Skip to main content

Vision & Mission

The Lay Centre

Our Vision

To inspire and prepare future leaders to serve the Church and the world.
The Lay Centre

Our Mission

We offer lay women and men a meaningful experience of community life as well as impactful programs for human, spiritual, intellectual and professional development.
The Lay Centre

Our Core Values

Faith, Hospitality, Dialogue, and the Care for Our Common Home are the core values that inspire us in everything we do.

1 - Community Life in Rome

2 - Dialogue with the World

3 - Visiting Scholars

1 - Retreats for Lay People

2 - Nurturing Prayer

3 - Encouraging Discernment

The Lay Centre

1 - Community Evenings

2 - Lay Leadership Scholarship Program

3 - Conferences

1 - Rome Seminars for Church Leaders

2 - Summer Lay Leadership Program

3 - Mentorship Network

The Lay Centre first opened its doors October 1, 1986, as a “college” for lay students enrolled at the pontifical universities, institutes and athenae in Rome. The first student community included nine young adults from three countries and four Christian denominations.

 

Donna Orsuto and Riekie van Velzen founded the international Catholic Christian community. They were committed to continuing the charism of ecumenical hospitality and dialogue fostered by the Ladies of Bethany, an order of Dutch nuns, who carried out this charism for decades from their guesthouse in Rome, called the Casa Foyer Unitas.

The Casa Foyer Unitas, located in the Collegio Innocenziano in Piazza Navona, played in important role during the Second Vatican Council, hosting ecumenical observers who met weekly in the neighbouring Centro Pro Unione for debriefings with Council Fathers and special consultors.

 

The Ladies of Bethany continued their mission until the mid-1980s, when age and changes to the Roman municipal codes prompted them to downsize their efforts. This opened the way for their two student assistants to come up with a new initiative to keep the spirit of Foyer Unitas alive. They called it The Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas.

The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre

For the next 15 years, The Lay Centre operated in a space on the fourth floor of the Collegio Innocenziano.

In 1992, when the Ladies of Bethany retired from Rome entirely, a formal board of directors was established and The Lay Centre came out from under the Foyer Unitas umbrella, incorporating in Italy and in the United States as a nonprofit organization.

In 2001, The Lay Centre was called upon to relocate, and the community found a home on the grounds of the Pontifical Irish College in what is now the Villa Irlanda guesthouse.

In 2009, The Lay Centre moved to its current location in the centre of historic Rome, within the Passionist Monastery of San Giovanni e Paolo, on the Caelian Hill.

Over a 30-year span, more than 270 students and scholars have lived and been formed at The Lay Centre. They have come from 64 countries, with the largest contingent – about 37 per cent – from the United States.

As well, people of 13 religious traditions have been welcomed among its student community, including Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Unitarian Universalist, and T’ienti Teachings. Among the Christians, the majority have been Roman Catholic (85 per cent of the Christians; 63 per cent of the total). Other Christians have included Anglican, Coptic, Lutheran, Methodist, Orthodox, Reformed, Syro-Malabar and Chaldean Catholic.

Most Lay Centre alumni live out their ecclesial vocation as laity, developing careers in education and the nonprofit sector. Others serve the Church in different capacities, such as in ecumenical relations, in diocesan curia or bishops’ conferences. A few have discerned calls to consecrated life or ordained ministry.

Though few in number, the impact of The Lay Centre alumni has been far-reaching and worldwide.

The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre

Donna Orsuto

Co-founder and Senior Advisor

Donna Orsuto is a professor of spirituality at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Originally from the United States, she also lectures and gives retreats worldwide. She has authored two books and numerous articles in the area of spirituality. Dr. Orsuto is active in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. Pope Benedict XVI named her a Dame of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of Saint Gregory the Great in 2011.
The Lay Centre

Riekie van Velzen

Co-founder and Consultant

Henrica (Riekie) van Velzen is an artist, whose work ranges from iconography and ancient painting techniques to digital. Her pieces are exhibited in private collections worldwide and her sacred works have been commissioned for several Italian churches. Through art, she also raises awareness about ecology. A native of the Netherlands, she is a proud grandmother and the mother of two. She and her husband recently moved “back to nature,” outside Rome, where they grow fruit trees and a vegetable garden. Pope Benedict XVI named her a Dame of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of Saint Sylvester in 2011.

Filipe Domingues

Director

Filipe Domingues, a Brazilian journalist, is the director of The Lay Centre. He holds a doctoral degree and a licentiate in Social Sciences from the Pontifical Gregorian University, where he is a lecturer in Communications. He is the author of “Selflessness in the age of selfies: What young people can teach us about social media’s throw-away culture” (G&B Press). In 2018, he attended the Synod on Youth as an expert in media ethics. As a journalist, he contributes from Rome with “O São Paulo” newspaper, in Brazil, and “America Magazine”, in the United States.
The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre
The Lay Centre
Robert J. Gorman