Popular piety
Popular piety, as defined in the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in 2001, means the various forms of prayer and worship that Christians practise either singly or in community and that are inspired by their culture rather than by the liturgy.
Value
The Catholic Church has declared popular piety "a true treasure of the People of God" and decried the attitude of "certain persons concerned with the care of souls who scorn, a priori, devotions of piety which, in their correct forms, have been recommended by the magisterium, who leave them aside and in this way create a vacuum which they do not fill."
Relation to the liturgy
The Second Vatican Council asked that popular Catholic devotions "should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some fashion derived from it, and lead the people to it, since, in fact, the liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any of them."
