Nun: Difference between revisions

Originally, the vows taken by profession in any religious institute approved by the Holy See were classified as [[solemn vow|solemn]].<ref name=Vermeersch>[http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Religious_Life Arthur Vermeersch, "Religious Life"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120115054809/http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Religious_Life |date=2012-01-15 }} in ''[[The Catholic Encyclopedia]]'', Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. Accessed 18 July 2011.</ref> This was declared by [[Pope Boniface VIII]] (1235–1303).<ref>"Illud solum votum debere dici solemne . . . quod solemnizatum fuerit per suceptionem S. Ordinis aut per professionem expressam vel tacitam factam alicui de religionibus per Sedem Apostolicam approbatis" (C. unic. de voto, tit. 15, lib. III in 6, quoted in [https://archive.org/stream/religiouscongreg00frer#page/16/mode/2up/search/%22Illud+solum+votum+debere+dici+solemne%22 Celestine Anthony Freriks, ''Religious Congregations in Their External Relations''], p. 17).</ref> The situation changed in the 16th century. In 1521, two years after the [[Fourth Lateran Council]] had forbidden the establishment of new religious institutes, [[Pope Leo X]] established a religious [[monasticism|Rule]] with simple vows for those [[third order|tertiaries]] attached to existing communities who undertook to live a formal religious life. In 1566 and 1568, [[Pope Pius V]] rejected this class of congregation, but they continued to exist and even increased in number. After at first being merely tolerated, they afterwards obtained approval.<ref name=Vermeersch/> In the 20th century, [[Pope Leo XIII]] recognized as religious all men and women who took simple vows.<ref>Constitution "Conditae a Christo" of 8 December 1900, cited in [http://www.dom.edu/export/sites/dominican/mcgreal/volumeone/DaHCHAP11.pdf Mary Nona McGreal, ''Dominicans at Home in a New Nation'', chapter 11] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927150743/http://www.dom.edu/export/sites/dominican/mcgreal/volumeone/DaHCHAP11.pdf |date=2011-09-27 }}</ref> Their lives were oriented not to the ancient monastic way of life, but more to [[social service]] and to [[evangelization]], both in [[Europe]] and in mission areas. Their number had increased dramatically in the upheavals brought by the [[French Revolution]] and subsequent [[Napoleonic]] invasions of other Catholic countries, depriving thousands of religious of the income that their communities held because of inheritances and forcing them to find a new way of living the religious life. But members of these new associations were not recognized as "religious" until [[Pope Leo XIII]]'s Constitution "Conditae a Christo" of 8 December 1900.<ref>Cited in [http://www.dom.edu/export/sites/dominican/mcgreal/volumeone/DaHCHAP11.pdf Mary Nona McGreal, ''Dominicans at Home in a New Nation'', chapter 11] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927150743/http://www.dom.edu/export/sites/dominican/mcgreal/volumeone/DaHCHAP11.pdf |date=2011-09-27 }}</ref>