However, given the unique role of priests and religious, they cannot be replaced by lay ministers. We certainly need a sufficient number of ordained priests for the celebration of the sacraments, but also the Church would be diminished without the evangelical witness of religious and priests. A religious order priest belongs to a religious community, such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, etc., who strive to live out the charism of their founder and often have a particular type of ministry, e.g., education, health care. They usually live in community and they take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Diocesan priests, also called secular priests, are ordained for a local church, a geographical area, and generally serve in parishes, although they also assist in schools, hospitals, prisons, etc., depending upon the local needs.
Religious priests take a vow of chastity and diocesan priests promise celibacy.
Each religious order has a founder who was inspired to meet a certain need or respond to a specific situation in the history of the Church. Those orders whose mission or charism addresses ongoing concerns, tend to survive, but many religious orders have gone into and out of existence in the Church s long history. New religious orders are even beginning in our day and age as women and men strive to apply and live the Gospel in these circumstances. A deacon is an ordained minister of the Church who can preach, baptize, witness marriages, and preside at burials. Both are ordained, but a deacon is a sacramental sign of the service which all Christians are to offer to the world and a priest is to represent Christ as the head of the Church through the three-fold ministry to teach, sanctify and lead.