According to the U.S. Census Bureau there were approximately 247 million Americans as of January 11 1989. According to the 1999 Official Catholic Directory there are approximately 55 million Catholics in the United States. Catholics are 22 percent of the population. Catholics, as Christians everywhere, are called to be a light in the darkness, salt for the nourishments of humanity, and a leaven for the lump of dough.

Two Summary Statements:

Christ's redemptive work, while of itself directed toward the salvation of men, involves also the renewal of the whole temporal order. Hence the mission of the Church is not only to bring to men the message and grace of Christ, but also to penetrate and perfect the temporal sphere with the spirit of the gospel. In fulfilling this mission of the Church, the laity, therefore, exercise their apostolate both in the Church and in the world, in both the spiritual and the temporal orders. These realms, although distinct, are so connected in the one plan of God that He Himself intends in Christ to appropriate the whole universe into a new creation, initially here on earth, fully on the last day. In both orders, the layman, being a believer and a citizen, should be constantly led by the same Christian conscience (Apostolicam actuositatem 5).

Lay people, whose particular vocation places them in the midst of the world and in charge of the most varied temporal tasks, must for this very reason exercise a very special form of evangelization.

Their primary and immediate task is not to establish and develop the ecclesial community - this is the specific role of the pastors - but to put to use every Christian and evangelical possibility latent but already present and active in the affairs of the world.

Their own field of evangelizing activity is the vast and complicated world of politics, society and economics, but also the world of culture, of the sciences and the arts, on international life, of the mass media. It also includes other realities which are open to evangelization, such as human love, the family, the education of children and adolescents, professional work, suffering. The more Gospel-inspired lay people there are engaged in these realities, clearly involved in them, competent to promote them and conscious that they must exercise to the full their Christian powers which are often buried and suffocated, the more these realities will be at the service of the Kingdom of God and therefore of salvation in Jesus Christ, without in any way losing or sacrificing their human content but rather pointing to a transcendent dimension which is often disregarded (Evanaelii untiandi 70).

We have a wonderful document, 170 pages long, just on the role and vocation of the laity in the Church and the world. The English title is The Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People, and the Latin is Christifideles laici. It was written by Pope John Paul II and appeared in December of 1988, after a special synod of 220 bishops in Rome, which is the 7th such synod since Vatican II. This document is exceedingly rich in its teachings on the laity. It incorporates and summarizes most of the major statements on the laity coming out of the Vatican since 1960 (e.g., Vatican II documents, especially Lumen gentium, Gaudium et spes, and Apostolicam actuositatem; papal encyclicals like Redemptor hominis and Sollicitudo rei socialis; and apostolic exhortations such as Dignitatem mulieris.

I taught a course on this document to Catholic adults drawn from the Chicago area last semester. They liked the document for these qualities: 1) it was addressed precisely to them; 2) its comprehensiveness; 3) its opening the full challenge to the laity which is the transformation of the entire temporal order; and 4) its positive tenor.

There is only so much one can do in 28 minutes, so I will just share a little bit of Christifideles laici with you. My fond hope, and suggestion to you, is that you listen to Dominican Fr. Jordan Aumann's talks on EWTN and purchase a copy of Christifideles laici and study it for yourself. Perhaps a group of your friends can discuss it together, section by section. Inexpensive copies may be purchased from the Daughters of St. Paul.

Pope John Paul II sounds two cautions. First of all, there can be no separation between one's faith and real life, between religion and day-to-day reality in the world (CL 2i, 59). He regards this as one of the major errors of our times. Second, we are to avoid a laicization of the clergy and a clericalizing of the laity. The clergy, the religious, and the laity have different roles and callings. The Church is one body: Christ is the head, and we are all members of that body with different talents and services to perform. The clergy act in the person of Christ the head when they teach faith and morals, provide the sacraments, and form community. The religious are witnesses to the Beatitudes and the final times by their prayer life and by their special apostolates in the Church. The laity have a vast responsibility. Their task, their apostolate, is the tansformation of the entire temporal order: the economic, political, social, and cultural orders of society.

Here are just a few examples of the mission of the laity in the Church and in the world. They are all taken from Part III of Christifideles laici. Many more can be found throughout the document. Simply put, their mission is to bring Christ into the world.

To rediscover and make others rediscover the inviolable dignity of every human person makes up an essential task, in a certain sense, the central and unifying task of the service which the Church and the lay faithful in her are called to render to the human family.

Among all other earthly beings, only a man or a woman is a "person," a conscious and free being and precisely for this reason, the "center and summit" of all that exists on earth (GS 40). The dignity of the person is the most precious possession of an individual. As a result, the value of one person transcends all the material world.

The acknowledgment of the personal dignity of every human being demands the respect, the defense and the promotion of the rights of the human person. It is a question o f inherent, universal and inviolable rights. No one, no individual, no group, no authority, no state, can change - let alone eliminate - them because such rights find their source in God himself.

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights - for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture - is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.

Respect for the dignity of the person, which implies the defense and promotion of human rights, demands the recognition of the religious dimension of the individual. This requirement is inextricably bound up with the very reality of the individual. In fact, the individual's relation to God is a constitutive element of the very "being" and "existence" of an individual: it is in God that we "live, move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

This is the right of freedom of conscience and religious freedom, the effective acknowledgment of which is among the highest goods and the most serious duties of every people that truly wishes to assure the good of the person and society. Many people have died in the past to preserve this right, and there are many contemporary martyrs for the same right.

