St. Francis preaches to the birds

majority of men religious ordained priests becoming involved in the so-called active apostolate. After the fifteenth century, many orders were founded specifically to engage in specialized apostolates and were comprised mostly of priests—with only a few brothers to serve in a subordinate role as helpers. Because of the demands of these specialized ministries, the later institutes grew further away from the original way of life of the Desert Fathers and ascetic tradition, developing a less time-consuming spirituality, more varied activities and considerably obscuring the vocation to brotherhood.”

Although we do have a provision in our Statutes (our specific rule) which allows for the ordination of a Brother to serve the sacramental needs of our community and which would prevent him from being assigned to serve in a diocesan parish, we envision this as being the rare exception, to preserve the fundamental nature of our community as a brotherhood.