Catholic laity is within the scope of WikiProject Catholicism, an attempt to better organize and improve the quality of information in articles related to the Catholic Church. For more information, visit the project page.CatholicismWikipedia:WikiProject CatholicismTemplate:WikiProject CatholicismCatholicism
This template was considered for deletion on 2019 December 14. The result of the discussion was "no consensus".
Organization
Please keep the different groups alphabetical and only include one link for each group. I don't want arguments re:importance of each. Should we split third orders with a divider? >> Jesus Loves You!M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 10:45, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Requested move
The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Movements
It would be helpful or even necessary to provide a definition of "lay movement", so as to indicate, for instance, what makes Apostolate for Family Consecration a lay movement (as it has been listed) but excludes from the category of "lay movement" the following associations of the faithful that were listed separately from movements: Catholic Charismatic Renewal · Couples for Christ · Fellowship of Catholic University Students · Knights of Columbus · L'Arche · Legion of Mary · Madonna House · Worldwide Marriage Encounter.
I have added a navigation list of Wikipedia articles that certainly and sourcedly fit within the category of "international associations of the faithful with official recognition". Esoglou (talk) 08:23, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For starters, these have called themselves movements and participated in events such as Pentecost 1998 and 200X which spoke of "new movements". They have a certain dynamism and freshness. Second, they have a specific spiritual heritage that would make them mutually exclusive; this is not a perfect division since L'Arche and Madonna House also have such spiritualities. Third, can you give me a week to get back to you to find a better listing. Trust me, defining a movement is not easy and it has generally only been done by pointing to the movements and saying these are movements. (By the way, I like how it is now dividing internationally approved and not so.) >> Jesus Loves You!M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 16:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There must be some reason for saying that some group you point to is a movement and some other group you point to is not. If those associations that participated in the events you mention were "movements", why do you consider Catholic Charismatic Renewal not a "movement"? You mention freshness as a necessary qualification for being a "movement" and point to the 1933 Catholic Workers Movement as fresh, but not the more numerous Legion of Mary, 12 years older. Is 1925 or thereabouts the cut-off year? Is there any objective reason that explains why you point to the Apostolate for Family Consecration as a "movement", but to the Fellowship of Catholic University Students as not a "movement"? In short, what is a "movement", as opposed to a generic association of the faithful? We have for "association of the faithful" the description in the Code of Canon Law as Catholics who "strive in a common endeavour to foster a more perfect life, to promote public worship or Christian doctrine, or to exercise other works of the apostolate such as initiatives of evangelization, works of piety or charity, and those which animate the temporal order with a Christian spirit". For "lay movement", what have we? Esoglou (talk) 17:44, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The difference is clearly not canonical - under canon law movements are associations but the argument was that they are a subgroup worth seperating. I am asking a friend (non-Wikipedian) who knows these things better than I. I have a general sense but I can't figure out the right way to express it. >> Jesus Loves You!M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 08:11, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Opus Dei prelature is technically not a movement nor a society
Thank you for your template.
I would like to clarify that Opus Dei is technically not a movement nor a society, being a prelature that is more akin to a diocese and to military ordinariates that are institutional hierarchical structures organized by the Church itself and not from among laity.
Added: you may note all the categories save the first are not movements but societies. We agreed there was a similarity and "society" was the best general word for them all.>> M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 19:30, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think Lafem is right about the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei. It began as an association of the faithful (mainly but not exclusively lay people), but it is different now. Associations of the faithful are distinguished from institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life (see canon 298 §1 of the Code of Canon Law) although these too began as associations of the faithful or what used to be called piae uniones. Esoglou (talk) 08:20, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think we all agree about the canonical status of Opus Dei. The idea of this template was to unite all the different lay spiritualities in the Church (in some ways paralleling Template:Catholic congregation). However, from the beginning the canonical differences started separating the template into many subsections (if I remember right, User:Esoglou is primarily responsible for this). I think that there is a value of combining all the spiritualities directed at lay Catholics into one navbox as this has attempted to do. I doubt there would be much distinction about whether Opus Dei is a spirituality directed to lay Catholics. The question may be more general: is there a value in this combination of lay-oriented spiritualities in one navbox? Or would it be better to separate this in parts based on canonical status? I am evidently for keeping them together since they are together based on their COMMON orientation towards lay people. I believe that canon law should serve the organizations that exist, not that the organizations should be pigeon-holed by canon law.>> M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 16:42, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You don't suppose that Catholic dioceses and military ordinariates and the like are clergy-oriented, not lay-oriented? They are certainly no less lay-oriented than the personal prelature of Opus Dei as at present constituted. The personal prelature has 2,035 priests serving a mere 89,005 Catholics (including, of course, the priests), a proportion of 2.29%. This proportion is far higher than, for instance, that of the Archdiocese of New York (which has a very high number of religious priests, more than its diocesan priests), a proportion of only 0.07%. Even before being given its present juridical arrangement, Opus Dei's membership included very many priests. Even then, it was no more lay-oriented than perhaps any diocese you care to mention.
