Ecclesiastical Participation of the Catholic Laity in the Late Modern Period: The Case of Italian Immigrants in the United States

Abstract:This article focuses on two ancient ecclesiastical institutions, the lay patronage (Ius Patronatus) and the council of the upkeep of the church (Consilium Fabricae Ecclesiae). It attests to how those two institutions, in decline in Italy and almost unknown in the United States in the late modern period, diffused and developed among Italian immigrants in the United States. The aim is to contribute to the historical understanding of the evolution of the ecclesiastical culture of the Catholic laity in the late modern period, in particular before the promulgation of the Codex Iuris Canonici (1917).