With knowledge comes responsibility
"As the Church we must witness to the good news in an ever-changing world and each and every living stone in the spiritual house that is the Church must take their place in this mission." [Bishop Richard, Pastoral Letter on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, 10th January, 2025]
"Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to who they entrusted much, they will demand the more." [Luke 12:48]
"He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a "bodily" manner and not "in his heart."All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.(cf. Luke 12:48) ["Lumen Gentium" ("The Light of the Nations")​, n.14 ]​
​​"Since they have an active role to play in the whole life of the Church, laymen are not only bound to penetrate the world with a Christian spirit, but are also called to be witnesses to Christ in all things in the midst of human society. Bishops, to whom is assigned the task of ruling the Church of God, should, together with their priests, so preach the news of Christ that all the earthly activities of the faithful will be bathed in the light of the Gospel. All pastors should remember too that by their daily conduct and concern (Lumen Gentium, n.28 ) they are revealing the face of the Church to the world, and men will judge the power and truth of the Christian message thereby." [​"Gaudium et Spes" ("Hope and Joy"), n.43]
"Mindful of the Lord's saying: by this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35), Christians cannot yearn for anything more ardently than to serve the men of the modern world with mounting generosity and success. Therefore, by holding faithfully to the Gospel and benefiting from its resources, by joining with every man who loves and practices justice, Christians have shouldered a gigantic task for fulfilment in this world, a task concerning which they must give a reckoning to Him who will judge every man on the last of days.​
Not everyone who cries, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the Father's will by taking a strong grip on the work at hand. Now, the Father wills that in all men we recognize Christ our brother and love Him effectively, in word and in deed. By thus giving witness to the truth, we will share with others the mystery of the heavenly Father's love. As a consequence, men throughout the world will be aroused to a lively hope - the gift of the Holy Spirit - that some day at last they will be caught up in peace and utter happiness in that fatherland radiant with the glory of the Lord." [​"Gaudium et Spes" ("Hope and Joy"), n.93]
from the Catechism of the Catholic Church
The vocation of lay people
898 'By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God's will... It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be effected and grow according to Christ and may be to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer.' (Lumen Gentium 31 §2 ).
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899 'Lay believers are in the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society. Therefore, they in particular ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church,, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope, the common Head, and of the Bishops in communion with him. They are the Church.' (Pius XII, Discourse, 20 February 1946, quoted by St John Paul II in Christifideles laici ["Christ's Faithful Laity"], 9).
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900 Since, like all the faithful, lay Christians are entrusted by God with the apostolate by virtue of their Baptism and Confirmation, they have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation may beknown and accepted by all men throughout the earth. This duty is the more pressing when it is only through them that men can hear the Gospel and know Christ. Their activity in ecclesial communities is so necessary that, for the most part, the apostolate of the pastors cannot be fully effective without it. (cf. Lumen Gentium 33 )
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[extracts from Catechism of the Catholic Church, English translation for the UK, © Burns & Oates - Libreria Editrice Vaticana]
You can access the full Catechism at the Vatican archive:
​Lumen gentium ("The Light of Nations")
Dogmatic Constitution on the Nature of the Church, from the Second Vatican Council
​© The Holy See
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​​CHAPTER II
ON THE PEOPLE OF GOD
14 This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism(cf. Mark 16:16; John 3.5) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.
CHAPTER III - ON THE HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH
28 Christ, whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, (John 10:36) has through His apostles, made their successors, the bishops, partakers of His consecration and His mission. They have legitimately handed on to different individuals in the Church various degrees of participation in this ministry. Thus the divinely established ecclesiastical ministry is exercised on different levels by those who from antiquity have been called bishops, priests and deacons.
In virtue of their common sacred ordination and mission, all priests are bound together in intimate brotherhood, which naturally and freely manifests itself in mutual aid, spiritual as well as material, pastoral as well as personal, in their meetings and in communion of life, of labour and charity.
