Most secular priests are diocesan priests, but there is a minority who are not.
Just curious where they are not. As I understood it a priest is either religious and is tied to a house (or similar orginizational structure) and is obediant to their religious superior or is secular and incardinated into a diocese with obedience to their bishop.
If a secular priest is not tied to a diocese, what is their “reporting structure” for lack of a better term? In other words who do they give their promise of obedience too?
A FSSP priest is not technically diocesan, I believe, even though he may do pastoral work in a diocese.
A secular priest must be incardinated into a diocese or into a society that has the power to incardinate. Examples of such societies are:
FSSP,
Maryknoll
Vincentians (Congregation of the Mission)
Missionhurst
Society of Our Lady of the Trinity (SOLT)
ICRSS
Holy Cross (Opus Dei)
Oratorians
Piarists
Sulpicians
Paulists
Schoenstatt
One has to be careful with the words. For example, the Jesuits are the Society of Jesus, but they are not secular and they are not a society. They are a religious order with all the rights and privileges of all religious orders, but none of the obligations. They are religious in solemn vows equivalent to those of friars and monks, which is the highest form of consecration in the Church.
The Vincentians are called the Congregation of the Mission (CM), but they are not religious and they are not a congregation. They are a society.
Societies of apostolic life can borrow as much or as little as they want from the consecrated life as long as they stay within the parameters given by Canon Law.
The bolded above does not seem to make sense. If you understand regular/religious and secular as the church understands them, the term is not a belittlement of secular priests. As long as you don’t mean it as a belittlement, why not use the terms and simply explain what you mean if someone misunderstands you?
The problem here is with the use of the term consecrated. Priests are not consecrated men. This is not theologically or canonically accurate. Only a man or woman in vows is consecrated. A deacon, priest or bishop is ordained, but not consecrated. This has never been part of our theology.
The Church uses the term “consecrated” in different ways. For example, we speak of a consecration to Mary. We speak of one consecrating his life to God and to the Church. A priest certainly belongs to the latter group. But that does not change his canonical place among the people of God. He remains a secular Catholic, not a consecrated religious.
To be a consecrated religious he must make a vow of obedience to live within an ordered way of life either in a congregation, which is the most simple form of consecrated life or in a religious order, which the Church identifies as the most solemn form of consecrated life.
Part of being a consecrated man or woman is the right of exemption. A man who is a clergyman (deacon, priest or bishop) and is not a consecrated religious, is not an exempt Catholic. He is subject to the laws and jurisdiction of the local bishop or the superior of the society of apostolic life to which he belongs.
The man who is consecrated is an exempt individual. Notice that the exemption is applied to the individual. He is not subject to any authority other than the superior of his community and the Holy Father. It is a grave sin for the laity and the bishop to intervene or involve themselves in the affairs of the consecrated religious without an invitation. They can’t even set foot in the house of consecrated religious, even if you’re a bishop. For this reason, all issues between laity and religious or bishop and religious have to go to the major superior or to Rome, but not directly between the religious and the laity or the religious and the bishop.
A perfect example is the case where you have a religious (male or female) involved in some sad activity such as abortion work. There is nothing that a bishop or the laity can do. Only the superior can intervene. If the superior does not have the authority to intervene, only the Holy Father or his delegate can intervene.
There is a major difference between the secular and the consecrated when we use the term consecrated to mean a vowed religious.
Referring to a non-vowed priest as secular is not more disrespectful than referring to a married man as secular. Both are called to live their vocation in the service of the Gospel. In fact, it would be a good thing if people were to observe good secular priests.
One of the great things that they had going in Europe and they messed up when they started to imitate the American Catholic Church was that they had a clear distinction between the priest who was a secular and the priest who was a religious. The priest who was a secular was always called Mr in whatever language. If he had an academic title, he was called Master or Doctor. For example, John Bosco was Don Giovanni. John Vianney was Mssr. Vianney. By addressing them by their secular titles, it was very evident that holiness and ministry were not only for those who lived outside the world as did religious.
In the USA, our first missionaries were religious, mostly Jesuits and Franciscans. The title Father was used by Jesuits and Brother by Franciscans. The laity in America adopted Father in the late 19th century and it stuck. While the term is very meaningful, something else was lost. The idea that holiness and ministry was not only for those who were called out of the world. People assumed and still do that Holy Orders is only for those called out of the world. That’s not true at all.
God calls some priests out of the world and others he leaves in the world, hence the secular.
My pleasure