Catholic laity

The responsibilities of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, a dicastery of the Roman Curia based in Vatican City, were transferred to the newly established Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life as of 1 September 2016.[4]

The council "...assists the Pope in all matters concerning the contribution the lay faithful make to the life and mission of the Church, whether as individuals or through the various forms of association that have arisen and constantly arise within the Church."[5]

This dicastery emerged from the Decree on the Lay Apostolate of the Second Vatican Council, Apostolicam Actuositatem.[6] It was officially created by Pope Paul VI on 6 January 1967, with the motu proprio Catholicam Christi Ecclesiam.[7]

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Within the Catholic Church, the rights of the Catholic laity in regards to the Church are found in the Code of Canon Law. A new Code of Canon Law was promulgated in 1983, to incorporate teachings from the Second Vatican Council. In particular, Canons 224-231 of the 1983 Code outline the general and specific canonical rights of lay persons in the Catholic Church.[8]

Prior to 1972, no lay liturgical ministries existed, only the minor orders and major orders. The minor orders were, in effect, the lower orders of the clerical state and were reserved for those preparing for the priesthood: Acolyte, Exorcist, Lector or reader, and Ostiarius or porter.

As a result of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, on 15 August 1972 Pope Paul VI issued the motu proprio Ministeria quaedam[9] which suppressed the minor orders and replaced them with two ministries, those of lector and acolyte. A major difference was: "Ministries may be assigned to lay Christians; hence they are no longer to be considered as reserved to candidates for the sacrament of orders."[9]

The following are requirements for admission to the ministries:

• the presentation of a petition that has been freely made out and signed by the aspirant to the Ordinary (the bishop and, in clerical institutes, the major superior) who has the right to accept the petition;
• a suitable age and special qualities to be determined by the conference of bishops;
• a firm will to give faithful service to God and to the Christian people.

The ministries are conferred by the Ordinary through the liturgical rites De institutione lectoris and De institutione acolythi as revised by the Apostolic See.

An interval, determined by the Holy See or the conferences of bishops, shall be observed between the conferring of the ministries of reader and acolyte whenever more than one ministry is conferred on the same person."[9]

It was originally the case that the instituted ministries of lector and acolyte were reserved to men.[9] In 2021 Pope Francis issued the motu proprio “Spiritus Domini”, which changed canon 230 § 1 of the Code of Canon Law to allow both men and women to be instituted in these ministries.[10][11]

In place of instituted ministries, there is widespread use of commissioned or temporarily designated readers, altar servers and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, which can be undertaken by both men and women.

Conditions for the extension of these roles can be found in The General Instruction of the Roman Missal. In relation to readers, Instruction #101 says: "In the absence of an instituted lector, other laypersons may be commissioned to proclaim the readings from Sacred Scripture. They should be truly suited to perform this function and should receive careful preparation, so that the faithful by listening to the readings from the sacred texts may develop in their hearts a warm and living love for Sacred Scripture."[12] As regards altar servers and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, Instruction #100 says: "In the absence of an instituted acolyte, lay ministers may be deputed to serve at the altar and assist the priest and the deacon; they may carry the cross, the candles, the thurible, the bread, the wine, and the water, and they may also be deputed to distribute Holy Communion as extraordinary ministers."[12]

An option to institute the other minor orders was retained in this document, in that a Bishops Conference may request permission from the Apostolic See "if they judge the establishment of such offices in their region to be necessary or very useful because of special reasons. To these belong, for example, the ministries of porter, exorcist, catechist, as well as others to be conferred on those who are dedicated to works of charity, where this ministry had not been assigned to deacons."[9]

There are many thousands of Catholic lay organisations existing at a local, diocesan, national / bishops conference or international level. They cover the whole spectrum of Catholic lay life, from their faith and social action to the professions in which they work.

The majority have sought and been given backing by the appropriate ecclesiastical authority. However, others have invoked the right contained in Canon 215 to form a Catholic Association without ecclesiastical approval. In these circumstances the only prescription on them is that they cannot use the term "Catholic" in their name (Can. 216).

The Pontifical Council for the Laity is the body responsible for approving those Catholic Associations that exist at an international level.[20]

The structure of some Religious Orders allows for lay branches to be associated with them. These are sometimes referred to as Third Orders.

