ASSISTENTE (L') ECCLESIASTICO. — Monthly journal published under the auspices of the Central College of Ecclesiastical Assistants of Italian Catholic Action. It began publication in 1931, with the aim of providing local assistants with information and working directives from the various branches of Italian Catholic Action, compiled and easily consulted. The journal also includes various articles on issues in Catholic life, but always with a practical tone and orientation.
Luigi Cardini
ECCLESIASTICAL ASSISTANT. - This is the priest appointed by the legitimate ecclesiastical Authority to Catholic Action Associations with the task of: a) representing the Authority itself within them and ensuring faithful observance of its prescriptions and directive norms; b) providing, through the aids of the Sacred Ministry, suitable spiritual, catechetical, liturgical, and apostolic formation for members and leaders; c) promoting, with due authorizations, courses of spiritual exercises, days and weeks of prayer and study for this purpose, directing their religious and spiritual aspects.
The Ecclesiastical Assistant is assigned not only to local Associations but also to individual diocesan and national governing bodies, in which case he takes the name of diocesan Assistant, or central, general, or national Assistant.
His juridical participation in the deliberations of governing bodies has undergone emphases and attenuations depending on the needs of the moment. In Italy, for example, after 1931, the Ecclesiastical Assistant, together with the president (male or female), constituted the presidency, and thus his function was deliberative on any matter. The Statutes of 1946 restored to the Ecclesiastical Assistant the exclusive function outlined in the above definition, in order to grant laypeople greater autonomy and responsibility in those matters not explicitly reserved to the Ecclesiastical Assistant or concerning which he did not possess a kind of veto right.
Pontifical documents have always highlighted the decisive importance of the work of the Ecclesiastical Assistant within Catholic Action, up to the incisive formula given by Pius XI: «Catholic Action is what the Ecclesiastical Assistants make of it.»