The Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans)

Founded by Francis of Assisi in the early thirteenth century, and profiled here as the second concrete instance of a Catholic religious institute — a mendicant order set beside the Society of Jesus, which is an order of clerks regular. The pairing is the point. Both are Catholic religious institutes governed by the same canons; on the material questions this site asks they answer almost oppositely, which is the same lesson the two Presbyterian bodies teach about a shared tradition. The governing text used here is the General Constitutions and General Statutes as published by the General Curia in Rome in 2021, the Constitutions having been revised at the General Chapter of Assisi in 1985 and amended at later chapters. They stand alongside the Rule of Francis, which the General Chapter has the right to adapt to changing times.

• governing document General Constitutions and General Statutes of the Order of Friars Minor (General Curia OFM, Rome 2021), decree of approval and preface

Rome, where the Minister General and his Definitory reside. The order is organised into provinces under ministers provincial, with custodies under custodes, and local fraternities under guardians — a vocabulary of service rather than of rule, and one the constitutions maintain deliberately.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), on the Minister General, his Definitory, and the offices of minister, custos and guardian

Calls itself an order of Friars Minor — lesser brothers — and the diminutive is doctrinal rather than decorative: the constitutions describe a Franciscan "minority" that governs how the friars hold goods and how they exercise office. It is not a denomination and not a church, and appears here for the same functional reason as the other Catholic entries: it forms, admits, assigns and dismisses its own members, disciplines them under its own superiors, and determines what its houses may hold.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 8 §§1-3, on the vow of poverty and minority

The friars do not own the buildings they use, and this is a principle rather than an accident of circumstance. Article 73 is one sentence: "The ownership of buildings and goods that the friars need for their lives and work is to remain in reality under the control of those whom the friars serve — benefactors, Church or the Holy See." Set that beside the Society of Jesus, whose colleges may hold and administer fixed revenue in their own right, and the claim that "religious order" describes a single arrangement collapses. Both are Catholic institutes under the same canons. One holds endowments; the other arranges that title to what it occupies rests with somebody else, and keeps only the use. The site's enum needed a new value to say this. Every other body profiled here owns what it occupies, holds it in trust for a larger body, or is itself the larger body. This one is the only case of a body that deliberately declines ownership of its own premises — and calling that "mixed" would have implied variation by place, when it is a settled rule.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 73
• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 8 §1 — after solemn profession friars renounce the right of ownership

There is no trust in the Protestant sense, and no need of one: where a body does not claim ownership, nothing has to be encumbered to keep it from claiming. What operates instead is the reverse device — the property is held by benefactors, the Church or the Holy See, and the friars have use of it. The medieval Franciscan solution to owning nothing while occupying something survives in a constitution promulgated in 2021.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Articles 8 §1 and 73

The question does not translate, as with the other religious entries here. A fraternity is a community of professed friars under their own ministers, not a congregation that could affiliate elsewhere. Where the order withdraws from a work, what ends is an arrangement — and under Article 73 the premises were never the order's to take.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 73

Here the Franciscan arrangement diverges most sharply from every other body on this site, including its Jesuit counterpart, and the divergence runs in an unexpected direction: the order forbids itself from receiving what a member gives up. A candidate with property must dispose of it before temporary profession, retaining bare ownership but consigning administration, usufruct and use "to whomever he pleases, but not to the Order," by valid document. Before solemn profession he must renounce in writing the ownership of everything he possesses or will receive by necessary inheritance, assigning it to persons of his choice "but preferably in favour of the poor," keeping nothing back. And then Article 75 §2, which has no parallel anywhere else in this project: "No friar, for any motive, should dare to induce a friar about to be professed to leave anything to him or to the Order." So the general canonical rule that whatever a religious acquires is acquired for his institute meets, in this order, a constitution that closes the obvious channel by which an institute might enrich itself from its own novices — and closes it by prohibiting its members from even suggesting it. The "internal" basis records that the friar retains nothing; it should not be read, as it can be elsewhere, as meaning that the body collects it.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 74 §1 — administration consigned to whomever he pleases, but not to the Order
• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 75 §§1-3 — written renunciation before solemn profession; no friar to induce a bequest to himself or the Order

