Messages from the IRL Leadership

From the President  

Most Rev. Thomas G. Doran
Bishop of Rockford (Illinois),
President of the Institute on Religious Life

Dear Friends,

I wish to welcome you to our website. As President of the INSTITUTE ON RELIGIOUS LIFE, I also want to invite you to actively encourage and promote authentic religious and consecrated life. Consecrated religious men and women are a key component of Pope John Paul II's call for a "new evangelization." Their public witness, through professing the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, helps make the Kingdom of God become present in our midst.

As you view the pages of our website I invite you to also consider becoming a member of the Institute. Your prayerful and generous support will help us to accomplish what we were founded for in 1974 and to expand this important work into the Third Millennium.

With every good wish, I remain cordially yours in Christ,

Most Reverend Thomas G. Doran, D.D., J.C.D.

From the National Director

Fr. Thomas Nelson, O.Praem.
National Director of the Institute on Religious Life

Dear Friends:

The Institute on Religious Life (IRL) has served the Church over 30 years. It was founded after the Second Vatican Council to help guide religious communities in the process of renewal called for by the Council Fathers. The IRL has always remained closely aligned to the Pope and Bishops, the official pastors of the Church, whom Christ established to teach, lead and sanctify the Church. This fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church has made the Institute a source of light and stability for many communities as they implemented the changes mandated by the Council. In this way it has served well the Church and religious life.

An entire generation has passed since Vatican II. The days of change and
experimentation are over. Constitutions have been renewed and updated. The
external elements of religious life have been adapted to meet the needs of modern times. Now is the time to enter more deeply into the interior reality of consecrated life.

Christ's call to interior renewal and change (i.e., metanoia ) is always present in every age and time. This is what the Church calls us to as we enter into a new
Christian millennium. Religious must lead the way in answering the Church's universal call to holiness.

Religious life is essentially a life of interior conversion and transformation into Christ by means of the evangelical counsels. This puts religious in the heart of the Church animating her life of love, service and worship. And this is why religious life is essential to the life of the Church and why every Catholic, not only clergy and religious, should support and promote religious life.

I am a Norbertine priest from St. Michael's Abbey in Orange, California. I have been the novice master of my community for over 15 years and I am still working in
formation as a teacher of spirituality and philosophy to our Junior professed. I am
also the local superior of our Norbertine house in San Pedro, California, where my
community staffs and administers Mary Star of the Sea High School.

I believe the Institute has had a positive influence on religious life in this country and I believe that it will continue to do so in the future

Being a religious and priest, a superior and former novice master, I have a great appreciation for the mystery of religious life and am thankful to God for my vocation as a priest and religious.

We ask for your prayers and support. I would like to invite you to become a member of the IRL if you are not one already. In this way you will participate in our mission to promote and support the gift of consecrated life.

Sincerely Yours in Christ Jesus,

Fr. Thomas Nelson, O.Praem.
National Director