The first and basic expression of the social dimension of the person is the married couple and the family: "But God did not create man a solitary being. From the beginning 'male and female he created them' (Gen 1:27). This partnership of man and woman constitutes the first form of communion between persons" (GS 12). Jesus is concerned to restore integral dignity to the married couple and solidity to the family (Mt 19:3-9). St. Paul shows the deep rapport between marriage and the mystery of Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:22-6:4).

At our Benedictine College we have an established natural family planning course that teaches moral family planning. This is an example of enhancing family dignity for prospective parents.

It is above all the lay faithful's duty in the apostolate to make the family aware of its identity as the primary social nucleus, and its basic role in society, so that it might itself become always a more active and responsible place for proper growth and proper participation in social life. In such a way the family can and must require from all, beginningwith public authority, the respect for those rights which in saving the family will save itself.

Through charity towards one's neighbor, the lay faithful exercise and manifest their participation in the kingship of Christ, that is, in the power of the Son of man who "came not to be served by to serve" (Mk 10:45). They live and manifest such a kingship in a most simple yet exalted manner, possible for everyone at all times because charity is the highest gift offered by the Spirit for building up the Church (cf. I Cor 13:13) and for the good of humanity. In fact, charity gives life and sustains the works of solidarity that look to the total needs of the human being.

The same charity, realized not only by individuals but also in a joint way by groups and communities, is and will always be necessary. Nothing and no one will be able to substitute for it, not even the multiplicity of institutions and public initiatives forced to give a response to the needs of entire populations.

A charity that loves and serves the person is never able to be separated from justice. Both charity and justice, in their own way, demand the full, effective acknowledgment of the rights of the individual to which society is ordered in all its structures and institutions.

In order to achieve their task directed to the Christian animation of the temporal order, in the sense of serving persons and society, the lay faithful are never to relinquish their participation in "public life," that is, in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good.

This requires that the lay faithful always be more animated by a real participation in the life of the Church and enlightened by her social doctrine.

The manner and means for achieving a public life which has true human development as its goal is solidarity. Solidarity is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good, that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual because we are all really responsible for all" (SRS 38).

Service to society on the part of the lay faithful finds its essence in the socioeconomic question which depends on the organization of work.

The basis for the social doctrine of the Church is the principle of the universal destination of goods. According to the plan of God the goods of the earth are offered to all people and to each individual as a means towards the development of a truly human life. At the service of this destination of goods is private property which possesses an intrinsic social function.

The lay faithful have the responsibility of being in the forefront in working out a solution to the very serious problems of growing unemployment; to fight for the most opportune overcoming of numerous injustices that come from organizations of work which lack a proper goal; to make the workplace become a community of persons respected in their uniqueness and in their right to participation; to develop new solidarity among those that participate in a common work; to raise up new forms of business enterprises and to look again at systems of commerce, finance and exchange of technology.

Service to the individual and to human society is expressed and finds its fulfillment through the creation and the transmission of culture, which especially in our time constitutes one of the more serious tasks of living together as a human family and of social evolution. In light of the Council, we mean by "culture" all those "factors which go to the refining and developing of humanity's diverse spiritual and physical endowments. It means the efforts of the human family to bring the world under its control through its knowledge and its labor; to humanize social life both in the family and in the whole civic community through the improvement of customs and institutions; to express through its works the great spiritual experiences and aspirations of all peop1es throughout the ages; finally, to communicate and to preserve them to be an inspiration for the progress of many, indeed of the whole human race" (GS 53). In this sense, culture must be held as the common good of every people, the expression of its dignity, liberty and creativity, and the testimony of its course through history. In particular, only from within and through culture does the Christian faith become a part of history and the creator of history.

The split between the Gospel and culture is without a doubt the drama of our time, just as it was of other times. Therefore, every effort must be made to ensure a full evangelization of culture, or more correctly of cultures (EN 18).

The world is a vast vineyard. The owner of the vineyard is the Lord and He invites every man, woman, and child to come into the vineyard and work it so as to make it produce the fruits of many good works. The special role of the laity, stemming from the special lay character that is theirs, and nourished by their own sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, and Marriage) is to make this world all that God meant it to be. This means working with the moral order in all its implications for our homes, neighborhoods, and businesses. God's moral order extends to everyone, and every human activity. It does not stop at our nation's borders, but reaches out to embrace all God's sons and daughters. Last January, Pope John Paul visited Africa for the sixth time and warned the affluent first world that to ignore the crushing material hardships of sub-Sahara Africans would be to commit "fratricidal indifference."

Heaven will never be found on earth. Planet earth is planet earth. It is a very good place to be for 70-80 years, but it is not Heaven. We will look for it here in vain, but we are all called to make this world reflect more and more of the moral order of God. The Kingdom of God begins here, but only if we all want it, choose in behalf of it, work towards it, promote what advances it, and resist whatever destroys injures or limits it.

The Catholic laity in America has been referred to as a "sleeping giant waiting to be awakened." No group of Catholics throughout the Christian centuries have been given so many advantages as Catholics in this great nation. Will they measure up to the needs of the age by drawing upon the special strengths of their Church, in what has been called "the Catholic moment"? The choice, my friends, is yours, and mine.

Sources: 

Pope John Paul II, The Lay Members of Christ's --.Faithful PEOPLE (Daughters of St. Paul, Boston: 1989). Order from: Daughters of St. Paul, 50 St. Paul's Avenue, Boston, MA 02130.

Pope John Paul II, The Social.Concern of the Church (Sollicitudo rei socialis, 1987) (Daughters of St. Paul, Boston: 1987).