Are there still lay people?

The mission of the Church greatly depends on the activity of lay people. Starting with the Second Vatican Council, the relationship between the laity and the clergy has been controversial. The article by Herder-Korrespondenz of January 2008 gives a snapshot of a conference organized by the university of Erfurt, devoted to the topic of the laity in the Catholic Church at the beginning of the 21st century. Follows a summary by Irene Vogt.Diversified groups. “There are no longer lay people in the Catholic Church”, this is what has been referred by Ulrich Ruh, author of the article: “The concept of “laity” encompasses diverse identities: people active in associations and parishes, seldom-practising Christians, ‘cultural Christians’, and people with a hardly identifiable religious connotation”. As relates to the laity’s ecclesial dimension, the Second Vatican Council introduced a turning point: “The Council’s points of departure are the mystery of the Church and of the People of God. This accentuates the dignity and mission of all faithful, before distinguishing between clerics, religious and lay people”. In 1987, the ordinary general assembly of the synod of bishops devoted an entire month to the analysis of “the mission and the vocation of lay people in the Church and in the world 20 years after the Second Vatican Council”, synthesized by John Paul II in the Apostolic exhortation “Christifideles laici” (January 30, 1989). It was followed ten years later by an instruction approved by the Pope regarding cooperation among the laity. The Pontificate of John Paul II, Ruh recalled, is marked by a twofold warning: on the one side not to clericalize the laity, on the other not to render the clergy lay people. Benedict XVI hasn’t yet expressed his view on the subject, however the general approach is expected to be similar. Unsolved problems. Structural problems remain unsolved: priests are lacking in different parts of the world, so that pastoral care is greatly in the hands of the laity. There are problems as relates to “the service in the world” of the laity: traditional associations such as Catholic Action are lacking new members. In ex-Communist Countries the activity of Catholic laity is just at the beginning. On this background a conference has been devoted to the issue. “The laity in the Catholic Church at the beginning of the 21st century; surveys -reflections – perspectives” with the cooperation of experts from different Countries like The Netherlands and Canada. Indefinable concept. Peter Neuner , Professor of Dogmatics at the University of Munich, gave a snapshot of the history of the Church as relates to ministers and charismas, and examined the Council developments claiming that “by granting greater strength to the laity and referring to models of the ancient Church, the Second Vatican Council accepted to run the risk that the concept of ‘laity’ could become imprecise, almost impossible to define.” It’s necessary to reflect on the people of God, on its form and structure. Bernhard Vogel, ex-president of Rheinland-Pfalz and Turingia, member and former president of the most important Catholic lay body in Germany, the Central Committee of German Catholics, agrees with Karl-Heinz Ducke, the rector – at the time of the DDR – of the research centre of the Bishops Conference in Berlin: “the activity within the Church and the mundane responsibilities of the laity shouldn’t be placed on opposite fronts”. Helmut Pree, Professor of Church Law at the university of Munich, starts from the idea that ordinary law regulating formation stripped regulatory authority on the part of the ecclesial community. “Which iure divino has consecration authority since in the Church there isn’t just one ministry?” The law therefore grants freedom for action. The situation in different countries. Henk Witte, professor of dogmatic theology in Tilburg, was a member of the secretariat of the Bishops Conference in The Netherlands which in 1999 drew up the document “Cooperating in Pastoral Care”: as in Germany and Swizerland, also here lay theologians are also in charge of pastoral care, after their role was clarified at theological and ecclesial level. This figure exists also in the United States and in Canada (“Lay ecclesial ministers”), as explained by Catherine Clifford (Saint Paul University, Ottawa), who did however point to tension between official Church rhetoric and the real situation of full-time pastoral care operators. Professor Clifford declared her commitment for stepping up the spiritual formation of lay workers. Susan Roll, within a debate on liturgical texts in the English language, inquired whether , more often than not, lay people are likely to be left out of the liturgy.Widespread unease. The conference clarified that “before speaking of the laity at the beginning of the 21st century, we should identify the objects of our debate”. There is also widespread unease especially on the part of lay people who oppose the emergence of old and new forms of clericlalism. This highlights the fact that the contribution of the Second Vatican Council to the People of God, hasn’t been fully implemented and put into practice yet”.