Clerks Regular - Canonical Status

Canonical Status

By clerks regular are meant those bodies of men in the Church who by the very nature of their institute unite the perfection of the religious state to the priestly office, i.e. who while being essentially clerics, devoted to the exercise of the ministry in preaching, the administration of the sacraments, the education of youth, and other spiritual and corporal works of mercy, are at the same time religious in the strictest sense of the word, professing solemn vows and living a community life according to a rule solemnly approved of by the Holy See.

In the Corpus Juris Canonici the term clerks regular is often used for canons regular, and regular clerks are classed by authors as a branch or modern adaptation of the once world-famous family of regular canons. This is because of the intimate connection existing between the two; for while separated from the secular clergy by their vows and the observance of a community life and a rule, they form a distinct class in the religious state, the clerical, in opposition to the monastic, which includes monks, hermits, and friars.

Clerks regular are distinguished from the purely monastic bodies, or monks, in four ways:

• They are primarily devoted to the sacred ministry; not so the monks, whose proper work is contemplation and the solemn celebration of the liturgy.
• They are obliged to cultivate the sacred sciences, which, if cultivated by the monks, are yet not imposed upon them by virtue of their state of life.
• Clerks regular as clerics must retain some appearance of clerical dress distinct from the habit and cowl of the monk.
• Because of their occupations, they are less given to the practice of austerity which is a distinct feature of the purely monastic life.

They are distinguished from the friars in this, that though the latter are devoted to the sacred ministry and the cultivation of learning, they are not primarily priests. Finally, clerks regular differ from canons regular in that they do not possess cathedral or collegiate churches, devote themselves more completely to ministerial work in place of choir-service, and have fewer penitential observances of rule.