In some Christian churches, the Reader is responsible for reading aloud excerpts of the scripture at a liturgy. In early Christian times, the reader was of particular value, given the rarity of literacy.
In the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, the term "lector" is used in preference to that of "reader". The term can mean someone who in a particular liturgy is assigned to read a Biblical text other than the Gospel. (Reading the Gospel at Mass is reserved specifically to the deacon or, in his absence, to the priest.) But it also has the more precise meaning of a person who has been "instituted" (or, in some cases, "ordained") as a lector, and so is a lector even when not assigned to read in a specific liturgy.
