The Ecclesiastical Character of the Foundation and Apostolate of the Consecrated Life

The canon law of the consecrated life is among the major issues updated in the 1983 code to suit the renewal principles of the second Vatican Council. In these days when the facets of modernism and science tend to impose a wider onus to the mission of the church, a tactical rejuvenation of emphasis on mission and its agents through the church's law and doctrine become imperative. The ecclesiastical law gives a dignifying meaning to the institutes of consecrated life. By the legislation of the 1983 code of canon law, the church illuminates the deep spiritual, anthropological and eschatological demand of the evangelical counsel as the purpose of consecrated life. The communion and mission of the church form the basic character and reason for the foundation and apostolate of the consecrated life. John Paul II affirmed these facts and added more practical implementations in his apostolic writing Vita Consecrata. This work has the purpose of comparing the canon law of the consecrated life with the Vita Consecrata and other related documents of the church. It is meant to illustrate the ecclesiastical character of the foundation and apostolate of the consecrated life, which stands as a pathfinder to the demands of communion and mission by the church to the people of the religious life.