I think the present canon-law-based pigeon-holing is basically your creation, with retouches by me: Lay movements, Third orders, Confraternities, (Personal prelature), Officially recognized international associations, Others.
Why is there so much duplication? Eight of the eleven "lay movements" are given again as "international associations of the faithful with official recognition". Or, to put the question another way, why do none of the other five international associations qualify as "movements"? Esoglou (talk) 08:43, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed the duplication and was leaving it off the table for now. I will fix it.
I went through the whole history of this template step by step. I was the one who separated it into sections (you were right). The duplication was a result of our discussion in February as to whether movements should have a separate section. They were moved down below from the first section then copied above but not deleted. The edit where they first appear twice was done by you but I think it was a little sloppiness on both our parts not to notice this.
The difference between Opus Dei and a diocese is that Opus Dei proposes a specific Spiritual [Charism] or way of life to its members while a diocese, military or not, doesn't propose a specific charism but Catholic life in general (probably not the best term but I can't think of anything better right now). In this way it is similar to a religious order yet none of the groups listed here are religious orders since they are directed primarily towards the laity (hence my note that it parallels Template:Catholic congregation. Others also have many priests. I am fairly certain Schoenstatt does but their Wikipedia article doesn't list them. Regnum Christi has 953 priests in the Legion of Christ and other diocesan priests for 70,000 members so ends up with at least 1.36% priests. The point is that it is a charism directed towards lay people' not towards forming a religious community; it is not based on specific numbers like dioceses.
This discussion is helping clarify. Maybe some title like. Lay Catholic Charims would be clearer to avoid other groups such as dioceses. My main point is that there is something common among these groups that is worth a common navbox.>> M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 12:18, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Every institute of consecrated life and society of apostolic life for sisters or brothers proposes a specific charism and is directed towards lay people, but it is not officially classified as an association of the faithful. There is no evidence that the Personal Prelature of Opus Dei is officially classified as an association of the faithful. Dioceses and eparchies also can be said to propose a specific charism, Latin or Eastern, to their members. Of the associations listed in the template very few, if any, are directed exclusively to lay people. One might think that "Worldwide Marriage Encounter" is exclusively lay, but it surely would not reject an Eastern-rite married priest and his wife who were interested. Accordingly, a "charism directed (specifically) towards lay people" does not seem to mark the associations that have been included in this template. Esoglou (talk) 14:30, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not every institute of consecrated life is directed to lay people; it could be a contemplative community directed to praying for priests and individual holiness of the members. Every society of apostolic life has an apostolate. However, lay people are not called to become members of an institute of consecrated life and although those in a society of apostolic life lack a change in canonical status upon joining (since they lack vows), that is something different (another project: societies of apostolic life need their own navbox). I had started a discussion on the talk page of User:Lafem who began this discussion, and he seems satisfied with the change of title (User_talk:Lafem#Opus_Dei_-_Society) even though he has not replied here.>> M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 10:18, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Every institute of consecrated life for sisters or brothers is meant for lay people: the members are exclusively lay people, not clergy. Very few if any of the listed associations are meant exclusively for lay people. That is how I understood "directed towards". Esoglou (talk) 18:13, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think that Wikipedia should reflect reliable sources. What is unsourced is the classification of these associations as "movements". Esoglou (talk) 14:32, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a little busy off Wikipedia so I don't have time to source that these are movements now. We both agreed that repetition should be avoided. I think until I have time to research "movements" beyond self-identification (I have meant to make a page on lay ecclesial movements sep arate from associations of the faithful but need to set a few hours aside to have it at a level to avoid deletion), let's do the following: 1. move International associations of the faithful with official recognition to the top of the navbox, 2. eliminate the 8 movements repeated, 3. remove the list of movements completely, and 4. move the other 3 movements to the last section which could be simplified to "Other associations of the faithful". All movements, all 3rd orders, and all confraternities are associations of the faithful according to canon law.>> M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 10:12, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
