The appropriate role of the laity within the worldwide Roman Catholic Church has bedeviled its members for much of its recent history. The roots of the Roman Catholic laity in the United States of America, a group referred to as 'The Faithful" in a recent seminal book by historian James O'Toole, goes back to the European colonization beginning in the fifteenth century with Spanish missions in regions such as Florida and the deep south, California and the west coast, and New Mexico and the southwest. The French came later, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with missions in areas that now include Louisiana, Missouri, Illinois, and Michigan. The English, who also came in the seventeenth century, established colonies on the eastern seaboard stretching from New England to Georgia. Their established churches were not Catholic, though Maryland, founded in the 1630s, was the first to tolerate Catholics, although this situation later changed. In fact, it was only in Pennsylvania, founded by the Quaker sect in the 1680s, that Catholics were never officially persecuted. These Catholics of mostly English background generally lived in small and isolated communities and only numbered a modest one percent of the population on the eve of the American Revolution. They practiced their religion as they were able with the occasional help of itinerant priests until a more orderly church of both laity and clerics developed, with the first American bishop, John Carroll of Baltimore, being appointed in 1789. As the nineteenth century progressed, standardized discipline in the American Church was advanced by the convocation of the plenary councils of Baltimore that resulted in the promulgation of the Baltimore Catechism and the establishment of The Catholic University of America.

In the decades before the American Civil War, and continuing thereafter, the numbers of Catholic immigrants, mostly Irish and German, to the United States increased. As they assimilated and became more established, they became eager to emulate the types of charity work being done by their Protestant countrymen. This included such activities as temperance, poor relief, and resettlement by the founding of organizations such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians in NYC in 1836 and the establishment of wings of such existing groups as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in 1845. Catholics also wanted to show that while much Protestant charity, in their view, came from upper class largesse, Catholic efforts were the result of working class sacrifices inspired by faith in time tested papal encyclicals and other old world values. They were, however, desirous to be accepted by American society and to demonstrate that Catholics were not largely foreign and intemperate paupers. They took part in the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois, with a Columbian Exposition designed to demonstrate the Catholic place in American history (after all America was 'discovered' by the Catholic explorer Christopher Columbus). These lay Catholics efforts also took place at a time when internal conflicts arose among ethnic groups like the Irish and the Germans while new waves of immigrants, primarily Italians and Poles, from southern and Eastern Europe respectively fomented renewed anti-Catholic sentiments among non-Catholic Americans. There was also the Vatican suspicion about American ideas in the Church that resulted in the 1899 condemnation of 'Americanism.' It is not surprising then that the Vatican had special concerns about the United States and formally considered it a mission country until 1908.

As the twentieth century dawned there were increasing efforts at national Catholic unity and a greater role for the laity. This is evidenced by the organization of the American Federation of Catholic Societies in 1901, the Daughters of Isabella (later the Catholic Daughters of America) in 1903, the Catholic Education Association (later the National Catholic Education Association) in 1904, and the National Conference of Catholic Charities (later Catholic Charities USA) in 1910. This trend continued after the outbreak of the First World War, with Catholic leaders, hoping to demonstrate Catholic loyalty, created the National Catholic War Council (NCWC) in 1917, an emergency organization based in Washington, D.C., representing Catholic interests by addressing the needs of soldiers at home and overseas, promoting the Americanization of recent immigrants, and developing a Program for the Social Reconstruction of American society. After the end of hostilities, the War Council was succeeded by the National Catholic Welfare Council (known since 2001 as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) which was composed of the American hierarchy and its standing secretariat. Thereafter, the NCWC blossomed into the single most important national organization in the American Catholic Church through the middle years of the twentieth century. It became the principal lobbying arm for Catholics with the federal government, initially fighting against federal aid to education bills for fear such laws would impose government controls on private schools though later it would fight for funding for parochial schools. The NCWC issued national guidelines and provided training and national coordination for hosts of local Catholic societies.

This was especially true for the Lay Organizations Department that oversaw the activities of the fledgling National Council of Catholic Men (NCCM) and National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW). It served as a channel for the interchange of information and service between the bishops and the laity in their common Church work, especially in promoting Catholic principles and ideals in education, social and civic life. The NCCM was a federation of Catholic men's groups that operated through a committee system on national, diocesan, and parish levels. They operated a New York radio and television office from which The Catholic Hour was produced 1929-1968. The NCCW was a breakthrough for Catholic lay women which coincided with the winning of suffrage for American women. They operated as a federation of Catholic women's organization through a system of national committees having counterparts on the diocesan and parish level. These committees included Immigration, Social Action, and Rural Life. They also held national conventions, assemblies, and regional training. The National Council of Catholic Laity (NCCL) was a brief union of the NCCM and NCCW arising out of celebrations of their joint fiftieth anniversaries in 1970. A joint committee had recommended the merger as a way to promote greater lay unity but the short lived organization went defunct when the NCCM folded in 1975 and the NCCW went its own way thereafter.

