Catholic Monasticism and Religious Orders

Hi all,

So every once in a while friends of mine from various churches in your communion will ask me questions about how this or that in the Roman communion compares with things in my own OO communion. As the Egyptian Church gave the world Christian monasticism from our fathers Abba Paul and Abba Anthony (and of course later fathers like Abba Shenouda, Abba Pigol, Abba Macarius, etc.), and I am a Coptic Orthodox Christian, many of their questions tend to revolve around monasticism. It's become clear via those conversations that monasticism in the West has developed very differently than in the OO world, to the point that I'm not quite sure what I'm being asked or even always what's being talked about. So I wonder if anyone here can give me basic information about the various monastic traditions of the RC communion, and/or correct any misunderstandings I may have about them.

First some basics of how I see our differences in this area:

• To the best of my knowledge, we OO do not have anything like the Western/Roman Catholic 'religious orders', e.g., Benedictine, Carmelite, Dominican, etc. There are, of course, a few main different traditions within our monasticism -- e.g., cenobitic/communal monasticism developed by our father Abba Pachomius, or hermitic monasticism following Abba Paul, et al. -- but these aren't like the Roman Catholic religious orders. There's basically only one way to be a monk, and they only differ in living arrangements (e.g., in caves or in the wilderness, in community all housed in one place, or in separate cells). For example, today Fr. Lazarus Al-Anthony lives in Abba Anthony's original cave in the mountain outside of the monastery, so people consider him an anchorite, but "anchoritic" monasticism isn't really a different thing than cenobitic monasticism. It just means that he lives in his cave for most of the time, only occasionally coming out to celebrate the liturgy with his fellow monks at the nearby monastery he is attached to (that is why his name is "Al-Anthony", because Coptic monks take the name of the monastery with which they are affiliated as their last name).
• There is also no split between secular and religious, since obviously we don't have religious orders to begin with. Honestly I am pretty confused as to what a 'secular' monastic could be. What does that mean? It's something I've heard RCs talk about, but I don't understand it.
• Vows of poverty, silence, etc. I think it is pretty well assumed in both your tradition and ours that a monk is not going to be a rich person, or given to idle talk, or any of that. And from what little I've seen from the ceremonial acceptance of novitiate monks in my own church, they do have ot make formal professions renouncing the pursuit of worldly things like wealth, etc. So this might not be such a difference, except that the impression that I get from talking to people in your communion is that these are approached as particular types of asceticism more associated with some orders (e.g., the Carthusians, who even had a movie made about them called "Into Great Silence", where you can see that, yep...they're mostly silent) than others. Why is that? Am I wrong, or is this the case?
• Also, the various "Societies" started by different Roman Catholics, e.g., "The Little Sisters of Jesus", "The Little Sisters of the Poor", etc. This is something foreign. Are they a part of Roman Catholic monasticism proper, or pet projects (for lack of a better way to put it) of individual people, or what? What is their status and why do they exist? I suppose we also have organizations founded by individuals who have been given the blessing of the Church (e.g., Coptic Orphans), but they're not really tied to our monastics in the way that these various societies seem to be, so I'm not sure what to make of this difference between us.

I'm sure there are other differences, in addition to many similarities. It's a little confusing for me because some of my friends will say things like "I wish the Coptic Catholics or really any of us had monasticism like you guys do" (and even once there was a guy who thought he might convert to Syriac Orthodoxy from the Maronite Church because I guess the Maronite monastic tradition has been mostly replaced with various Western-style orders like the O.L.M.), and I don't know what to say because I don't even understand Roman Catholic monasticism in the first place, since it has all of these things that we don't have. And I've been to a Benedictine monastery before, which was wonderful in its own way, it's just not the same as what we have.

Thanks for any help and discussion.

Thank you, Wildlast. That helps demystify the 'secular' part. We don't have anything like that, but it's an interesting idea.

You mentioned you're becoming a 'Third Order' Carmelite. I've heard of the Carmelites, but what does the 'Third Order' part mean?

Oh, I see. Thank you.

Hmm. So what does 'third order' mean in that case, Jim?