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Perfectae Caritatis
Perfectae Caritatis is a document the written about the adaptation and renewal of religious life, it is issued by the Second Vatican Council which deals specifically with institutes of consecrated life in the Roman Catholic Church. This document was issued on October twenty­eighth, 1965. It has been a extended period of time since any new guidelines have been offered, surely as times are changing guidelines for religious institutions should change as well.It has become harder for people to keep dedicating themselves to specific vows when times have really changed. It is much different now than what it was when
Perfectae Caritatis was first released.
The document
Perfectae Caritatis Offers guidelines on how different religious institutions and their members should act within as fas as religious vows as times are changing it is becoming harder to follow through specifically the vows of poverty and chastity.
The vow of poverty has been harder to follow as times have changed. Most people can agree that living in poverty is a “ religious promise to live a simple life. They commit to share their resources and their time and talents within their communities and with those in need. A vowed member of a religious community does not have personal possessions but like the early
Christians they “place all things in common” (
The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New
Testaments
, Acts 2: 44). This definition of poverty is a definition that is universal, when one hears the word “poverty”, we usually think a simple lifestyle or someone that shares everything that they own. Poverty is actually a genuine devotion towards God, not physical deprivation (
A
Life of Promise: Poverty, Chastity, Obedience) Expectations have changed, the world has made a huge improvement in the technological sense. I personally experienced this in high school a couple years ago, all the Jesuit priests that worked at my school owned an iPhone. The students always thought that as Jesuit priests they should not all own the newest version of a phone as

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they were supposed to accept the vow of poverty. After speaking to one of them, they will surely let you know that, yes, the phone is in some way theirs but, it did not actually belong to them. It belonged to the religious order. This example has stuck with me for many years because it is a modern day of them living in poverty. They admitted that those phones, in fact did not belong to them. Many of the things that they had, did not belong to them It is also a clear example of how times have changed. In 1965, a section of the religious order, may have shared one landline phone for the entire house. Times have changed, many people nowadays do not even own a landline phone. These Jesuit priests are still trying to live a life of poverty, but at times it may not seem as they aiming for that.
Another vow that is getting harder to follow is chastity. “Chastity is sexual purity. Those who are chaste are morally clean in their thoughts, words, and actions. Chastity means not having any sexual relations before marriage. It also means complete fidelity to husband or wife during marriage” (The Church of Jesus Christ). Chastity is not something that is limited to those that are in a religious order or those that are married as t he Catechism of the Catholic Church further states that “all the baptized are called to chastity…All Christ’s faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life” (50 shades of Chastity..). Many people are not aware that as a baptized believer they should be practicing a chaste life. Today, we are surrounded by so much media that is telling us that there is no need for this chaste life. An example of the media, showing a bad image of sexual relations is the newly released film, Fifty
Shades of Grey.
This film is a flagrant pornograpghy disguised as a