Consecrated secularity
In love with the God of Life
for the life of the world
Secular Institutes
Secular Institutes were born as a requirement of circumstances that, mediated the 19th century, made the task of evangelization increasingly difficult.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th there were many Associations of followers of Jesus who walked together, sharing the same spirit, feeling as brothers in the effort to embody and announce the Kingdom with all the fibers of their being and of their work, embracing with serious commitment the evangelical counsels of virginity, poverty and obedience, but without habit, without common life, without a series of structures that were considered essential in the religious life recognized by the Church until then.
Little by little these Associations took shape and name until the 2nd of February 1947, Pius XII promulgated the Apostolic Constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia recognizing this style of living: thus Secular Institutes were born.
What are Secular Institutes?
The precise definition is given by the Canonical Law Code:
“A Secular Institute is an Institute of consecrated life in which the faithful, living in the world, aspire to the perfection of charity and dedicate themselves to seeking the sanctification of the world especially from within it.” (Can. 710)
In three lines we have highly concentrated the essential elements that characterize a Secular Institute: consecration–secularity–mission.
The words that Pope Francis addressed to the Secular Institutes on August 25, 2022 express the relevance of our way of being:
“The term secularity, which is not fully equivalent to secularism, is the heart of your vocation, which manifests the secular nature of the Church, People of God, walking in the towns and with the towns. It is the Church on the way out, not distant or separated from the world, but immersed in the world and in its history to be salt and light there, germ of unity, hope and salvation. The mission that you carry out is peculiar and leads to being among people, to know and understand what happens in the heart of men and women of today, to rejoice with them and to suffer with them, with the “style of closeness, which is the style of God: closeness.”
Here you can learn more about
Spanish Conference of
Secular Institutes
World Conference of
Secular Institutes