The lay apostolate is made up of laypersons, who are neither consecrated religious nor in Holy Orders, who exercise a ministry within the Catholic Church. Lay apostolate organizations operate under the general oversight of pastors and bishops, but need not be dependent upon them for direction.
The laity can exercise a fruitful apostolate by their conduct in the areas of their labor, profession, studies, neighborhood, and social life. And according to the Vatican II Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, they will look for opportunities to announce Christ to their neighbors through the spoken word as well (AA 13). [1]
The Second Vatican Council of bishops in the Catholic Church has been seen as elevating the laity “from passive spectators to involved members”. It was the first council in church history to specifically address the place of the laity in the life of the church. Before the Council, the laity were purely passive spectators at Mass (in Latin) and this passivity also characterized their approach to the apostolate. Exceptions were charitable organizations like St. Vincent de Paul Societies and the Knights of Columbus. But the task of teaching the faith was entrusted almost entirely to priests and religious sisters. [2]
Pope Paul VI established the Pontifical Council for the Laity in the period after Vatican II. [3] Since the Council lay Catholics have exercised leadership in many apostolates, such as organizing charitable works and advocacy groups on behalf of the poor and oppressed. With a declining number of priests and sisters, lay persons have also undertaken the responsibility for religious education and fill more and more administrative positions at Catholic schools. The Council also specified that parents are the primary religious educators of their children. And It taught that “the secular employment of laypeople, far from being a distraction from their Christian vocation, was their primary way to sanctify, not only themselves but society.” [2]
In 2013, Francis Cardinal Arinze explained that lay persons "...are called by Baptism to witness to Christ in the secular sphere of life; that is in the family, in work and leisure, in science and cultural, in politics and government, in trade and mass media, and in national and international relations." Arinze noted that there are many things individuals may accomplish for Christ quietly without belonging to a particular association. In other instances, organizations are more efficient to address challenges beyond the capacity of one person. [4]
Pope Francis has continually criticized clericalism and emphasized that all are "one, holy People of God". [5] He emphasizes that the "hour of the laity" has arrived and decries clericalism as rife in the Church, saying that it "leads to the functionalization of the laity, treating them as 'messengers'." [6]
In November 2019, Pope Francis addressed the new Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life during its first plenary assembly which had the topic, “The Lay Faithful, Identity and Mission in the World”. He urged them to use their talents as “missionary disciples” to address the various challenges of the whole Church and world, to be "visible signs" of the presence of Christ in every environment. He warned against “clericalizing the laity”: "Move the deacons away from the altar. …They are the custodians of service, not first-class altar boys or second-class priests.” [7] In his first Apostolic Exhortation as Pope he had entitled a section "We are all missionary disciples" and he returned to the term seven times in that exhortation. [8] He has also pointed out that “In truth, the laity who have an authentic Christian formation do not have need of a 'bishop-pilot' or a 'monsignor-pilot', or of clerical input to assume their proper responsibilities, on all levels: from the political to the social, from the economic to the legislative!" He called rather for bishops to be encouraging toward lay apostolates, good shepherds. [9]
The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the Second Vatican Council or Vatican II, was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met in Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for four periods, each lasting between 8 and 12 weeks, in the autumn of each of the four years 1962 to 1965. Preparation for the council took three years, from the summer of 1959 to the autumn of 1962. The council was opened on 11 October 1962 by John XXIII, and was closed on 8 December 1965 by Paul VI.
Apostolicam Actuositatem, also known as the "Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity", is one of the 16 magisterial documents of the Second Vatican Council.
Personal prelature is a canonical structure of the Catholic Church which comprises a prelate, clergy and laity who undertake specific pastoral activities. The first personal prelature is Opus Dei. Personal prelatures, similar to dioceses and military ordinariates, were originally under the governance of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops. Since 4 August 2022, personal prelatures have instead been governed under the Dicastery for the Clergy. Personal prelatures are composed of lay people served by their own secular clergy and prelate. Unlike dioceses, which cover territories, personal prelatures—like military ordinariates—take charge of persons as regards some objectives regardless of where they live.
