What can we say about various associations and movements? Let’s
keep in mind this runs the whole gamut: associates of religious
orders, associations like the Knights of Columbus, more radical
groups like Pax Christi, live-in lay communities, and the like.
Pope John Paul II said a lot in his post-synodal apostolic
exhortation in 1979: 261. The purpose of the various
“associations, movements and groups of the faithful” (Cf.
Catechesi Tradendae 70) which develop in a particular Church is
to help the disciples of Jesus Christ to fulfil their lay
mission in the world and in the Church. In such associations
Christians devote themselves to “the practice of piety, the
direct apostolate, charity and relief work, or a Christian
presence in temporal matters”. (Catechesi Tradendae 70 mentions
those associations, movements and groups of faithful in which
the catechetical aspects of their formation are attended to but
which do not give rise, properly speaking, to environments of
chatechizing.) In all of these associations