The Legion of Mary is an association of Catholic laypeople (both women and men) who serve the church on a voluntary basis. It was founded in 1921 in Dublin, Ireland, as a Catholic Marian movement by Frank Duff, a layman. Duff, who lived from 1889 to 1980, has been introduced for beatification and is a Servant of God.

Today between acting and praying members, there are over 3 million Legion of Mary members worldwide. It is the largest apostolic organization of lay people in the Catholic Church and is present in about 170 countries. The basic unit of the Legion is called a praesidium, which is often parish-based. Each praesidium is part of a comitium, which is made up of various praesidiums around an area or diocese.

"That's right. A comitium is made up of praesidiums," says Donna Nicklas, a member of Sacred Heart Church in Virden who was elected last August as the president who leads an area comitium. "There are 11 praesidiums that make up our comitium. We have a junior praesidium at Cathedral that is all high school students and we have one Spanish-speaking praesidium at St. Katharine Drexel."

The comitium meets once a month. A praesidium meets more frequently, explains Betty Simpson, who is president of the Legion of Mary at St. Mary Parish in Taylorville. "We meet one time a week and we always pray the rosary at every meeting," Simpson says. "But I would say that evangelization is our main thing."

The main action of evangelization is to "help priests in any way we can" says Nicklas. "We are the 'right arm' of the parish priest. He directs us and we aid him. For example, we might reach out to Catholic families who perhaps are not attending Mass or who have children who aren't in religion classes or who haven't received the sacraments."

Nicklas refers to members of the Legion of Mary as "Mary's army." "Many popes have indicated that the Legion is something they can count on to bring Mary to the people," she says. "We have active members and we have auxiliary members. Those auxiliary members are our prayer warriors."

Besides helping parish priests, Nicklas' comitium relies on a specific priest to lead the group. "We have Father Louis Schlangen (a retired diocesan priest who lives in Loraine) as our spiritual advisor and the whole group meets one time a month in Springfield either at St. Agnes or Christ the King," Nicklas says.

Nicklas says that of course, as president of the comitium, some of her duties include managerial tasks like organizing groups and setting up meetings. She says it is her prayer that more people will join the Legion of Mary and that more priests will promote starting a praesidium in their parishes.