1973 – The Community of the Beatitudes was founded by couples who felt called to live together and put everything in common, like the first Christian communities. Celibates soon joined them in a radical community life and intense life of prayer. Vocations to consecrated life and then to the priesthood appeared without delay within this emerging community.
1979 – The Community of the Beatitudes was first recognized as a “pious union.”
1985 – The Community of the Beatitudes was recognized as a Private Association of the Faithful of Diocesan Right. The Community’s rapid and sustained growth led to numerous foundations throughout the world.
2002 – The Pontifical Council for the Laity recognized the Community of the Beatitudes as a Private Association of the Faithful of Pontifical Right, ad experimentum for 5 years.
2007 – The president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity invited the Community of the Beatitudes to reflect on its identity and its canonical structure. He sought to help the different states of life better live out the Community’s charism while taking into account and honoring the specificities of each state of life.
2009 – This led the Community of the Beatitudes onto the path of restructuring as an “ecclesial family of consecrated life.” New statutes were approved.
June, 2011 – The Community was established by His Excellency Robert Le Gall, Archbishop of Toulouse, as a “Public Association of the Faithful of Diocesan Right with a View to Becoming an Ecclesial Family of Consecrated Life.”
On December 8, 2020, during the Mass of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, at the Community General House of Blagnac (in the south of France), His Excellency Robert Le Gall, Archbishop of Toulouse, published the decree erecting the Community of the Beatitudes as an “Ecclesial Family of Consecrated Life” of diocesan right by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life (CIVCSVA).
