Obligation of recitation[edit]

In the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, bishops, priests, and deacons planning to become
priests are obliged to recite the full sequence of the hours each day, observing as closely as
possible the associated times of day, and using the text of the approved liturgical books that apply to
them.[6][60] Permanent deacons are to do so to the extent determined by their episcopal conference.
[60]
 Members of institutes of consecrated life, societies of apostolic life, or other religious associations
(e.g., Benedictine oblates, Third Order Dominicans) who are not clerics and are therefore not
necessarily subject to these obligations are bound according to the norm of their constitutions.
[61]
 Members of such institutes and societies who are deacons, priests, or bishops remain bound to
their more severe obligation as clergy.
Latin Church clerics can lawfully fulfill their obligation to pray the Office using the edition of
the Roman Breviary promulgated by John XXIII in 1961 rather than the current edition of the Liturgy
of the Hours.[62] While the 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum states that communities
belonging to institutes of religious life and societies of apostolic life require authorization only by their
major superiors to use the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal for their conventual or
community Mass frequently, habitually or permanently; [63] it makes no such statement regarding use
of the 1962 Roman Breviary, which could be allowed by their constitutions.
Laity, especially if they are involved in ministries of the Church (lector, cantor, extraordinary minister
of Holy Communion, catechists, religious education directors or school principals, altar servers,
those contemplating religious life or the seminary), are strongly encouraged to participate.
The constitutions of some institutes of consecrated life, in particular many congregations
of Benedictine monks and nuns but also others, oblige them to follow an arrangement of
the Psalter whereby all the psalms are recited in the course of a single week, partly through an
extension of the Office of Readings, and by maintaining the Hour of Prime.