(n.) The body of men set apart, by due ordination, to the service of God, in the Christian church, in distinction from the laity; in England, usually restricted to the ministers of the Established Church.
(n.) Learning; also, a learned profession.
(n.) The privilege or benefit of clergy.
Example Sentences:
(1) The statutory age of retirement for clergy is 70, although vicars’ terms can be extended by his or her bishop.
(2) Already the demand for such a liturgy is growing among clergy, who are embarrassed by having to withhold the church's official support from so many of their own flock who are in civil partnerships.
(3) Telemarketers, accountants, sports referees, legal secretaries, and cashiers were found to be among the most likely to lose their jobs, while doctors, preschool teachers, lawyers, artists, and clergy remained relatively safe.
(4) One group of clergy had spent the evening marching through the west side, pleading with people to remain peaceful.
(5) The Irish people, once so willing to heed to the clergy, decisively determined that Catholic bishops possess little credibility these days when it comes to knowing what’s in the best interests of children.
(6) During most of the century, the clergy did not condemn abortion.
(7) A conscience clause, however, will allow individual clergy to opt out of conducting same-sex marriages.
(8) Clergy at St Paul's have been divided over what action to take against the protest.
(9) Cure The Violence does a great deal of public education, often in concert with local clergy, to organise communities against gun violence.
(10) Pemberton, a former parish priest and a divorced father-of-five, was one of dozens of clergy in December 2012 who signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph warning that if the church refused to permit gay weddings in its own churches they would advise members of their congregations to marry elsewhere.
(11) Although accompanied by his father to the meeting, Boland's parent was not allowed into the hearing between senior clergy and the boy.
(12) As the cathedral clergy in their golden robes snaked in their stately procession around the nave, with the choir all in white and the bishops in white and scarlet, the theatre still seemed moving enough.
(13) He went on to say: "We can't be certain about the direct link between bad weather and the gay marriage legislation" Some clergy are offering to bless same-sex marriages despite their bishops opposition.
(14) The Vatican announced in December that Francis had decided to set up the commission to advise the church on the best policies to protect children, train church personnel and keep abusers out of the clergy.
(15) Henry Barnes The clergy may not be entirely trustworthy This may not be big news to cinemagoers – sneering at religious types goes all the way back to DW Griffith's Intolerance – but Cannes boasts an impressively ecumenical approach.
(16) In the US, schools, AIDS activists, and clergy distribute condoms to prevent HIV transmission.
(17) The following research was conducted to find out the specific variables associated with state prison clergy counselor role self-perceptions.
(18) As political leaders, the black clergy were usually the primary spokespersons for the entire black community, especially during periods of crisis.” The roll call of 20th-century African-American leadership, from Adam Clayton Powell, through Martin Luther King to Jesse Jackson, shows that only a handful of prominent figures emerged outside of organised religion.
(19) Of all the senior clergy of the Church of England, she is arguably the least theatrical.
(20) Poland remains one of Europe’s most staunchly Catholic nations, although the clergy’s influence has been steadily eroded by more than two decades of democratisation and market reforms since the 1989 fall of communism.
Laity
Definition:
(a.) The people, as distinguished from the clergy; the body of the people not in orders.
(a.) The state of a layman.
(a.) Those who are not of a certain profession, as law or medicine, in distinction from those belonging to it.
Example Sentences:
(1) Polling shows that a great majority of the Anglican laity are in favour of Lord Falconer's assisted dying bill, and even some of the bishops I have spoken to here, although they are bitter about what they feel is the unfairness of the argument, are resigned to losing in the long term.
(2) The details also gave succour to critics who say the house of laity has become profoundly unrepresentative.
(3) Philip Giddings, the conservative evangelical who chairs the house of laity, said he was satisfied the new, simplified legislation would be tolerable for his side.
(4) Although female bishops were approved by the majority of dioceses, bishops and clergy, they were rejected by the laity on Tuesday when put to a vote in the synod, the church's governing body.
(5) The problems of the laity and clergy are intertwined, and in the developed world their symptom is obvious: there are not enough of either, and both are ageing rapidly and sustained only by immigration from the south.
(6) In November 2012, both the houses of bishops and of clergy voted for the legislation, but it was rejected by only a few votes in the House of Laity.
(7) The letter read: "We are puzzled, dismayed and very disappointed that for the third time running we have been assigned a bishop of Whitby who does not accept the ordination of women priests … We are aware that some parishes, some clergy, and some of the laity in the Whitby bishopric do not accept the validity of women priests but, as in the rest of the country, a substantial majority of us do.
(8) But there are not enough clergy or laity to serve them, and especially too few Spanish speakers, obliging parishes to try to fill the gap by importing priests from South and Central America.
(9) But it is another example of the way in which the views of a retired bishop with no official position can resonate when they chime with the experience of the ordinary laity.
(10) His teachers in medicine included Corvisart, Bayle, Broussais, and Magendie; he qualified in 1816 with an MD thesis: "On the danger of reading medical text books by the laity"!
(11) The legislation had needed a two-thirds majority in each of the three houses of the General Synod to pass, but, despite comfortably managing that in both the houses of bishops and clergy, it was dealt a fatal blow in the laity, where lay members voted 132 votes in favour and 74 against.
(12) As well as calling on the church to show "real repentance for the lack of welcome and acceptance extended to homosexual people in the past", the report also urges it to think about whether it is reasonable to allow lay people to be in sexually active same-sex relationships while requiring celibacy from its clergy and bishops, saying: "In the facilitated discussions it will be important to reflect on the extent to which the laity and the clergy should continue to observe such different disciplines."
(13) Most dentists are heartily sick of the George Bernard Shaw quotation 'The professions are a conspiracy against the laity.'
(14) The legislation, which needed a two-thirds majority in each of the synod's three houses, was passed comfortably in the house of bishops and clergy but scuppered in the laity by just six votes.
(15) We go back to religion, and she says she was surprised when the laity voted against allowing women bishops last year.
(16) It's bad enough for academics, it's worse for the laity.
(17) Bishop of Grantham first C of E bishop to declare he is in gay relationship Read more In effect, there is one standard for the laity – which is to conform to the liberal norms of society – and a double standard for the clergy who are supposed to be celibate, even when they live with same sex partners, if not heterosexually married.
(18) Nato remains undefeated on the battlefield, but Laity wanted to make clear that the “narrative landscape” represented a new and unfamiliar battleground – one in which Nato no longer appeared to hold a clear advantage.
(19) The laity has been the decisive party in the struggle over female bishops, on both sides.
(20) His position on female bishops has prompted one member of the house of laity, Canon Stephen Barney, to propose a motion of no confidence, which will be debated at an extraordinary meeting on 18 January.