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Canon law of the Catholic Church |
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In the Catholic Church, an association of the Christian faithful or simply association of the faithful (Latin: consociationes christifidelium[1]), sometimes called a public association of the faithful,[2] is a group of baptized persons, clerics or laity or both together, who, according to the 1983 Code of Canon Law, jointly foster a more perfect life or promote public worship or Christian teaching, or who devote themselves to other works of the apostolate.[3]
A 20th-century resurgence of interest in lay societies culminated in the Second Vatican Council, but lay ecclesial societies have long existed in forms such as sodalities (defined in the 1917 Code of Canon Law as associations of the faithful constituted as an organic body),[4] confraternities (similarly defined as sodalities established for the promotion of public worship),[5] medieval communes, and guilds.