Vatican II encouraged religious to stop living apart from the world' and instead become part and parcel of it. Many have responded. But awkward questions arise in consequence. One of the most disturbing is the one that few of them now caught up in 'life in the world', and deeply committed to pastoral work and evangelisation, seem able to ignore: Does belonging to a religious order mean anything nowadays? The author is a Capuchin of the Toulouse Province. He teaches theology at the French Centre National des Vocations and also works as 'animateur' at the Formation Permente du Clerge of the Institute Catholique de Paris.