Identity of Ecclesiastical Lay Movements: Spirituality, Community and Communitarian Civic Involvement

In recent decades, social theory has seen a renewed interest in the community. The communitarian movement has shown that community life is not only important for the private life of its members, but also plays an irreplaceable role for the proper functioning of social and political lives. Specifically, the communitarians have emphasized the role of civil associations and characteristics of a genuine community. In the same period and even several decades earlier, a series of new ecclesiastical lay movements, communities and associations arose in the Church. The paper analyzes common elements of the identity of lay movements, as reflected in the case of some Slovenian associations and movements. The attention is then focused on the public and civil operation of the movements and their members. The following aspects are important: what is the attitude of a movement to public action; does the public action concern the individuals or the whole movement, and in what ways do the movements provide support to their active members?