LAITY. - In opposition to clerics (v. CLERO), the term in the CIC designates baptized persons who do not hold any rank in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, enjoy common rights, and are bound by common obligations.
I. ETYMOLOGY AND NATURE OF THE LAICAL STATE
The name 1. derives from the Greek word λεχάς, which St. Peter (1 Pt. 2, 10) uses to designate the entire Christian people. Subsequently, the name λεχάς was derived (St. Clement, 1 Cor., cap. 100, 40); Tertullian already uses it as a technical term to indicate the faithful who do not belong to the clergy: a terminology that was later universally accepted up to our own day.In the Catholic Church the laical state is not acquired by birth, but solely by the conferral of Baptism (can. 87), which constitutes the positive element by which one becomes a member of the body of the Church and, by divine right, is subject to ecclesiastical authority; as an essential condition, a negative element is also required: that one is not a member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, whether of order or of jurisdiction. This second element establishes a clear distinction between the clergy and the laity, a distinction of divine right (Council of Trent, Sess. XXIII, cap. 4; CIC, cann. 107, 948), because the hierarchy was explicitly willed and instituted by Jesus Christ. The ecclesiastical hierarchy, if understood in a strict sense, excludes the laity from its sphere, since they cannot in any way participate in the sacrificial, sanctifying, teaching, and jurisdictional power of the Catholic Church (7, C. XII, q. 1); if, instead, the hierarchy is understood in a universal sense, the laity occupy its lowest rank. The state of being a layperson, being founded on the indelible character of Baptism, can never be lost; the crimes of heresy, apostasy, or schism separate one only from the body of the Church, but never from submission to ecclesiastical authority.
II. HISTORY
In ancient law the laity had, compared to later periods, more freedom of action within the ecclesiastical sphere, although the Church has always been little favorable to their intrusion into the hierarchy; many concessions were made only due to the sadness of the times and the needs of the Church. They could be elected priests or bishops (cf. Council of Sardica, can. 10); but the Church tolerated this custom for only a short time, issuing regulations to safeguard the Sacrament of Order. They took part in major assemblies with a consultative vote. They also participated in the election of the bishop, so that it might be shown that the elector enjoyed a good reputation among outsiders (1 Tim. 3, 7). This right, in the early Middle Ages, was transformed into a real abuse and gave rise to the Investiture Controversy (v.). The CIC has substantially modified the juridical condition of the laity, leaving in force only the rights indispensable to their state.
III. RIGHTS
By Baptism the laity become capable, with the necessary safeguards, of receiving the other Sacraments. In case of necessity they may act as ministers in the conferral of Baptism (can. 742 § 2); they may receive Communion and carry the Eucharist as viaticum in times of persecution; in the Latin Church they are the sole ministers of the Sacrament of Matrimony; they have the right to receive from the clergy, according to the norms of ecclesiastical discipline, spiritual goods and especially the aids necessary for spiritual welfare (can. 682). This right is not one of commutative justice, but of legal justice, granted by divine law for the Sacraments necessary by necessity of means or of divine precept; by ecclesiastical law, for the use of Sacraments not necessary by divine precept, and for the Sacraments. Moreover, they may freely choose burial (can. 1223); hold the office of curators and apparitors (can. 1592); they may be appointed notaries, except in criminal cases involving priests (can. 373 § 3); the parish priest may employ the laity for the religious education of children (can. 1333 § 1). They enjoy the right to communicate freely with ecclesiastical superiors, independently of civil authority, to receive religious instruction in the vernacular, and to defend their rights against any violation (14, X, 1, 31).The laity, on the basis of titles prior to the entry into force of the CIC, may enjoy the right of patronage (v. can. 1448); and, by virtue of concordatory concessions and indults, also the right of presentation to a church or to an ecclesiastical benefice (can. 1471): by virtue of such concessions, ecclesiastical authority cannot refuse canonical institution to the presentato, provided he is recognized as suitable (can. 1466 § 1). They may be members of the church factory council (can. 1183 § 1), of the diocesan administration council (can. 1520 § 1), and of the administration councils of churches and pious places (can. 1521 § 1-2): economic activity must always be carried out in the name of the Church, and each year they must render an account of their administration to the local Ordinary. The protection of these rights falls to the local Ordinary and to the Holy See, namely to the Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments for matters concerning the bond of marriage (can. 249 § 3) and to the Congregation of the Council for questions regarding patrimonial rights and precedence (can. 250 § 2). If the same questions are brought before jurisdictional organs, the tribunals of the Holy See are competent, as are they also for crimes against persons and property (can. 1938).
IV. OBLIGATIONS
The laity are bound by the common obligations incumbent upon all the faithful regarding teaching, ecclesiastical power, divine worship, the Sacraments, the order of judgments, and penal law. Those who hold public office in the State have the special obligation to defend and promote publicly the Catholic religion, according to the directives they receive from the bishops and the Holy See. Today this obligation falls upon every layperson when exercising the right to vote: which must be given to those candidates or lists of candidates that offer truly sufficient guarantees for the protection of the rights of God and of souls, for the true good of individuals, families, and society, according to the law of God and Christian moral doctrine (Pius XII, Hortatio Pastoralis ad pa-The laity’s role in the Church and in culture enabled laypeople to participate competently in the governance of public life and to hold offices that had for a time seemed the exclusive preserve of ecclesiastics. Thus the laity grew in importance in the world; yet this rise was neither anti-religious in character nor obstructed by the Church, which in fact perceived the grave danger of worldliness to which ecclesiastics were exposed by the historical circumstances in which they had been placed during the first half of the Middle Ages. VIZI (v.) aimed to shield the Church from that peril and was supported by the laity, who fought alongside the Pope—not against ecclesiastics as such, but against worldly ecclesiastics who championed the pretensions of the emperors.
