Institute of consecrated life
canonically erected institute in the Roman Catholic Church
An institute of consecrated life is an association of faithful in the Catholic Church canonically erected by competent church authorities to enable men or women who publicly profess the evangelical counsels by religious vows or other sacred bonds "through the charity to which these counsels lead to be joined to the Church and its mystery in a special way." They are defined in the 1983 Code of Canon Law under canons 573–730. The Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has ecclesiastical oversight of institutes of consecrated life.
The more numerous form of these are religious institutes, which are characterized by the public profession of vows, life in common as brothers or sisters, and a degree of separation from the world. They are defined in the 1983 Code of Canon Law under canons 607–709. The other form is that of secular institutes, in which the members live in the world, and work for the sanctification of the world from within.
Classification
There are two categories of institutes of consecrated life identified in the Code of Canon Law: religious institutes, and secular institutes. In addition, there are Societies of Apostolic Life that resemble institutes of consecrated life, but their members do not take religious vows.
Consecrated persons are lay persons or clerics who assume the evangelical counsels by means of a sacred bond, and become members of an institute of consecrated life. They are clerical if, with recognition from the Church, their founder intended the order or institute to be directed by clerics and exercise sacred orders, and they are lay if recognized by the Church as having a proper function defined by the founder or by legitimate tradition, which does not include the exercise of sacred orders (Canon 588).
For instance, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) is a clerical institute of consecrated life as their members are clerics, whereas the Sisters of Charity are a lay institute of religious sisters.
The public source identifies “Institute of consecrated life” as canonically erected institute in the Roman Catholic Church. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Institute, consecrated and life.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Institute of consecrated life”, the useful work is to connect “canonically erected institute in the Roman Catholic Church” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q225446. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1983.
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This entry incorporates text from “Institute of consecrated life” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.