How to found a new Catholic Order

[mayapuppies]

Hello all,

Do any of you know how a priest would go about founding a new order within the Catholic Church? Or know where I could begin researching such a thing?

[McCoy]

Hello all,

Do any of you know how a priest would go about founding a new order within the Catholic Church? Or know where I could begin researching such a thing?

Mother Teresa singlehandedly founded a new order of nuns. Not the same, but might be a good place to start research.

AT A GUESS, (1) Identify a need/mission that no current order fills, (2) convince a bishop or higher to sponsor the new order (3) work up the bureaucracy.

I thought a new order had been established recently ("recently" in terms of the Church, within the past 50 years or so) for the Anglican/Episcopalian priest who had converted to Catholicism, but a 3 minute google search could not confirm.

[mayapuppies]

Thanks McCoy. Your points cover pretty much what I thought as well.

Thanks for the leads.

[Lord Liaden]

Granted, this is Wikipedia, but it looks like a decent place to start your research from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_institute

[BrilliantHelm]

Mother Teresa singlehandedly founded a new order of nuns. Not the same, but might be a good place to start research.

AT A GUESS, (1) Identify a need/mission that no current order fills, (2) convince a bishop or higher to sponsor the new order (3) work up the bureaucracy.

I thought a new order had been established recently ("recently" in terms of the Church, within the past 50 years or so) for the Anglican/Episcopalian priest who had converted to Catholicism, but a 3 minute google search could not confirm.

As a member of a Catholic Order, a couple other things are important:

1. Divine Intervention: Most Saints had visions and miracles accompanying the founding of their order. Mother Theresa had both.

2. The Founder Must be a Saint for the Order to Survive long past the death of the founder. The pope declares a Saint. Sometimes this takes centuries.

3. The Order must have a rule (rule of practices, including prayers, fasting, mission and other spiritual practices). This includes works of charity like feeding the poor, but not always. The Order of Templar's mission was to defend Catholic Lands. However, in general, they will always feed the poor, clothe the naked, etc. as this is all Catholic's mission.

4. The Founder does not need to work up the hierarchy. They simply need to have a successful mission. Religious Orders fall under a different chain of authority than a diocese (Church region headed by a bishop). They report directly to the pope's congregations, circumventing diocesan bishops.

5. The pope can approve an order directly. This happened with Saint Francis of Assisi.

6. Sometimes the founder is a bishop, such as was the case of Saint Francis de Sales. However, even he must still seek papal approval for them to operate outside his diocese.

7. Bishops give permission for orders to practice in his diocese (Church region), sometimes they request them to work in their diocese. However, Orders can circumvent this with Canon Law (e.g. Papal Approved Law), which says that orders have a right to exercise their mission (i.e. apostolate).

[Old Man]

Do any of you know how a priest would go about founding a new order within the Catholic Church? Or know where I could begin researching such a thing?

Just out of curiosity, what is your new order's mission going to be?

[mayapuppies]

A player in one of my Kamarathin campaigns is playing a priest and has decided that he is not pleased with the offerings of the main Church or of the other Orders. So he is wishing to establish his own.

I've never encountered this before, so I'm researching to see how I would write up the process for the Church of Asuna.

[BrilliantHelm]

Just out of curiosity, what is your new order's mission going to be?

I belong to an existing order.

[BrilliantHelm]

A player in one of my Kamarathin campaigns is playing a priest and has decided that he is not pleased with the offerings of the main Church or of the other Orders. So he is wishing to establish his own.

I've never encountered this before, so I'm researching to see how I would write up the process for the Church of Asuna.

Awesome. For a military order, The Templars would be his template, unless he wants a military and healing order, then it would be the Hospitallers of St. John. These are the closest to an adventuring order.

[Old Man]

He may want to be careful of emulating certain orders after what happened to the Templars...

[mayapuppies]

Oh, I won't be following the Catholic model completely. It's just the only religious organization that I am aware of that has orders and such, so I'm just using it as a guideline.

[Savinien]

Doesn't this sound like the Greatest Player of All Time?

[mayapuppies]

He makes me work too much. I'm seriously thinking of just killing the character off.

[BrilliantHelm]

Oh, I won't be following the Catholic model completely. It's just the only religious organization that I am aware of that has orders and such, so I'm just using it as a guideline.

Here is a short way to do it, Hero Games Roleplaying wise:

1. Give him a quest to prove his religious piety.
2. After he successfully completes the quest, have him pay the points for the followers.
3. If his character fails in his piety, have his order begin to disperse. They will become fighters, instead, if he does not repair for his failings.
4. If he becomes a hero of the faith, link the number any power-level of order members to his character's devotion.

Disadvantages to Follower Costs: Religious requirements (-1/4 to change to fighters and -1/2 to completely disperse if you allow him to repair his failings); Fidelity (an additional -1/4 for ten minutes of daily devotions, -1/2 for twenty minutes of devotions requirement).

[BrilliantHelm]

He may want to be careful of emulating certain orders after what happened to the Templars...

The Hospitallers had no such failings, and in fact, saved Malta from invaders. Keep in mind, the Templars were found innocent of their crimes, by the Pope and offered a general pardon to cover any problems they may have encountered by the King of France. Of course, messages moved more slowly in those days, and it was too late to save them.

Who cannot be inspired by the Templars, numbering about one hundred with five hundred other knights, routing 26,000 of Saladin's forces? That victory goes down in the history of legends. Saladin left the field with 1/10th his original forces.