About Us
Founded in 1986 and based in Rome, The Lay Centre is a residential community and offers short-term programs for lay people.
Our Vision
Our Mission
Our Core Values
What We Do
The Lay Centre’s mission embraces four priorities:
Cultivating a culture of encounter
By fostering community in diversity, hospitality and service.
1 - Community Life in Rome
Build a multicultural community that is open to living and promoting our core values: faith, dialogue, hospitality and care for our common home.
2 - Dialogue with the World
Organize yearly summer programs aimed at an external audience and that promote encounter and unity.
3 - Visiting Scholars
Facilitate the sojourn of international scholars in Rome for periods of teaching or research, favoring intellectual and intergenerational dialogue.
Nourishing purposeful spiritual journeys
By providing tools for prayer and discernment; centered on our common baptism.
1 - Retreats for Lay People
Organize spiritual retreats for the laity twice a year, one for The Lay Centre community and one for an external public.
2 - Nurturing Prayer
Create opportunities for lay people to grow in their prayer life, so they can learn how to pray, benefit from spiritual accompaniment, access prayer resources, and live the liturgy fully, consciously and actively.
3 - Encouraging Discernment
Motivate the laity to develop the ability to make decisions on a spiritual level, especially in transitional phases of life, and to live their relationship with Christ profoundly and meaningfully.
Engaging young adults with the universal Church
By welcoming them to Rome and building bridges with those who make a difference.
1 - Community Evenings
Organize moments of prayer and dialogue in a community setting, bringing people who represent diversity in unity, the “global Church,” to these discussions.
2 - Lay Leadership Scholarship Program
Offer lay men and women the opportunity to study or work for the Church in Rome during a significant period of time, living in community and sharing the journey with others.
3 - Conferences
Hold public moments of intellectual reflection among community residents and outside guests, addressing crucial issues for the future of the Church.
Stimulating creativity and responsibility among the laity
By providing opportunities for their intellectual and practical development.
1 - Rome Seminars for Church Leaders
Host yearly seminars in Rome, aimed at an international audience, to put them in direct contact with authorities in the Vatican, universities and other Church institutions, in a spirit of pilgrimage and prayer.
2 - Summer Lay Leadership Program
Welcome young professionals, interested in developing a career connected to Church institutions or in living fully their vocation in their professional life, to yearly weeklong programs in Rome.
3 - Mentorship Network
Facilitate opportunities for young adults to receive mentoring from lay men and women, including Lay Centre alumni, who are mature and accomplished in their personal and professional lives, and allowing these mentors to feel accompanied as well, as part of a wider network of people who support the mission.
Our History
The beginnings
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 locations over time
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.
The community
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.
Board of Directors
The Founders
Donna Orsuto
Co-founder and Senior Advisor
Riekie Van Velzen
Co-founder and Consultant
The Director
Filipe Domingues
Non-voting Board Member (ex-officio)
Other Members
Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R.
Newark, NJ, USA
Joseph T. Lynaugh
Ridgewood, NJ, USA
Dianne Traflet
South Orange, NJ, USA
Rev. Mons. Joseph Reilly
South Orange, NJ, USA
Rev. Mark Francis, C.S.V
Chicago, IL, USA
Thomas M. Mengler
San Antonio, TX, USA
Michael Galligan-Stierle
Deale, MD, USA
Robert J. Gorman
Oak Park, IL, USA