direct me to the right place that would be great.

Anyway, how does one start an Order? I have a beautiful idea for an Order, and I’m very tempted to start one myself. What are the processes and headaches? How hard would it be to make a Monastic Order that allowed the Monks to go off the property and evangelize when they weren’t living in contemplation and community? Can this be done?

What kind of order are you thinking of?

 

[Marauder]

I always have to ask people that say they are interested in starting an Order especially those that are not currently in an Order, society, institution, etc. whether they are trying to start a new group for selfish reasons or not. Many people that I have seen say this find that either there already is a group that does exactly what they want to do or that they are just trying to create a group that is “in there own image” instead of Christ’s image.

Many who want to create their own group do it because they think group xyz is to [insert reason here] (liberal, orthodox, forgetting ideals of founder, etc.) yet they find that their understanding of the original group is flawed or just being tempered by only seeing a small portion of the organization.

Not saying this is true of the OP since I am not judging them, just find it is pretty typical. You will find that many founders of Orders, institutes etc. did not start out trying to create a new group but it was thrust upon them.

 

[InspiritCarol]

… Not saying this is true of the OP since I am not judging them, just find it is pretty typical. You will find that many founders of Orders, institutes etc. did not start out trying to create a new group but it was thrust upon them.

The movies: “Clare and Francis” and “St. John Bosco” demonstrate this concept very well.

 

[SalesianSDB]

The movies: “Clare and Francis” and “St. John Bosco” demonstrate this concept very well.

The Don Bosco movie is great! Very inspirational and makes me want to become a Salesian!

As for the OP, I’ve thought about starting my own order, but it would just be a missionary order going to one country and I’m sure I could join any order and request to move to that country to do missionary work in that country.

 

[iloveangels]

The Don Bosco movie is great! Very inspirational and makes me want to become a Salesian!

As for the OP, I’ve thought about starting my own order, but it would just be a missionary order going to one country and I’m sure I could join any order and request to move to that country to do missionary work in that country.

The phrase “one’s own” is interesting. If you do the ground work to start a congregation, whether secular or regular, it wouldn’t be “your own” order. It would have to belong to God, ultimately. And if you do this groundwork, the possibility exists that you could end up having to answer to a religious superior, because you probably wouldn’t be the prior forever, you understand. If this is still okay, then maybe if there is a genuine need and there’s no other way to fill it…you should look into it.

 

[iloveangels]

First, know I don’t know where to put this, so if a moderator would like to direct me to the right place that would be great.

Anyway, how does one start an Order? I have a beautiful idea for an Order, and I’m very tempted to start one myself. What are the processes and headaches? How hard would it be to make a Monastic Order that allowed the Monks to go off the property and evangelize when they weren’t living in contemplation and community? Can this be done?

The phrase “one’s own” is interesting. If you do the ground work to start a congregation, whether secular or regular, it wouldn’t be “your own” order. It would have to belong to God, ultimately. And if you do this groundwork, the possibility exists that you could end up having to answer to a religious superior, because you probably wouldn’t be the prior forever, you understand. If this is still okay, then maybe if there is a genuine need and there’s no other way to fill it…you should look into it.