Catholic Religious Order - Further Changes in 1983

Further Changes in 1983

The current Code of Canon Law, which came into force in 1983, maintains the distinction between solemn and simple vows, but no longer makes any distinction between their juridical effects, including the distinction between "orders" and "congregations". It has accordingly dropped the language of the 1917 code and uses the single term "religious institute" (which appears nowhere in the 1917 Code) to designate all such institutes of consecrated life alike.

Thus the Church no longer draws the historical distinction between religious "orders" and "congregations". It applies to all such institutes the single name "religious institute" and the same rules of canon law. While solemn vows once meant those taken in what was called a religious order, "today, in order to know when a vow is solemn it will be necessary to refer to the proper law of the institutes of consecrated life."

"Religious order" and "religious institute" tend indeed to be used now as synonyms, and canon lawyer Nicholas Cafardi, commenting on the fact that the canonical term is "religious institute", can write that "religious order" is a colloquialism.