RELIGIOUS
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RELIGIOUS
lay brothers, or to persons professed under simple
vows.
(h) Orders of women: Second Orders. — In con- nexion with certain orders of men, there are also orders of women, instituted for similar objects, and in this respect sharing in the same evolution. We say "in this respect", for the rigours of the enclosure imposed upon nuns under solemn vows (see Cloister) necessarily prevented any organization formed after the model of the mendicant orders or clerks regular. Orders of women have sometimes an existence, and even an origin, independent of any order of men. This is the case especially with the more recent orders, such as the Sisters of the Visitation and the Ursulines. Very often they are connected by their origin and their rule with an order of men. The first monastic rules, which did not contemplate the reception of Holy orders, were as suitable for women as for men: thus there were Basilian and Benedictine nuns, simply following the Rules of St. Basil and St. Bene- dict. Neither the rule of the mendicant orders nor that of the clerks regular was suitable to women. St. Francis first, and then other founders, wrote a second rule for the use of nuns, who thus constituted a second order, placed normally under the jurisdic- tion of the superior-general of the first order (see Nuns).
(i) Third Orders. — The grant of a third rule to secular persons gives rise to the third orders. At times it happens that these tertiaries are established in community under this rule; they are then re- ligious, ordinarily members of a congregation with simple vows. But, as we said above, there were com- munities of this character with solemn vows, and there is a regular Third Order of St. Francis, which goes back to the fifteenth century and which received modi- fied constitutions from Leo XIII (20 July, 1888).
The associations of secular tertiaries are also called orders; they owe this to the fact that they profess the Christian life under an approved rule: but these are secular orders; and religious, even those under simple vows, cannot validly belong to them. By his en- trance into a religious order, a novice ceases to be a secular, and seeks after Evangelical perfection, which is not the contradictory of Christian justice, but is a realization of it in an eminent degree. It has also been held that a person who has been a member of a third order before becoming a religious at once resumes his place in it, if he legitimately returns to the world. No one can belong to several third or- ders at the same time. Not all religious orders have third orders attached to them ; but those which rec- ognize an order of nuns as their second order gen- erally have tertiaries also. Thus there are no Bene- dictine or Jesuit tertiaries: the Benedictines have no second order, and the Jesuit rule expressly forbids the Society to have an institute of nuns under its authority. In later times the Oblates of St. Benedict have been assimilated to tertiaries. Third orders are distinguished from confraternities, in as much as the former follow a general rule of life, while the members of confraternities are associated for some special purpose of piety or charity: thus they often include both religious and lay persons, and the same person may be a member of several confraternities. (As to the Third Order of St. Francis, and the name of Order, see the Constitution "Auspicato" of 17 Sept., 1882, and "Mi-sericors Dei filius" of 2.3 June, 1883.)
The word religio is more strictly reserved for in- stitutes with solemn vows. As the religion of pre- cepts and the religion of counsels were considered distinct grades of the Christian religion, the rules of life laid down according to the counsels were called religiones. The Second Council of Aries, 452, can. 25, spoke of the profession of the monastic life as profpsaio religionis.
(2) ReligUrus Congregations. — (a) Meaning of the
Word "Congregation ". — There has been much change
in the meaning of this word. It formerly denoted
the whole body of religious living in a monastery:
in this sense we find it in Cassian (Collations, 2nd pre-
face) and in the Rule of St. Benedict (chap. xvii).
The edifying spectacle presented by the monastery
of Cluny under St. Odo (d. 942) induced many monas-
teries in France to beg the holy abbot to accept their
suprerne direction, and he undertook to visit them
from time to time. Under his first two successors,
numerous monasteries of France and Italy observed
the usages of Cluny, while others were reformed by
monks of Cluny. At the death of St. Odo, sixty-five
monasteries were under the rules of Cluny and thus
formed a congregation, the members of which were
no longer the individual monks, but the monasteries.
In a similar manner, the union of monasteries with
Citeaux produced the Congregation of Citeaux:
but here the celebrated carta caritatis, drawn up in a
general chapter of abbots and monks held at Citeaux
in 1119, placed the supreme direction of Cistercian
monasteries under the Abbot of Citeaux, and realized
a much greater unity which prepared the way for
the religious orders of a later period (see "Carta
caritatis" in P. L., CLXVI, 1377). The monasteries
of Premonstratensian Canons were early grouped in
circles (circarias), at the head of which was a "cir-
cator" whose office resembled that of the provincial
of more recent orders. The Abbot of Pr^montrd,
Dominus Prtemonstratensis, was a real abbot-general.
Innoeeni III, by his Constitution "In singulis", which was promulgated at the Fourth Council of the Lateran, and forms ch.vii, t. 35, bk. 3 of the Decretals, ordered that a chapter of abbots and independent priors of every kingdom or province should be held every third year, to ensure the fervour of the ob- servance, and to organize the visitation of the abbeys in order to prevent or correct abuses. The Council of Trent (Sess. XXV, c. viii) made congregations of monasteries general, ordering monasteries to unite themselves into congregations, and to appoint visitors having the same powers as visitors of other orders, under pain of losing their exemption, and being placed under the jurischction of the local bishop. There have, however, been also important reforms inauguiated by one monastery, and adopted by many others, without leading to the formation of a "congre- gation. Such was that of William, .\bbot of Hirschau (d. 1091), who viTote the Constitutions of Hirschau, the wise provisions of which, in some measure bor- rowed from Cluny, were adopted by about 150 monasteries having no other bond of union than a spiritual community of prayers and merits.
In 1566, St. Philip Neri founded in Rome an as- sociation of priests who were not bound by any vow; being unable for that reason to call it an order, he called it the Congregation of the Oratory. Cardinal de B(5rulle in 1611 founded a similar institute, the French Congregation of the Oratory. St. Vincent dc Paul, the founder of the Lazarists, or Priests of the Mission, while introducing into his institute simple vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and stability, insisted that it should be called secular. These vows are not followed by any act of acceptance by the Holy See or the institute. His association was called a congregation, as we see from the Bull of Alexander VII, "Ex commissa" (22 Sept., 1655). Thus it became usual to designate as congregations those institutes which resembled religious orders, but had not all their essential characteristics. This is the ordinary meaning generally accepted, though somewhat vague, of the word "congregation". Before long, the genus congregation was divided into several distinct species.
(b) Religious Congregations properly and im- properly so called. — First in order of dignity come the religious congregations properly so called. They
