One of the goals of the Mater Ecclesiae Fund for Vocations is to build up the Church by enabling men and women to embark on living their vocations sooner rather than later. That is, they can begin their life of prayer, apostolic work, and mortification for the glory of God. Such a life is likely to be possible only within a religious institute that is faithful to the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church.

Accordingly, the MEFV accepts applications for grants only from individuals entering institutes that have been approved for participation in the MEFV grant programs.

To be approved:

• A religious institute must be in union with the See of Peter. This includes all Roman Catholic religious institutes and those of the Byzantine rite, the Melkite rite, etc.
• A religious institute must be willing to be a party to the grant agreement, acknowledging that the MEFV's promise to pay the grantee's debt as stipulated by the agreement is equivalent to the grantee being debt-free. The agreement also includes reporting requirements for the institute.
• A religious institute must be either an Institute of Consecrated Life or a Society of Apostolic Life in which the members make a public commitment to poverty. This includes institutes in which members make either a vow or a promise of poverty. We do not provide grants to individuals entering the consecrated life of Secular Institutes such as Opus Dei or Regnum Christi.
• A religious institute must have a policy that individuals responsible for any kind of debt may not take vows or promises (either temporary or perpetual). This does not disqualify institutes that agree to pay an aspirant's debt, but the understanding must be that the debt is no longer the responsibility of the professed individual.
• We rely on two associations of religious institutes to help us identify orders that exhibit fidelity to the teaching Magisterium of the Catholic Church and loyalty to the Holy Father:

  A religious institute must be either an affiliate of the Institute on Religious Life (IRL) or a member of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR). In lieu of either of these associations, the vocation director of an approved institute may vouch for another institute.

A word about terminology: We use the more general term religious institute rather than religious order in the approval critera. There are some entities that, strictly speaking, are not orders. But all orders are institutes. Elsewhere though, we may use the terms interchangeably.