How to Use laity in a Sentence

laity

noun
  • The laity has played an important role in the history of the church.
  • In the initial phases, there will be training and dialogue for priests and laity.
    — Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press, 6 June 2020
  • In a remarkable shift, it is being led by a 2-to-3 margin by laity.
    — Nicole Winfield, The Seattle Times, 31 July 2018
  • The pope reserves the right to make any member of the church a cardinal, including laity.
    — Christopher Watson, ABC News, 25 Apr. 2025
  • The laity were to be monogamous, the holy men celibate, and the actually divine would not even feel lust.
    — S. C. Cornell, The New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2025
  • No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; ’Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love.
    — John Edgar Wideman, The New Yorker, 8 July 2021
  • Laity would play a key role in that effort as top overseer of energy and environmental rules.
    — Hannah Hess, Science | AAAS, 15 June 2017
  • This shift helped to support a general festive culture, as laity found creative ways to fund their local churches.
    — The Editors, JSTOR Daily, 27 Mar. 2025
  • In some temples, a monk’s duty is to sit inside one of the main halls and wait until the laity comes to receive offerings and give blessings.
    — Brooke Schedneck, The Conversation, 27 Mar. 2025
  • That has emboldened bishops and laity to test the limits of Rome’s authority.
    — Francis X. Rocca, WSJ, 29 Sep. 2021
  • Both laity and high-ranking clerics helped cover it up, some even participating by holding the victim down.
    — Audrey Clare Farley, The New Republic, 13 Dec. 2022
  • No member of the laity or clergy may conduct a worship service or a devotion of any kind in a church, or other location.
    — al, 17 Mar. 2020
  • It's run mostly by laity, but in cooperation with church prelates and the wider Catholic hierarchy.
    — Fox News, 28 Aug. 2022
  • Among the laity there are now serious efforts to draft and institute reforms that would ensure bishops tell the truth and are held accountable.
    — William McGurn, WSJ, 30 July 2018
  • For the next seventy years, the esoteric practice slowly spread among the Buddhist laity.
    — David Kortava, Harper's Magazine, 16 Mar. 2021
  • Her selection was controversial among the Black church’s leadership and laity.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 May 2026
  • Collected here are examples of ecclesiastic garb as it has been translated for the laity.
    — Vogue, 3 May 2018
  • Her defection from a youthful spell as a novice nun is both a credential of her expertise and a qualification for talking to the laity.
    — Dominic Green, WSJ, 16 Sep. 2022
  • From this perspective, halachah is a partnership between the laity and the rabbinate, with the laity playing a critical role in the halachic process.
    — Rabbi Avi Weiss, Sun Sentinel, 9 May 2022
  • Another task, in the midst of a clergy shortage, is to lift up the laity to take greater responsibility for their own communities.
    — Hartford Courant, 13 Oct. 2022
  • This recent cultural shift in Western nations has raised difficult questions for Catholics, both clergy and laity.
    — Joanne M. Pierce, The Conversation, 4 Nov. 2022
  • Mindfulness meditation was not widely practiced by the non-monastic Buddhist laity.
    — Charles Preston, Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 Apr. 2026
  • At one end, clergy and laity alike edged forward carrying the great block of stone with reverent heaving so intense, and with such reverent slow motion, that it was believed that angels moved it.
    — Peter Brown, The New York Review of Books, 24 Sep. 2020
  • Delegates are to be seated at round tables, with around a dozen laity and clergy mixed together in the Vatican’s big auditorium.
    — Nicole Winfield, BostonGlobe.com, 20 June 2023
  • More broadly, the laity can powerfully impact the vision, mission, and core values of their respective communities.
    — Rabbi Avi Weiss, Sun Sentinel, 9 May 2022
  • Clergy and laity, faithful and curious, novice and veteran attendees all packed into the world's tiniest country to be a part of the historical moment.
    — Daniel Burke, NPR, 8 May 2025
  • The intense little group must articulate the church’s goals, interview ministerial candidates and present the best applicant to the laity.
    — Washington Post, 3 May 2022
  • The position is currently held by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the head of the Vatican's laity office.
    — Nicole Winfield, Star Tribune, 6 July 2021
  • The position is currently held by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the head of the Vatican’s laity office.
    — Nicole Winfield, ajc, 7 June 2023
  • This suffering is elicited by the intercession of qualified (or ordained) critics and psychotherapists, who join in this communion of pain and distress, and share it with the laity via books and monographs.
    — Will Self, Harper's Magazine, 23 Nov. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'laity.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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