ISPX - Who We Are

A secular institute is a form of consecrated life in the Church that permits men and women to give their lives to God answering a vocational calling. This vocation is recognized in the Catholic Church since 1947.

Apostolate is the work every Christian must realize to establish the Kingdom of God. Having encountered the love of Jesus Christ, every baptized person wishes that everyone could experience conversion that takes hold of one’s whole life. For a secular institute member, this conscience is even greater and becomes life’s raison d’être.

Consecration is the act through which a secular institute member makes the total giving of oneself to the Lord in view of the mission. By answering a personal calling from the Lord, through the means of consecration, the member choses the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience as the most excellent way to live out his gift to God. Every baptized person is called to live out the evangelical counsels since the Gospel is for everyone. Nevertheless, some persons decide to take a more definite step and ask the Church to recognize this gift.

Secularity is the fact of living in the world, with the world, to reveal God present. By exercising one’s profession, accepting family, professional, civic and social responsibilities, a secular institute member discovers the world as a mission field.
This novelty in the Church gives a chance to laypersons to live out the Gospel’s radicalness in the world, while exercising their profession and being attentive to respond to apostolic opportunities that daily life brings.

In the midst of the world that advances oftentimes without reference to God, secular institute members want to unite their profound consecration to God and their presence to the world. They commit themselves to chastity in a celibate lifestyle; to a life of poverty that wants to be a path to share with the poor and an invitation to offer their time, friendship and professionalism to those most in need; to a life of obedience that renders them more attentive to the calls of the Spirit in life’s different moments.

This way, living in the world, with the world, for the world, transforming it from the inside as leaven, salt and light, men and women members of secular institutes accept with generosity the mission Christ confided to them: to spread the Gospel to the four corners of the earth.

The Pius X Secular Family is an apostolic Family founded by Father Henri Roy, in Manchester, New Hampshire (United States) in 1939. Consecrated and associate members try by 100,000 means that Jesus be better known, loved and served. Through their involvement in different areas, they become apostles of men and women, young and old. They have just one concern: that the Gospel be proclaimed through their life!

Members of the Pius X Secular Institute received this apostolic enthusiasm from their founder, Father Henri Roy. By joining with young men and women involved in the Young Catholic Worker movement, Father Roy founded the Pius X Secular Institute to give to the Church a new apostolic Family specifically formed for evangelization. With Father Roy, these young people from the first generation felt just one yearning: to dedicate their whole life to the cause of Christ among the poor of the working class.

But, the obstacles were important. In the Church of that time, there existed no “structure” in which laypersons who wished to give themselves totally in the world could identify with. Time passed, and the United States became involved in the Second World War and many “Family” members – that’s how they called themselves at the onset – were called to defend their country. They were scattered throughout the world. Wherever they are, they continue to witness their love for the Savior, Jesus.

Upon returning from war, they noticed that everything had changed. Father Roy had been transferred form Manchester to Canada. Furthermore, the Young Catholic Worker movement had dwindled. The Family members soon realized that to realize their dream, they would need “heroic means”: first, total sanctity and dedication of self; second, specially trained priests, formed in the spirit of the “Family”, to exercise their ministry in the world; third, specially prepared laymen to go before the priest and make ready the way, able to penetrate where the priest could not; finally, married couples to carry the Gospel of Christ into the homes themselves.

Thus, in 1945, notwithstanding the difficulties proper to each foundation, the initiators started to live out their life project. With the publication by the Church of the constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia in 1947, they encountered an answer to their dream. The form of secular institutes corresponded to their most deeply felt intuitions.

They settled in Quebec (Canada) where, with the archbishop’s support, they opened various fields of apostolate and started to live out fully their apostolic life. The Pius X Secular Institute was approved in 1959 in Quebec as a secular institute of diocesan right.

Since that time, the mission of apostolate and evangelization continues in as many milieus as there are Institute members. Today, some 20 consecrated members and approximately 230 associate members continue to live out the great mission of evangelization.

“The Pius X Secular Institute was born from a great desire: to make Jesus Christ better known, better loved and better served.”

That’s how Father Roy expressed himself to the members of his apostolic Family in a circular letter on September 8, 1957. Should we ask the different members of the Institute their profound motive for belonging to this Family, surely many among them would come back with this basic intuition that nourished the founder’s life.

Durante mucho tiempo, los miembros del Instituto Secular Pío X buscaron ponerle palabras a su identidad espiritual. Hace unos años, después de un largo proceso de discernimiento, lo lograron. Hoy día, todos los miembros – consagrados y asociados – reconocen su rostro en esta definición.

It’s a long and exacting job that must be continually be recasted. Through meetings, exchanges, discussions, we have defined five points which manifest our concrete way to live in the world and in the Church.

A personal encounter with Jesus Christ, Savior and Apostle;
A desire to make Jesus Christ known through an intense apostolic zeal;
A need for a total giving of oneself that takes the whole person in the service of Jesus Christ;
An apostolic mission that gives the concern to reach the working classes, especially the little and the poor, so that Jesus be better known, loved and served;
An apostolic spirituality that nourishes a whole life in the service of Jesus Christ.

In an attempt to more clearly define our spiritual identity, these five points are developed more extensively in the document Our Spiritual Identity. May this document be a source of inspiration so that the Pius X Secular Institute vocation and mission be better known and thus better lived.

Single laymen and priests can become consecrated members of the Pius X Secular Institute. They give their whole life to the Lord and to the specific mission of the Institute, through the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience and through a promise of apostolate.

Since the foundation’s beginnings, other people joined the group as Family members. They are the associate members: single men and women, priests, and married couples. They dedicate themselves to live out the mission according to their state of life by giving themselves to the Lord through the spirit of the evangelical counsels.

The Difference Between Consecrated and Associate Members:
A Question of Commitment!

The difference between the consecrated and associate members can be found in the form of commitment and not according to the mission that is lived out.

Consecrated members dedicate their life to God to live out the mission professing the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. Through this consecration, a true covenant of love is established between God and the member. In this covenant, God promises to be faithful to the member and he, in turn, answers the call with generosity. Consecrated members are “the heart of the Pius X Secular Institute”.

Associate members, having felt the call to love God more fully, fulfill this call through a commitment in which they express their desire to live the mission according to the spirit of the evangelical counsels. This commitment helps the associate single laypersons and priests as well as the associate married couples to journey towards holiness to which all are called.

There are Institute members living in Canada, the United States, Haiti and Colombia. Members live out the mission dedicating themselves in various fields: medical field, education, community work, business, apostolic works, pastoral ministry, prison work, etc., but always having a special attention for the poorest. Where mankind is found, a Pius X Secular Institute member can be found to proclaim to him the Good News of the Gospel.

Members meet as a team on a weekly basis around the person of Jesus to listen to Him, pray together and share on their apostolic and spiritual life. These meetings, centered on the meditation of the Word of God, is the place where our Family spirit grows and where everyone can become enthusiastic for the apostolate that is being realized.

In Canada, there are teams in the province of Quebec in different regions: Quebec City, Montreal, Beauce, Saguenay and Lac St-Jean. Furthermore, there is a team in the Windsor (Ontario) region as well a member living in New Brunswick.