Roman Catholic Religious Orders and Ecology

There are references in the New Testament to unmarried men and women who served the local communities in special ways. Later, this celibate tradition continued as some Christians went into the deserts of Egypt and Syria to live their commitment in solitude. These men and women were variously called “hermits,” “anchorites” and “The Desert Fathers.” In the wilderness, they found a peace and tranquillity that was conducive to prayer, contemplation and reflection. Saint Anthony (d.350) said that, in creation, he could read the word of God.

Demonic powers also resided in the desert. The anchorites saw their presence in the wilderness as a process of re-creating an earthly paradise, of re-establishing the dominion over all life that existed before the Fall. The stories of encounters with wild animals illustrated their spiritual power. The monk Florentius had a bear as companion. The animals taught the hermits what was poisonous.

Their spirituality was to encounter a strange territory and move from conflict to harmony, to merge the natural with the supernatural until the two were indistinguishable. This spirituality influenced Celtic spirituality where the theme of voyage or pilgrimage provided a heightened awareness of the natural environment. Celtic spirituality, in turn, influenced Saint Francis of Assisi.

Some men and women of the desert gathered disciples around them and formed communities. These groups became the “cenobites” and their communities came to be characterized by vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The members choose not to own anything, to live as celibates and to obey their abbot or abbess.

            Today, there are several thousand orders and congregations in the Roman Catholic Church. Many use a rule that has been influenced by one of the four largest orders; The Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits. Since the 1960’s, the Maryknoll family has developed a particularly contemporary response to environmental issues.

• The Benedictine Tradition
• The Franciscans
• The Dominicans
• The Jesuits
• Maryknoll
• Other Religious Orders
• Further Reading

Thomas Splain, S.J., The Gregorian University (Rome)

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Copyright, © Bron Taylor and Jeffrey Kaplan, The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (London: Continuum, forthcoming 2004).