How do you start a religious order?

Bishop Barron has plans. So what happens next?

Catholic apostolate Word on Fire announced this month that its head, Minnesota’s Bishop Robert Barron, intends to “establish a Word on Fire order of priests” that will “continue [Barron’s] work long into the future and ensure the ongoing effectiveness and expansion of Word on Fire’s evangelization efforts.”

Bishop Robert Barron. Courtesy photo.

To date, few details have been released about Barron’s plan, apart from a brief fundraising solicitation to “support the new order.”

But the bishop’s announcement has raised questions from some Catholics, perhaps the most obvious of which is: How do you start a religious order? What are the steps?

The Pillar explains.

So what are Bishop Barron’s plans, exactly?

Here’s what we know: A recent fundraising page at the Word on Fire website announced that “Bishop Barron seeks to establish an order of priests with a charism of evangelization to advance the mission of Word on Fire in perpetuity.”

“The goal is to initially recruit three to five priests and three to five novices for the order, living according to a rule that Bishop Barron has already developed,” the page explained, adding that priests would live in a donated house in Rochester, Minnesota, and “receive advanced formation to learn to evangelize within the Word on Fire ethos.”

The site added Barron’s hope that the proposed order “will exist in perpetuity, leading the way in evangelization and drawing people into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.”

The site was clear: recruitment of priests is not yet set to begin, but donors to Word on Fire can help to “fund the costs associated with living expenses, formation and education, and ultimately sending these priests out on a mission of evangelization.”

While this is Barron’s first formal announcement of his plans, it’s not the first time he’s mentioned them. In August 2022, the bishop told Fox News that founding a religious community of priests is “one of my dreams.”

The priests, he said, “would share my charism, which is, you know, teaching and preaching, using the media, engaging the culture."

Barron compared his vision to that of other religious founders.

"Go back to the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Jesuits. They all responded to a need of their time — what they perceived to be this pressing spiritual need," he explained.

“I'm not going to be here forever,” Barron added. "I don't want this just to fade away with me.”

What, exactly, is a religious order, anyway?

Most of the time, the proper term is an “institute of consecrated life.”

It’s a community, recognized and formally established by the Church, to which eligible Catholics can join, in order to follow a particular way of living aimed at growing closer to God.

The basis of the commitment is the profession of vows to what the Church calls the evangelical counsels: poverty, chastity, and obedience.

The Church’s canon law puts it this way: “The life consecrated through the profession of the evangelical counsels is a stable form of living by which the faithful, following Christ more closely under the action of the Holy Spirit, are totally dedicated to God who is loved most of all, so that, having been dedicated by a new and special title to His honor, to the building up of the Church, and to the salvation of the world, they strive for the perfection of charity in the service of the kingdom of God and, having been made an outstanding sign in the Church, foretell the heavenly glory.”

For its part, the Catechism of the Catholic Church emphasizes that joining a religious order is “one way of experiencing a ‘more intimate’ consecration, rooted in Baptism and dedicated totally to God.”

Usually, religious vows are made first temporarily, and then permanently, if a member perseveres in the life of a community.

But common life has taken a lot of forms in the life of the Church, and not everything referred to as a “religious order” is actually an institute of consecrated life.

In addition to institutes of consecrated life, there are also in the Church communities called “societies of apostolic life,” in which members live as a community, in order to pursue a common mission.

In those communities, members make “promises” rather than “vows” — those promises might include the evangelical counsels, or they might be a promise to the community to live according to its rules.

And in some such communities, the promises aren’t even for life — in the Society of St. Sulpice, for example, is a community in which diocesan priests make promises to live a common life for a set period of time, in order to focus on the community’s mission of seminary formation.

So how does a religious community get started?

Most of the time, a religious community begins with an idea, or a vision, or some sense of a call to live a particular way of loving or serving God.

In the history of the Church, religious communities often begin when a charismatic and dynamic Catholic takes up some sense of mission, and eventually draws others to share in it. Over time, an experience of community leads to some ecclesiastical approval, the formation of a rule of life which crystalizes the vision of the founder, and some final ecclesiastical approval.

