What is a lay association of the Christian Faithful?

A lay association can be literally any group of Catholic lay people who come together for a common purpose related to the Catholic Faith. According to canon law, in associations, “the Christian faithful … strive in a common endeavor to foster a more perfect life, to promote public worship orChristian doctrine, or to exercise other works of the apostolate such as initiatives of evangelization, works of piety or charity, and those which animate the temporal order with a Christian spirit.” Lay associations are able to exercise certain rights and have certain responsibilities depending on whether they are deemed private or public. We are seeking to form a public lay association.

Why does the Ignatian Mission Center need to form a public lay association?

We want to be able to provide spiritual formation and promote spiritual devotions, in part by bringing people together at locations including St. Ignatius Church. A lay association can only take stewardship of what’s know as ecclesiastical property, like St. Ignatius Church, if it’s a public lay association. Any association that intends “to hand on Christian doctrine in the name of the Church or to promote public worship, or which intend(s) other purposes whose pursuit is of its nature reserved to the same ecclesiastical authority,” has to be created as a public lay association with the approval of the local bishop or archbishop.

What are the aims of the lay association?

We want to be able to promote spiritual devotions, come together to serve others in our neighborhood and give Catholics the opportunity to participate in hands-on works of Christian charity. According to our draft statutes, “The Ignatian Mission Center Society, Societas Missio Centrum Ignatii, exists to serve the whole person in an integrated way, informed by Catholic teaching and acting as an example of Christian fellowship in a society that increasingly finds that fellowship alien.”

The society takes its “inspiration from Catholic social teaching and the spirituality and life example of St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Alberto Hurtado. We seek comfort and spiritual enrichment through devotion to St. Ignatius, St. Alberto Hurtado, Nuestra Virgen de la Nube, Our Lady of Guadalupe and El Señor de los Milagros.”

Where is the Ignatian Mission Center Society in the process of forming a lay association?

After consulting two canon lawyers, we hired a third canon lawyer in early 2023 and filed statutes with the Chancery Office of the Archdiocese of Chicago in April 2023. (Statutes are like articles ofincorporation for Catholic institutions.) Church officials have reviewed them and provided some feedback to us. After we wrote a letter to Cardinal Cupich in fall 2024 explaining how we would change our statutes in light of that feedback, we have since revised them and are readying their resubmittal to the Archdiocese.

What does this have to do with the 2019 discernment processes of St. Ignatius and the 2020 Renew My Church process?

The idea of a mission center originally grew out of the discernment process of 2019 and was endorsed in the Renew My Church process—and in the Cardinal’s decision letter regarding St. Ignatius and the other two parishes in the area grouping, St. Jerome and St. Gertrude. During the discernment, in addition to religious education, one of the highest-scoring options for the mission center idea was service to immigrants, who now make up the majority of the Ignatian Mission Center Food Pantry's clients.

What will happen if the lay association is approved?

We would hold an assembly of members to elect a governing board, which would then control the Ignatian Mission Center 501 (c)(3) nonprofit and be able to purchase St. Ignatius Church and keep it a Catholic place of worship, as a shrine. We would use the church for retreats, days of recollection and various devotions, with Mass offered in conjunction with these spiritual events, but with the aim of not competing with local parishes. Our precise activities would depend on what our members want to pursue and the focus of the shrine. At the same time, we would repurpose the rectory as transitional housing for women and children escaping domestic violence, as well as office and meeting space, and renovate the church basement for use by the food pantry and other social services, along with meeting space for the association and the community.

(Updated fall 2025)