| Men |
| Institutes of Consecrated Life Members make a public profession of vows. |
| Religious Institutes of Consecrated Life Members live and pray in common. |
| Orders Members make solemn vows. |
| Orders of Canons Regular Canons sing the liturgy in choir and may run parish-like apostolates. |
| Monastic Orders Monks are bound to live and work at their monastery and recite the Office in common. |
| Mendicant Orders Friars (either priests or lay brothers) may have a more active apostolate, and depend on alms for their life. |
| Orders of Clerics Regular Priests are also vowed religious and usually have a more active apostolate. |
| Religious Congregations Members make simple vows. |
| Clerical Religious Congregations Members usually assume the ordained state. |
| Lay Religious Congregations Members usually assume the lay state. |
| Secular Institutes of Consecrated Life Members live in the world. |
| Clerical Secular Institutes of Consecrated Life Members usually assume the ordained state. |
| Lay Secular Institutes of Consecrated Life Members usually assume the lay state. |
| Societies of Apostolic Life Members do not make religious vows, pursue the same apostolic purpose; priests are usually incardinated into the society and not the diocese. |
| Public Clerical Associations Clerical members jointly foster a more perfect life or promote public worship or Christian teaching, or who devote themselves to other works of the apostolate. |
| Personal Prelatures Clerical and lay members carry out specific pastoral activities. |
| Public Clerical Associations Clerial Associations with pontifical right, some with the faculty of incardinating clerics. |
| Women |
| Institutes of Consecrated Life Members make a public profession of vows. |
| Religious Institutes of Consecrated Life Members live and pray in common. |
| Religious Orders and Institutes of Consecrated Life with independent houses |
| Centralized Religious Institutes of Consecrated Life |
| Secular Institutes of Consecrated Life Members live in the world. |
| Societies of Apostolic Life Members do not make religious vows. |
| Others |
| Other Institutes of Consecrated Life A new form of institute of consecrated life which may have both male and female members. |
© 2025 GCatholic.org
|