The Challenge
The challenges for the Church in fulfilling its mission are many. Our society is hurting and is resistant to the Gospel in many ways. Many Catholics have left the faith, with significant numbers seeking out other Christian denominations. Active Catholics don't understand the mission of the Church or their role in it. Our parishes aren't explaining that role of providing the support its members would need to fulfill it.
Key Insights
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In Society
Our larger society is in such need of healing. There is so much pain, injustice, and unhappiness, and so many people bound in so many ways. The world is greatly in need of the Good News of Jesus that we bear. In the Parish
Our parishes are not fulfilling their duty to proclaim the Church's mission and to train and equip the laity for their role in it. |
Inactive Catholics
Recognizing that a majority of cultural Catholics are no longer active in their faith, the Church has put an increasing focus on the New Evangelization, an effort to bring them back in contact with Christ and the Church. |
Active Catholics
Most active Catholics do not understand the mission of the Church or their role in it, much less performing it. They are also not getting the tools and support they need to do so. The Vatican II vision of the role of the laity is still not a reality. |
The Laity Don't Understand Their Role
While the vision for lay vocation may be well articulated by Church documents and theologians, many lay Catholics are simply ignorant of their role. As Sherry Anne Weddell of the Catherine of Siena Institute relates:
There is an enormous gap between the Church’s vision of the lay apostolate and the lived experience of most laymen and women. Most lay Catholics have never grasped the significance of their identity and their mission in the body of Christ. Over and over again in our Called and Gifted workshops, where we talk about the apostolic call of the laity, lifelong Catholics—people who spent 12 years in Catholic schools and attended Catholic colleges—ask, “Why have I never heard this before?”
[Making Disciples, Equipping Apostles: The Parish as a House of Formation for Adult Catholics, 8]
Many still live out of a pre-conciliar model in which their role is simply as believers in the faith and recipients of parish ministry. While Vatican II has generally succeeded in turning around our presiders to face the laity at Mass, our next challenge is to turn the laity around to face the world.
It is disappointing that this gap still exists forty years after the Council, and this suggests that educating the laity to understand what the Church teaches about their role is a greater challenge than it might seem. And while this first step may be a good start, helping lay people fully understand and embrace this role will take much more support. Living a life of discipleship involves ongoing education, conversion, discernment, and further support.
It is disappointing that this gap still exists forty years after the Council, and this suggests that educating the laity to understand what the Church teaches about their role is a greater challenge than it might seem. And while this first step may be a good start, helping lay people fully understand and embrace this role will take much more support. Living a life of discipleship involves ongoing education, conversion, discernment, and further support.
The Laity Aren't Getting the Support They Need
[O]ne of the problems the Christian church faces is that it doesn’t really see that there is a serious problem, that this is not something that is simply a matter of nomenclature, of naming things. It goes a lot deeper than that. And I think the congregations don’t realize how serious the problem is. Therefore, they might think, “Oh, we do this pretty well. We tell everybody they are Christians all day, twenty-four hours a day. What else do they need to know?” Well, you need to know a lot more than that. How are you a Christian twenty-four hours a day? For a lot of folks, trying to find God at the work place in certain situations is tough sledding. You know, things are not always clear; they’re very ambiguous. And where is God in this mess I’m in, or in this decision to fire this person, or in this family difficulty of mine? So I think one of the problems is admitting that there is a problem. The church has kind of glossed over its inadequacy.
[Al Roberts, as quoted in William E. Diehl, Ministry in Daily Life: A Practical Guide For Congregations]
If parishes embraced the Vatican II call of the laity, and the role of the ordained and other leadership to support them in their role, they would look quite different than most do today. Annie Dillard imagines ushers distributing life preservers and signal flares because of the seriousness of the Gospel message. Frederick Wentz offers an image of the Church as “a catapult that hurls Christ-bearers into every distant corner of human society.”
How might a parish support its members in their call to evangelize? Individuals must first understand that they are called and what their faith says about the way they live their lives. But, as Al Roberts bewails, this is not enough. Our parishes need to fully-equip their members to apply these faith values to their lives.
How might a parish support its members in their call to evangelize? Individuals must first understand that they are called and what their faith says about the way they live their lives. But, as Al Roberts bewails, this is not enough. Our parishes need to fully-equip their members to apply these faith values to their lives.