In modern times, new religious communities usually start with a few people living in community, in touch with their local bishop about some sense of a common call to live in common under the auspices of the Church’s authority.

While beginnings vary, eventually a bishop might permit such a group to live for a period of time with common dress, a rudimentary rule of life, and — in some cases, a chapel containing the Blessed Sacrament.

During that time, the group’s experience, especially with some common life under their belt, might help to modify and shape the original vision.

If initial periods begin well, the bishop might first recognize the group canonically as a private association of the faithful, and, eventually, if it grows into stability, and the bishop judges the presence of the Holy Spirit in its founding, it might be recognized as a public association of the faithful in the Church.

Eventually, the initial members would ordinarily take time for a formal religious novitiate, usually undertaken within some existing and supportive religious community, before returning to continue their own foundation.

If the proposed community grows to enough members, and shows stability and faithfulness along the way, it could eventually be formally erected as an institute of consecrated life, or a society of apostolic life.

But the discernment of that path isn’t up only to the diocesan bishop — meaning that Bishop Barron’s plans will necessarily involve Vatican oversight, eventually.

In 2022, Pope Francis decreed that diocesan bishops must have the permission of the Vatican office overseeing religious life “before erecting – by decree – a public association of the faithful with a view to becoming an institute of consecrated Life or society of apostolic life of diocesan right.”

That papal decision was part of a general effort in the Francis papacy to better regulate and oversee the founding of religious communities; the pope has raised concern that some recently proposed communities have been insufficiently scrutinized during their foundations, allowing for the possibility of abuse or dysfunction within their ranks.

In 2020, the pope decided that a bishop would not be permitted to erect a new religious community in his diocese without written permission from the relevant Vatican office.

So it’s always diocesan bishops who approve new religious communities?

Nope.

While new religious communities almost always begin at the diocesan level, and receive their initial steps of approval, some communities are formally approved as institutes of consecrated life by their diocesan bishops, and others are formally approved by the Vatican. Those approved by the bishop are called institutes of diocesan right, those approved by the pope are called institutes of pontifical right. The difference has mostly to do with oversight — if an institute is of pontifical right, the Vatican is responsible to oversee its internal life and governance, while if it is of diocesan right, that responsibility falls to the diocese of approval, even if the community has spread throughout the world.

Some communities which begin as institutes of diocesan right become eventually institutes of pontifical right, especially if their ministry becomes widespread in the life of the Church.

With the Word on Fire proposal, it sounds like the diocesan bishop would be the founder of the proposed order. Is that unusual?

Religious orders most commonly seem to begin with some person who has a vision, attracts a community, and seeks the approval of the Church — that would be the case for founders like St. Francis of Assisi and St. Mother Teresa.

But it can also be the case that a bishop, seeing a need for a particular kind of ministry — especially a need in his own diocese — might invite men or women to begin living common life, with the idea of eventually seeing them approved as a religious institute.

For a modern example of that approach, consider that the Sisters of Life were founded by Cardinal John O’Connor of New York, who in 1989 wrote a newspaper column: “Help Wanted: Sisters of Life,” which invited women to apply to become the first members of the religious community he envisioned.

Barron’s announcement seems to follow that same pattern, with the bishop indicating his plans to “recruit” priests to live according to the rule of life he has developed. Like O’Connor, Barron will presumably select a priest to serve as the initial superior of the erstwhile community.

What is meant by the ‘charism’ of a religious community?

A charism is a gift from the Holy Spirit, meant for building up the Church, glorifying God, and serving the world. In the case of religious communities, the “charism” is the unique vision and impetus of the institute, the set of gifts exemplified in the order’s traditions, history, and spirituality.

Part of the Church’s discernment about whether to approve a new religious community is to assess, insofar as possible, the authenticity of a charism, the sense in which it seems to ecclesial leaders to have come from God. While that judgment is by no means infallible, it is a part of assessing whether the Church should permit an erstwhile religious community to move forward.

In the case of Barron’s proposal, the charism would seem to be connected to Word on Fire’s mission, with members aiming to use media and new technology to proclaim the Gospel, as well as to “evangelize within the Word on Fire ethos.”