Clerical or Lay
If religious have been ordained as deacons, priests or bishops, they belong to the clergy and are referred to as the "religious clergy", a term that distinguishes them from the clergy who have not taken religious vows and who are known as the secular clergy or, since they generally serve under a bishop who exercises governance over a geographically defined diocese, as the diocesan clergy. The other religious are lay people, not members of the clergy.
While the state of consecrated life is neither clerical or lay, institutes themselves are classified as one or the other, a clerical institute being one that "by reason of the purpose or design intended by the founder or by virtue of legitimate tradition, is under the direction of clerics, assumes the exercise of sacred orders, and is recognized as such by the authority of the Church".
In clerical institutes, such as the Dominican Order or the Franciscans, most of the members are clergy. In only a few cases do lay institutes have some clergy among their members.
Read more about this topic: Religious (Catholicism)
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