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Let them, as fathers in Christ, take care of the faithful whom they have begotten by baptism and their teaching.(cf. 1 Corinthians 4:15; 1 Peter 1:23) Becoming from the heart a pattern to the flock,(1 Peter 5:3) let them so lead and serve their local community that it may worthily be called by that name, by which the one and entire people of God is signed, namely, the Church of God.(cf. 1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 1:1) Let them remember that by their daily life and interests they are showing the face of a truly sacerdotal and pastoral ministry to the faithful and the infidel, to Catholics and non-Catholics, and that to all they bear witness to the truth and life, and as good shepherds go after those also,(cf. Luke 15:4-7) who though baptized in the Catholic Church have fallen away from the use of the sacraments, or even from the faith.​
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CHAPTER IV - THE LAITY
31 The term laity is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of religious life specially approved by the Church. These faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world.
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What specifically characterizes the laity is their secular nature. It is true that those in holy orders can at times be engaged in secular activities, and even have a secular profession. But they are by reason of their particular vocation especially and professedly ordained to the sacred ministry. Similarly, by their state in life, religious give splendid and striking testimony that the world cannot be transformed and offered to God without the spirit of the beatitudes. But the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity. Therefore, since they are tightly bound up in all types of temporal affairs it is their special task to order and to throw light upon these affairs in such a way that they may come into being and then continually increase according to Christ to the praise of the Creator and the Redeemer.
33 The laity are gathered together in the People of God and make up the Body of Christ under one head. Whoever they are they are called upon, as living members, to expend all their energy for the growth of the Church and its continuous sanctification, since this very energy is a gift of the Creator and a blessing of the Redeemer.
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The lay apostolate, however, is a participation in the salvific mission of the Church itself. Through their baptism and confirmation all are commissioned to that apostolate by the Lord Himself. Moreover, by the sacraments, especially holy Eucharist, that charity toward God and man which is the soul of the apostolate is communicated and nourished. Now the laity are called in a special way to make the Church present and operative in those places and circumstances where only through them can it become the salt of the earth. Thus every layman, in virtue of the very gifts bestowed upon him, is at the same time a witness and a living instrument of the mission of the Church itself "according to the measure of Christ's bestowal".(Ephesians 4:7)
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Upon all the laity, therefore, rests the noble duty of working to extend the divine plan of salvation to all men of each epoch and in every land. Consequently, may every opportunity be given them so that, according to their abilities and the needs of the times, they may zealously participate in the saving work of the Church.
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38 Each individual layman must stand before the world as a witness to the resurrection and life of the Lord Jesus and a symbol of the living God. All the laity as a community and each one according to his ability must nourish the world with spiritual fruits.(cf. Galatians 5:12) They must diffuse in the world that spirit which animates the poor, the meek, the peace makers—whom the Lord in the Gospel proclaimed as blessed.(cf. Matthew 5:3-9) In a word, "Christians must be to the world what the soul is to the body."(Epistle to Diognetus, 6 )
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You can access the full Constitution on the Vatican website:
from the Epistle to Diognetus (author unknown)
CHAPTER 6
1 In a word, what the soul is in a body, this the Christians are in the world.
2 The soul is spread through all the members of the body, and Christians through the divers cities of the world.
3 The soul hath its abode in the body, and yet it is not of the body. So Christians have their abode in the world, and yet they are not of the world.
4 The soul which is invisible is guarded in the body which is visible: so Christians are recognised as being in the world, and yet their religion remaineth invisible.
5 The flesh hateth the soul and wageth war with it, though it receiveth no wrong, because it is forbidden to indulge in pleasures; so the world hateth Christians, though it receiveth no wrong from them, because they set themselves against its pleasures.
6 The soul loveth the flesh which hateth it, and the members: so Christians love those that hate them.
7 The soul is enclosed in the body, and yet itself holdeth the body together; so Christians are kept in the world as in a prison-house, and yet they themselves hold the world together.
8 The soul though itself immortal dwelleth in a mortal tabernacle; so Christians sojourn amidst perishable things, while they look for the imperishability which is in the heavens.
9 The soul when hardly treated in the matter of meats and drinks is improved; and so Christians when punished increase more and more daily.
10 So great is the office for which God hath appointed them, and which it is not lawful for them to decline.
[from: Apostolic Fathers, Lightfoot & Harmer, 1891 translation]