Pope Benedict has called for lay people to be seen as truly co-responsible for “the being and acting” of the Church, not just as collaborators with the clergy.
“Co-responsibility,” he said, “requires a change in mentality, particularly with regard to the role of the laity in the Church.”
“It is important, therefore,” he added, “that a mature and committed laity be united, who are able to make their own specific contribution to the Church’s mission, in accordance with the ministries and tasks each one has in the life of the Church, and always in cordial communion with the bishops.”
The Pope’s wish to see laity co-responsible for the Church was expressed in his message to the 6th Assembly of the International Catholic Action Forum, being held in Romania.
Recalling that the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church spoke of the laity-clergy relationship as “familiar”, Pope Benedict said it is “important to deepen and to live out this spirit of profound communion in the Church, which characterised the early Christian community, as the book of the Acts of the Apostles attests”.
“Feel the commitment to work for the Church’s mission to be your own,” he told the lay group, “through prayer, through study, through active participation in ecclesial life, through an attentive and positive gaze at the world, in the continual search for the signs of the times.”
Encouraging “serious and daily” ongoing formation, the Pope said the laity are “called to be courageous and credible witnesses in every sphere of society, so that the Gospel might be the light that brings hope in difficult situations, in troubles and in the darkness that men today so often find along the path of life”.
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Image: The Telegraph
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