Lay ecclesial movements are one form of associations of the faithful of the Catholic Church.
Associations of the faithful are groups of baptized Catholics, clerics or laity or both together, who jointly foster a more perfect life or promote public worship or Christian teaching, or who devote themselves to other works of the apostolate.[1] They are not necessarily established or even praised or recommended by the Church authorities.[2] For a list of the officially approved associations of the faithful that exist on an international level, see Directory of International Associations of the Faithful. Approval for those that exist on a national level can be obtained from the country's episcopal conference, while it is for the local bishop to grant approval to those that exist only at diocesan level. Secular institutes, being institutes of consecrated life,[3] are not classified as associations of the faithful.[4]
Under the 1917 Code of Canon Law, replaced in 1983 by a revised Code, associations of the faithful were called piae uniones (plural of pia unio, in English, "pious union").[5]
A group of people who intend to become a recognized religious institute, secular institute or society of apostolic life will normally come together at first as an association of the faithful, while awaiting the decision of the bishop to establish them, after consulting the Holy See, in the desired form.[6]
A 20th Century resurgence of interest in lay societies culminated in the Second Vatican Council. These societies also have their roots in medieval societies including sodalities (defined in the 1917 Code of Canon Law as associations of the faithful constituted as an organic body),[7] confraternities (similarly defined as sodalities established for the promotion of public worship),[8] communes, and guilds.