Some of the best known Catholic lay organizations are Knights of Columbus, Knights of Columba, Catenians, and Knights of Malta. There are also many lay Catholic guilds and associations representing a whole range of professions. These include the Catholic Police Guild, Holy Name Society (NYPD), the Association of Catholic Nurses, the Guild of Catholic Doctors, the Catholic Physicians Guild, the Catholic Association of Performing Arts (UK), and the Catholic Actors Guild of America.

In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the Queen of Angels Foundation was established in 2011 by Mark Anchor Albert. The Foundation, an association of lay faithful dedicated to fostering devotion to Mary, Mother of Jesus, is a volunteer group of lay men and women who "...strive together in a common endeavor to foster a more perfect life for themselves and their community by promoting reverence for the Blessed Virgin Mary, in whose name, as Our Lady of the Angels, the City and Archdiocese of Los Angeles were founded..." and whom Catholics revere as Queen of Heaven and Empress of the Americas.[21] The Queen of Angels Foundation is the official sponsor of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles' annual celebration of the City of Los Angeles' founding. This Votive Mass & Grand Marian Procession take place in Downtown Los Angeles on the last Saturday of August.

Organisations such as Opus Dei and Miles Jesu are ostensibly Catholic lay organisations which are overseen by clergy associated and / or affiliated with them. The structure of these organisations is termed a "personal prelature".

In recent years many lay advocacy groups have formed, some in response to the clerical sex abuse crisis.

Reforms advocated by these groups would include:

• the binding of the Catholic Hierarchy to a universal and comprehensive system of transparency and accountability relating to their governance of the Church;
• the mandatory empowerment of the laity to a degree of oversight and scrutiny at every level of the Church – local, diocesan, provincial, national / bishops conference, international, dicastery;
• automatic consultative and collaborative rights for the laity at every level of the Church;
• increased lay access to and involvement with ministry within the Church;
• freedom of speech and an end of censorship.[22][23][24][25]

Clericalism might be described as any attempt to exaggerate the importance of the priesthood as a focus of power and privilege.[32] It was described by a bishop at Vatican II as one of the three main evils that had typified the Church in the previous centuries.[33] Some would say that it accompanies a new wave of traditionalism that grew during the pontificate of John-Paul II.[34] In April 2011, during a conference in Milwaukee, United States, on the clergy child sex abuse scandal, the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said: "There are signs of a new clericalism, which may even at times be ably veiled behind appeals for deeper spirituality or for more orthodox theological positions." Martin added that he planned to require all seminarians to "carry out some part of their formation with lay people so that they can establish mature relationships with men and women and not develop any sense of their priesthood giving them a special social position."[35]

Pope Francis has endeavored in many ways to lift up the laity in the Church, with "continual blasting of clericalism and his references to the “one, holy People of God'."[36] He declared that the "hour of the laity" has arrived and decried clericalism as rife in the Church, saying that it "leads to the functionalization of the laity,[37] From the start of his papacy Francis referred to the laity as "missionary disciples"[38] with an apostolate of their own, submissive to but not requiring the direction of the hierarchy.[39]

Clericalism has been viewed as a barrier to improving lay rights and greater access to positions of supervision, oversight, and administration in the Church, as well as to increased involvement in Church ministry.[40] A classic example of clericalism comes from Monsignor George Talbot in 1867, in his critique of the position of John Henry Newman in his article "On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine",[41] which was published in the Rambler in July 1859. Talbot is quoted as saying to Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster:

Dr. Newman is the most dangerous man in England, and you will see that he will make use of the laity against Your Grace. You must not be afraid of him. ...What is the province of the laity? To hunt, to shoot, to entertain. These matters they understand, but to meddle with ecclesiastical matters they have no right at all, and this affair of Newman is a matter purely ecclesiastical.[42]

John Henry Newman was a proponent of increased Catholic lay involvement in the life of the Church.[43] After publishing "On Consulting..." Newman was looked upon with grave suspicion and distrust by many of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales, and in Rome where Talbot had worked in the Papal Curia.[43] Newman was made a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879; Talbot, whose "notorious want of judgment" was noted by the biographer C. Butler, died in an asylum at Passy near Paris in 1886.[44] Talbot had asked Newman "Who are the laity?" to which Newman responded that "the Church would look foolish without them."[43]

• The Code of Canon Law