Salt Lake City Diocese hopes to start something new with lay ministry for OCIA
The Diocese of Salt Lake City has created a lay ministry role called “Worthy and Suitable Catechists” to help administer minor rites in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA). Bishop Oscar A. Solis commissioned 31 catechists from 25 parishes at the Utah Catholic Conference on Sept. 19; the diocese says it is the first in the United States to establish the role. The catechists may administer certain special blessings and minor exorcisms as they accompany and prepare catechumens and Catholics for the sacraments of initiation. The diocese hopes the initiative will inspire similar ministries elsewhere.
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Salt Lake City’s Catholic diocese has commissioned 31 lay catechists to lead certain minor rites for people entering or completing initiation into the Church. The initiative is intended to help parishes accompany participants more fully, particularly amid shortages of priests and deacons, and the diocese says it may be the first in the United States to establish this role.
Bishop Oscar A. Solis commissioned the catechists—designated “Worthy and Suitable Catechists”—on Sept. 19 during the Utah Catholic Conference in Draper. They represent 25 of the diocese’s parishes, across a state where the diocese serves nearly 200,000 Catholics.
The catechists can administer nine specified blessings and 11 minor exorcisms in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA). Minor exorcisms are prayers intended to help people resist the influence of evil and sin; the rites are part of the Church’s process of preparing people for initiation and supporting them in their faith.
The diocese says its authorization draws on the OCIA ritual and the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Priests and deacons may also administer the rites, but lay catechists can make them more accessible within parish-based initiation programs.
Lorena Needham, the diocese’s director of worship, said the blessings and minor exorcisms can help people through doubts and setbacks and prepare them for initiation. She also reported increased interest among people seeking to complete their initiation or have their marriages blessed, while the number seeking baptism has remained steady.
Needham described the arrangement as a way for the whole parish team to participate in Christian initiation, especially when a priest or deacon is unavailable. The commissioned catechists generally have substantial experience as certified catechists, lay ecclesial ministers, or other lay church leaders.
Two newly commissioned catechists, John Valdez of St. James the Just Parish in Ogden and Teranie Pelch of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Sandy, said they had already administered blessings in their new role. Pelch said the authority allows lay leaders to use more of the OCIA ritual’s rites to support catechumens’ journeys.
Valdez, an OCIA coordinator involved in initiation ministry since the 1990s, said parish coordinators had discussed how to include the full range of rites. He hopes other dioceses—and eventually communities beyond the United States—will consider the approach.
Pelch and Needham encouraged dioceses to review the ritual text and invest in lay ministers’ professional and theological formation. They said empowering laypeople is particularly important in a rural, mission diocese that spans an entire state.
Lay participation and delegated ministry in Christian initiation rites
Lay participation in Christian initiation is real and important, but it is not interchangeable with ordained ministry. The Church’s sources distinguish the whole community’s participation and the lay faithful’s proper roles from particular liturgical functions that may be entrusted to them under defined conditions.
Laypeople have a vital part in preparing candidates for baptism and Christian instruction. The General Introduction to Christian Initiation specifically calls for catechists and other laypeople to work with priests and deacons in this preparation. At the celebration, the wider community—including family, godparents, friends and parishioners—is to take an active part, expressing the Church’s shared faith and welcoming the newly baptized.
Laypeople may also assist the celebrant in those parts of the baptismal rite that pertain to them; the liturgical books provide for this, especially when many people are being baptized. This is assistance within the rite, not a general authorization to perform every part of it.
The sources recognize that, when necessary, laypeople may receive particular functions connected with pastoral ministry. But undertaking a liturgical task does not make a layperson a pastor or an ordained minister: the task’s legitimacy depends on the competent authority’s formal deputation and remains subject to ecclesiastical direction.
Baptism provides a clear example of the limits. In an emergency, even a layperson may baptize; the Church also permits a layperson to be designated as an extraordinary minister of baptism when no ordinary minister is available or the ordinary minister is impeded. The Church cautions against treating this as a standing convenience: workload, a priest’s absence from the parish, or a family’s preferred date do not by themselves justify the delegation.
Because emergencies can arise, the Church also calls for laypeople—including parents and catechists—to be taught how to baptize in an emergency. This practical preparation does not mean that they ordinarily preside at baptisms.
The sources support substantial lay involvement in catechesis and preparation, and they recognize that the lay ministry of catechist can encompass a variety of functions. In situations where ordained ministers are not stably present, such ministry may share in pastoral action; the community should nevertheless understand the catechist as a collaborator, not a substitute for a priest or deacon.
The supplied sources do not specify which individual minor rites in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults may be assigned to lay ministers, or the precise conditions for each. Those details must be determined from the applicable liturgical books and competent ecclesiastical authority. The general principle is clear: lay participation should be fostered, but delegation is specific, authorized and not a means of erasing the distinction between lay and ordained ministry.