In religious organizations—the term originating in the Christian Church—the laity consists of all members who are not part of the clergy, usually including any non-ordained members of religious orders, e.g. a nun or a lay brother.
Francis Arinze is a Nigerian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from 2002 to 2008 and before that led the Secretariat for Non-Christians from 1984 to 2002.
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church consists of its bishops, priests, and deacons. In the ecclesiological sense of the term, "hierarchy" strictly means the "holy ordering" of the church, the Body of Christ, so to respect the diversity of gifts and ministries necessary for genuine unity.
Clericalism is the application of the formal, church-based leadership or opinion of ordained clergy in matters of either the church or broader political and sociocultural aspects.
Lay ecclesial ministry is the term adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to identify the relatively new category of pastoral ministers in the Catholic Church who serve the Church but are not ordained. Lay ecclesial ministers are coworkers with the bishop alongside priests and deacons. In other contexts, these may be known as "lay pastoral workers", "pastoral assistants", etc.
The International Alliance of Catholic Knights (IACK) is a non-governmental organization made up of fifteen Roman Catholic fraternal orders from 27 countries on six continents. The IACK was founded in Glasgow on 12 October 1979 at a meeting of the leaders of six fraternal societies, convened on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of the Knights of Saint Columba. The organization is headquartered in Hampshire, U.K.
In the Catholic Church, an association of the Christian faithful or simply association of the faithful, sometimes called a public association of the faithful, is a group of baptized persons, clerics or laity or both together, who, according to the 1983 Code of Canon Law, jointly foster a more perfect life or promote public worship or Christian teaching, or who devote themselves to other works of the apostolate.
Clerical celibacy is the discipline within the Catholic Church by which only unmarried men are ordained to the episcopate, to the priesthood in the Latin Church, and similarly to the diaconate. In other autonomous particular churches, the discipline applies only to the episcopate. According to Jason Berry of The New York Times, "The requirement of celibacy is not dogma; it is an ecclesiastical law that was adopted in the Middle Ages because Rome was worried that clerics' children would inherit church property and create dynasties."
Brian Farrell LC is an Irish Roman Catholic prelate who has served as secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity since 2002.
A Catholic lay association, also referred to as Catholic Congress, is an association of lay Catholics aiming to discuss certain political or social issues from a Catholic perspective.
Stanisław Marian Ryłko is a Polish Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He held positions in the Roman Curia beginning in 1987 and was president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity from 2003 to 2016. He was made a cardinal in 2007. He has been Archpriest of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore since 28 December 2016.
Evangelii nuntiandi is an apostolic exhortation issued on 8 December 1975 by Pope Paul VI on the theme of Catholic evangelization. The title, taken from the opening words of the original Latin text, means "in proclaiming the Gospel". It affirms the role of every Christian, not only ordained ministers, priests, and deacons, or religious, or professional church staff, in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Catholic laity are the ordinary members of the Catholic Church who are neither clergy nor recipients of Holy Orders or vowed to life in a religious order or congregation. Their mission, according to the Second Vatican Council, is to "sanctify the world".
The role of a Catholic catechist is to catechize the faith of the Catholic Church by both word and example. The Directory for Catechesis states that faith must be "known, celebrated, lived, and turned into prayer" in a personal and total encounter of the heart, mind and senses with Christ. St. John Paul II describes the aim of catechesis as putting "people not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy, with Jesus Christ."
The Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life is a dicastery of the Roman Curia. Pope Francis announced its creation on 15 August 2016, effective 1 September 2016. It took over the functions and responsibilities of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for the Family. It has responsibility "for the promotion of the life and apostolate of the lay faithful, for the pastoral care of the family and its mission according to God's plan and for the protection and support of human life."
The Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region, commonly referred to as the Amazon synod, met in Rome from 6 to 27 October 2019. Pope Francis announced on 15 October 2017 that a special assembly of the Synod of Bishops would work "to identify new paths for the evangelization of God's people in that region", specifically the indigenous peoples who are "often forgotten and without the prospect of a serene future".
Christus vivit is a post-synodal apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis, written in response to the Fifteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, on young people, faith and vocational discernment, held from 3 to 28 October 2018.
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