Constitutive rather than enforced. The renunciation takes effect on the day of profession and the particular Statutes are directed to ensure it carries force in civil law from that day, so the question of a friar withholding does not arise in the form it would take in a body that collects contributions.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 75 §§1 and 3

The order maintains its friars, and directs surplus outward rather than upward: goods given for the use of the friars "are to be shared for the benefit of the poor in accordance with what the particular Statutes legitimately prescribe," and what the friars use is to be in keeping with poverty according to the circumstances of place and time.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 72 §§2-3

Not negotiated by the friar, who by vow renounces the right to use or dispose of material goods without the permission of his ministers and guardians. The enum fits poorly, as it does for the other religious entries; the substance is that the individual is not a party to any bargain about his own support.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 8 §1

The order provides for the friar, from goods it largely does not own.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Articles 8 §1 and 73

The order admits and professes its own members, on the general pattern of religious institutes: a friar is incardinated into his institute rather than into a diocese, and his standing is held there. The detailed provisions on admission and formation were not read for this profile beyond the property renunciations required before temporary and solemn profession.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Articles 74-75, on dispositions required before profession
• governing document Code of Canon Law (1983), c. 266 §2, incardination into the institute (accessed 2026-07-31)

Friars are assigned by their ministers, and no congregation calls anyone. Where the order staffs a diocesan parish, the canonical route is the same as for any institute: the bishop entrusts the parish by written agreement with the superior's consent, the superior presents, and the bishop appoints.

• governing document Code of Canon Law (1983), c. 520 §§1-2 (accessed 2026-07-31)
• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 8 §1, on obedience to ministers and guardians

The order, which admits, assigns, maintains and disciplines. The relationship is profession rather than employment, and a friar has by vow renounced the capacity to contract about his own goods without permission.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 8 §1

A General Chapter, meeting every six years at Pentecost, which elects the Minister General, legislates for the order, and holds the right to adapt the Rule of Francis itself to changing times. Successive chapters — Assisi 1985, 2003, 2009 — have revised the constitutions in force, so unlike the Jesuit arrangement the governing text is revised on a regular cycle by an assembly that meets regularly.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 226 §1 — ordinary General Chapter every six years at Pentecost
• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 189 §3, and Article 197 §1 — decrees of the Minister General lapse at the next General Chapter unless confirmed
• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), preface and decree, on revisions at the chapters of 1985, 2003 and 2009; and on the chapter's right to adapt the Rule

A Minister General elected by the General Chapter for a six-year term, re-electable "only for another six years without an intervening vacancy" — so twelve years and then a required break, with the same pattern applied to other ministers. This is the sharpest available contrast with the Society of Jesus, whose constitutions argue at length that the head should serve for life, and it shows how little the shared label "religious institute" settles. Two Catholic orders under the same canons choose opposite answers to how long their head should hold office, and each gives reasons. Where the Jesuit text worries that periodic election breeds ambition, the Franciscan arrangement assumes rotation and builds its legislative cycle around it: a chapter every six years, electing for six years. The vocabulary reinforces it. The head is a *minister* and a local superior a *guardian*, and the constitutions place both inside a doctrine of minority rather than of prelacy.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Article 196 — the Minister General elected in General Chapter for six years, re-electable once without an intervening vacancy
• governing document The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, Part IX ch. 1 [719], for the contrast

Internal to the order under its own constitutions and particular statutes, with ministers and custodes themselves subject to scrutiny — the constitutions provide for review of their conduct in office and require an inventory and accounts of income and expenditure at the end of a term. The detailed disciplinary procedures were not read here.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), provisions on inventories and accounts at the end of a term of office, and on the conduct of Ministers and Custodes

Individuals are admitted and professed; congregations do not join. The financial requirements of entry are unusually specific and are set out above: disposal of administration and use before temporary profession, to anyone but the Order, and written renunciation of ownership before solemn profession, preferably in favour of the poor.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Articles 74-75

No congregational exit exists because no congregation belongs; the value should be read as "not applicable." Departure of individual friars is governed by provisions not read for this profile.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Articles 74-75, on the property consequences of profession

A friar who departs does not take a share of the order's goods, having renounced ownership of his own before profession and acquired nothing since. Because the premises the order uses are not the order's property in the first place, there is correspondingly less for anyone to divide than in an institute that owns what it occupies.

• governing document General Constitutions OFM (2021), Articles 73 and 75 §1