States of perfection of consecrated life
In Answer to Your Question (March 2000 Religious Life)
by Fr. Burns Seeley

Q What are the various "states of perfection" and how do they relate to one another?

A The various states of perfection consist of consecrated men and women who profess the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. These states of consecrated life are also known as "schools of love and holiness," and "schools of the Lord’s service" (cf. Pope John Paul II’s post-synodal document on consecrated life, Vita Consecrata [1996], 35).Today, the term "states of perfection" is most often applied to two categories of professed persons; namely, those enrolled in religious institutes and those belonging to secular institutes.

Religious institutes and secular institutes are similar in that they both represent a stable or fixed manner of life and whose committed members profess the evangelical counsels. Religious, however, do so by taking public vows, while those in secular institutes do not.
The non-public vows undertaken by members of secular institutes are known as "sacred commitments."

Members of religious institutes share a common fraternal life which is to some degree lived separately from the world. Members of secular institutes, on the other hand, while leading lives dedicated to Christ and his Church, devote themselves to the sanctification of the world, especially by working within the world (cf. Canon 710). Moreover, they do not necessarily share a common life. And, although professed, they retain the canonical status they previously had as members of the Church, whether clerical or lay. (cf. Canon 713)

Common life among religious implies, in addition to living together with members of the same institute or community, living under the authority of a superior and according to a defined rule of life (cf. Father John A. Hardon, S.J.’s The Catholic Catechism, p. 421).Both religious and members of secular institutes strive, under vows, for the sanctity of self, of one another, and for the salvation and sanctification of all. But those belonging to secular institutes do so in and from within the world, and they do so "according to the secular style of life which is proper to them" (cf. Canon 713.2).

As is true of religious institutes, secular institutes may be clerical or lay, male or female.
Unlike secular institutes, however, the Church requires members of religious institutes to wear habits (cf. Vatican II, Perfectae Caritatis [1965], 17).

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