By the mid twentieth century it was clear that the church was moving toward modernism despite past efforts against it. This could be seen with theologians such as Karl Rahner and John Courtney Murray who wanted to integrate modern living with timeless church principles while others such as Yves Congar and Joseph Ratzinger sought an accurate understanding of scripture as a source of renewal. The Church also faced great challenges with increasing social, economic, and technological change. Therefore, Pope John XXIII convened a Second Vatican Council, 1962-1965, (the first one was in 1869-1870 and left much work unfinished) to address these various issues with resulting significant changes in ecclesiology, liturgy, and scripture and divine revelation. In America, this led to the creation of such lay entities such as the Advisory Council to the Administrative Board of U.S. Bishops, a post Vatican II phenomenon that reflected a new vision of the Church as a community of the 'people of God' and not just a hierarchical structure. There was a focus on the shared responsibility of bishops and laity alike in conducting the pastoral affairs of the Church. A major undertaking of the Advisory Council was to study the possibility of creating a National Pastoral Council though it was eventually decided not to be feasible. The Council was influential in other areas though as it had a role in shaping decisions that led to the establishment of the Campaign for Human Development, the Bicentennial Conference on Liberty and Justice, and a greater concern for minority groups.

The American Catholic Lay Network (ACLN) was a national Catholic membership organization that began in 1985 as the Lay Project of the Jesuit Center of Concern in Washington, D.C. It was re-named the ACLN the following year and incorporated as a tax exempt non-profit organization based at St. Paul's College in Washington, D.C. The ACLN held two national organizing meetings, one in Indianapolis in 1985 and another in San Antonio in 1987, as well as co-hosting the 1987 synod on the laity in Rome, Italy. The ACLN had built up a membership of 5,000 by 1988 when the Executive Committee decided, and publicly announced, that because of a combination of outstanding debts and declining income they were suspending all program activities, including the publication of their bi-monthly newspaper Gathering. Two of the most prominent ACLN officials were President Fred C. Leone and Board member Joseph Holland. These two with one other remaining board member, Louis Fischer, decided in 1990 to officially terminate the organization. In a memo dated December 5, 1990 they stated that the action was taken at that time because ACLN had been dormant for almost three years, with no paid employees since January 1988, and also because all financial obligations, especially to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), had been cleared up. It was also decided to transfer any remaining balance to the Leadership Council of Catholic Laity (LCCL), another non-profit organization whose mission and goals were consistent with those of ACLN, and of which both Leone and Holland were members.

The impetus for the organizing of the Leadership Council of Catholic Laity (LCCL) originated with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on the Laity Consultation in Belleville, Illinois, prior to the synod on the laity of 1987. The LCCL continued thereafter and was incorporated in the state of Delaware as a tax exempt non-profit organization in 1989. Organization members included the Catholic Daughters of the Americas (CDA), the Catholic Worker, Cursillo, The Grail, the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW), and the National Office of Black Catholics (NOBC). Among the affiliated organizations were the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA), and Pax Christi. Many individual members were from the former ACLN and other active or defunct lay groups. Annual conferences were held from 1989 to 1994, with the first of these again in Belleville, and later ones in Chicago and Atlanta. Conference themes included such titles as 'Spirituality and Ecology: Values in Harmony-Values in Conflict' and 'Multiculturalism and Racism: Fragmentation or Solidarity.' The one scheduled for 1995 with a theme titled 'Towards a Healthy Adult Church' was cancelled. In March 1995, the LCCL's governing body, the Leadership Team, that include Fred Leone and Joe Holland, met in Chicago to determine if the LCCL should continue in its present form, change its structure, or dissolve. After consulting the membership, it was decided in a meeting in May 1995 to dissolve the corporation and distribute its remaining assets to tax exempt member organizations for ongoing and future projects. Among the various reasons stated for the demise perhaps the most important was a feeling among the membership that the LCCL had not addressed issues of interest to people in the pew. In a memo dated January 8, 1996, Mr. Leone stated that he had just filed the final papers with the IRS concluding the LCCL's existence.