A Friar Is Not a Monk

Concerning Hugo Quintana’s otherwise sensitive and enjoyable review of “La Virgen” (Calendar, Dec. 17): The use of “friar” and “monk” are not interchangeable. Friars are members of religious orders (e.g. Franciscan or Dominican) who move in and out of friaries and do pastoral and teaching ministries in the midst of the greater world. Monks (e.g. Benedictines, Camaldolese, Carthusians, Cistercians) live in monasteries, take vows of stability that friars do not take, leave their monasteries only by way of exception and view their primary work as prayer for the world and the praise of God.

Both are worthy callings, but they are distinctly different. I am not familiar enough with the Guadalupe story to know if the individuals referred to in the story were friars or monks, although my suspicion would be friars, but they were either one or the other. They certainly were not both.

FR. PATRICK MULLEN

Berkeley