Abstract
For those who wish to understand the contemporary development of the religious orders, it is essential to examine events in “the Europe of Brussels”. In this political space, the leading actors of Catholicism are developing strategies to counterbalance political modernity. Affirming the presence of the religious in the political sphere, they focus on the education of their members concerning European problems and, at the same time, bring action to the heart of the European Union. These strategies testify on the one hand to the violence of the transformations which are shaking the foundations of Catholic religious life and on the other to the modernity of the religious orders.