Why the Laity Matters | Alvino-Mario Fantini | CWR
A review of Cardinal Francis Arinze’s new book, The Layperson’s Distinctive Role
I recently returned from visiting Croatia, where a controversial referendum was held on December 1 amending the constitution to define marriage as a union of a man and a woman. The results surprised many foreign observers: 66 percent of voters were in favor of the proposal.
Though some media outlets asserted that the campaign in support of the resolution was organized and promoted by “reactionary” officials from the Catholic Church, the truth is that the referendum and its results were all entirely the handiwork of grass-roots activists—mothers and fathers, young couples, and the mass mobilization of thousands of families of different faiths. In short, it was lay people—not priests or religious—who orchestrated it all.
Cardinal Francis Arinze’s new book, The Layperson’s Distinctive Role, explores precisely this topic: the role of lay people in politics, society, and the Church. In this, it is a timely and necessary book.
Arinze begins by explaining that the word “laity” comes from the Ancient Greek word for people, laos, and describes some of the earliest forms of Christian communities that arose in the wake of Our Lord’s Passion and Resurrection. However, he stops short of offering a historical survey of the rise of religious orders and communities and, instead, focuses on the key documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) that clarified the duty, role, and apostolate of the lay faithful “in the Church and in the world.”
Arinze starts with a look at the main Church documents in which the role of the laity has been defined, clarified, and elaborated upon. These documents include those from the Council such as Gaudium et Spes, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, and the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity Apostolicam Actuositatem. In addition, he considers various papal documents such as Pope Paul VI’s 1974 exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi and Blessed John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Christifideles Laici, issued after the 1987 Synod of Bishops on the vocation and mission of the lay faithful. These documents provide “the major orientation for our times on the role of the lay faithful in the Church and in the world,” according to Arinze.
Of course, this understanding of the layperson is quite modern.
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