In our very secularised postmodern world there are plenty of challenges that ask us for a specific and immediate response. Pope John Paul II spoke of a dangerous “silent apostasy” on the part of a sizeable number of baptised people in Europe. Benedict XVI often refers to a discouraged “tired Christianity” that needs to recover the joy and enthusiasm of faith. He also speaks of a “strange forgetfulness of God” that causes people to live as if God did not exist. Postmodern culture is doing all it can to eliminate God from the horizon of life. Nonetheless, there are still signs of hope. There are many lay people – men and women, adults and young people – who are rediscovering the beauty of being Christians and who joyfully and passionately live their lives knowing that they belong to Christ and the Church. It is amazing to see their capacity to make radical options for the Gospel. Their testimonies of true holiness can really surprise us.
Against this background we can summarise under three headings the major responsibilities of the Church with respect to the laity: identity, presence and education.
The postmodern world tends to diminish and confuse the identity of the baptised. We must therefore return to the essentials and stimulate the growth of mature and coherent Christian individuals. To be a Christian lay person is a true vocation, and it entails a mission in the Church and in the world. Lay people are Christians who witness to Christ in their lives out in the world. They are like the leavening spoken of in the Gospel, the salt of the earth. Benedict XVI says that becoming a Christian does not come from an ethical choice or from an ideal. It is an encounter with an event, with a Person who is Christ. Our Christian identity arises from baptism, and in baptism it is sacramentally sealed. It is shaped and nourished by this encounter with Christ.
The second great issue is that of an incisive Christian presence in the world. The dominant culture tells us to keep our faith confined to the sphere of strictly private questions. It tries to make Christians invisible because they can be inconvenient. The secular nature of the state tends to become hostile fundamentalist laicité. If lay Christians are really to be what they are meant to be and to proclaim Jesus Christ, then they need to have courage – more courage – to swim against the tide. Closer union between faith and life is called for, and this is especially true for those who have responsibilities in the social, cultural or political spheres.
Christian education that forms a firm Christian identity and brings about a more visible and incisive presence of Christians in public life requires a good knowledge of the social doctrine of the Church and sound instruction in the faith. This is a difficult task nowadays because of a worrying emergency in education that is taking place and of which Benedict XVI speaks quite often. The education of lay people today must begin with the very foundations, and that implies beginning with the meaning of baptism and of faith. We can no longer take it for granted that the baptised possess this knowledge. The training of a mature and aware laity needs a real and proper post-baptismal Christian initiation that will lead to a personal encounter with Christ the Teacher. Important points of reference for this instruction are The Catechism of the Catholic Church, as ignorance of the faith is always a grave danger, and The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, a sure guide for the Christian laity as everyone is called to make a contribution to help solve the serious problems that afflict the world today.
