Note 162 — Chapter III · The Society of Jesus.—Religious as Educators.

It is common among non-Catholics to style the members of all religious orders “monks.” However, this popular appellation is not correct. The general term is “religious.” This word was used in this sense very early in English (v. g. by Chaucer, Troylus and Chryseyde, CIX, 759). It seems that after the Reformation, Protestants refused to honor members of religious orders with this title. J. L. Kington Oliphant, of Balliol College, Oxford, states in his work The New English (vol. I, p. 482), that “the phrase the relygyon is employed for monk’s profession, almost for the last time” between 1537 and 1540. Protestants preferred to use the word “monk”, which soon became a term of reproach. They saw in the monks the very type of laziness, uselessness, ignorance, fanaticism and profligacy. Cardinal Newman has said of this Protestant view: “As a Jesuit means a knave, so a monk means a bigot.”—The Catholic Church, as every other society, has the right to lay down its own terminology, which, we think, should be respected by all. (The term “religious” in this sense is recognized by the Standard and Century Dictionaries). The Church and all enlightened Catholics distinguish between Monks, Friars and Clerks Regular. Monks are the contemplative orders: Basilians, Benedictines, Carthusians, Cistercians and Trappists. The Friars or Mendicants were founded in the Middle Ages; they are the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites and Augustinians. The Clerks Regular, or Regular Clerics, are chiefly of more recent date: The Theatines, the Jesuits etc. The difference, as regards the aim and manner of life of these classes, is well explained in The Religious State, by William Humphrey, S. J. (London, 1884, 3 vols.) vol. II, pp. 309–336. This work is a digest of the classic work on the religious state, the De Statu Religionis of the Jesuit Suarez. Father Humphrey’s digest may prove of service to all who desire to have information with regard to a salient feature of the Catholic Church.—See also the excellent articles in the Kirchen-Lexikon (Herder, 2nd ed.): “Orden,” vol. IX, 972; “Mönchthum,” vol. VIII, 1689; “Bettelorden,” vol. II, 561; “Clerici regulares,” vol. III, 530.