At the outset of the laity’s evolution, it was fully in command of the administration of civil power in the states that arose with the dissolution of the imperial idea. In Germany and, more generally, in the northern countries, the lords exploited the Protestant movement to seize Church property. This helped to consolidate Protestantism in those lands, thereby extending its influence over European thought and fostering a mentality that embraced an entire conception of life—precisely that of the Enlightenment. The lingering privileges enjoyed by the clergy until the French Revolution merely provided occasion for a struggle aimed at stripping every positive religion, but especially and more directly the Catholic Church, of all influence over society. A concept of life was preached that rested on the exclusion of any supernatural Revelation and was therefore thoroughly rationalistic, with ideals of freedom, equality, and fraternity that were purely worldly, with the exaltation of natural instincts regarded, in Rousseau’s manner, as essentially good, and with the promise of an infallible and imminent worldly happiness as the fruit of human progress (identified with scientific progress), together with a “social” morality concerned only with what preserves and promotes external coexistence, and with principles of friendship and benevolence among men that were not, however, sanctioned by any absolute law superior to mankind. There was also a vague “religion of humanity” intended to replace true worship of the Deity, leaving religion in any case to the consciences of individuals as a purely private affair. In practice, not only was every positive faith opposed, but gradually every form of religiosity came to be viewed with suspicion—rightly so, because it tends necessarily to blossom into that very faith. Much was said, especially in the nineteenth century, of a “lay” state, “lay” schools, and “lay” culture insofar as they were inspired by such notions. The word “lay” was chosen almost as a summons to the laity to form an organization akin to that of the clergy, which it was sought to combat.
The most dramatic manifestations of this outlook occurred in France during the last three decades of the nineteenth century and the decade preceding the First World War (1914–18), culminating in the expulsion of religious teaching orders and the abrogation of the Concordat.
In other countries, too, laicism was hailed as the highest expression of modern civilization and was fostered by governments calling themselves liberal, especially where Freemasonry wielded greater influence. With the First World War, it began to decline, yet its spirit persists in those who, even if belonging to parties and schools of thought otherwise quite diverse, agree in holding an excessively absolute conception of the state. They do not admit the principle that civil society—and hence the state—possesses its own autonomy yet remains subject, in the very essence of its powers and in their exercise, to certain limits. Among these are the supreme and inviolable exigencies of the human person, those of humanity (a sign of the natural society of all men), and, in a Christian country especially, the exigencies of the supernatural spiritual society, the Church. The state is therefore never something absolute, so as to claim to be the source of every right and every power. Even when it declares itself non-denominational, it remains obliged to take account of the religious conscience of its citizens, which is one of the supreme exigencies of the human person; in its legislation and governmental measures it must regulate itself so as to satisfy that exigency. In practice, if the citizens are Catholic, the state must recognize the existence and rights of the Catholic Church, which is one with each of them. The most ordinary and expedient way to this end is to conclude with the Church reasonable agreements that safeguard the rights of both parties—agreements whose effectiveness experience has demonstrated.
Laicism, as a state of mind—that is, as a distrust of the clergy and hierarchy in general—may be fostered by contingent historical circumstances, as was the Roman Question in Italy before the 1929 settlement. The prejudices that arise in such cases are dispelled by the enlightened work of sincere souls on both sides.
GIUSEPPE BOZZETTI
THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. — In the ambiguity of its name and in the variety of snares it employs, laicism conceals many errors and admits of interpretations and practical applications that differ widely. In fact, it is a current of thought or a political and social program that has many points in common and often becomes entangled with, confused with, or identified as liberalism, socialism, communism, Modernism, naturalism, materialism, religious indifferentism, atheism, and so on. Hence the Church’s various condemnations of all these errors implicitly include a condemnation of the principles and practice of laicism.
It is well to recall that this system can take different forms, which may be reduced to three principal ones. Some, even Catholics, while not denying the divine origin and certain rights of the Church, nonetheless maintain the absolute independence of the state, to which ecclesiastical authority should even be subordinate. Others, more logical, arrive at virtually the same conclusions by denying the divine origin and divine institution of the Church, as well as the divinity of its founder, Jesus Christ.
The condemnation of these errors is contained in the condemnation of the following propositions by Pius IX in the Syllabus:
“The Church cannot exercise her authority without the permission and consent of the civil government” (Denz., 1720);
“The state, as the origin and source of all rights, enjoys such a right that is not circumscribed by any limits” (ibid., 1739; cf. 1719).
Moreover, canon 21 of the draft schema proposed to the Fathers of Vatican Council I for a modern and complete formulation of the doctrine on the Church states:
“If anyone says that the laws of the Church have no force unless sanctioned by civil power, or that civil power has the right to judge and command in matters of religion: let him be anathema” (Acta et decreta SS. Conciliorum recentiorum. Appendix. Collatio Lacensis, Freiburg in Br. 1890, col. 578).
The first takes on a third, more rigid and absolutist form: every religion is rejected and the very existence of God is denied, so that every distinction among Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, deists, atheists, etc., is eliminated. The State, in its subjects, sees only human beings; the Italian State recognizes only Italian citizens. Nor is this a matter of mere neutrality, but of real and stubborn opposition: a secular State is synonymous with a State that is irreligious, non-religious, atheistic. Already E. Lavisse (d. 1922) expressly declared: “To be secular means refusing to the religions that pass the right to govern enduring Humanity” (L. Capérán, *L’invasion laïque*, Paris 1935, p. 149). Against these doctrinal aberrations the ecclesiastical magisterium has intervened more than once and with extreme energy. It suffices to recall the encyclicals of Gregory XVI, *Mirari vos*, 15 Aug. 1832 (Denz.-U., 1613 ff.); of Pius IX,