VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday called for a rediscovery of the role of the laity in the Church.
“Let us rekindle in ourselves the awareness of and gratitude for having received the gift of being part of God’s People; and also the responsibility that this entails,” Leo urged during the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 18.
In his catechesis, focused on chapter two of the constitution Lumen gentium, one of the fundamental documents of the Second Vatican Council, the pontiff explained that the Church, as “the communion of the faithful — which naturally includes the pastors — cannot err in matters of faith.”
Leo maintained that the Church possesses a particular capacity to safeguard revealed truth, since it is grounded in “the supernatural sense of faith of the entire People of God, which is manifested in the consensus” of all the members of the Church.
From this unity, which the Church’s magisterium safeguards, Leo XIV said, “it follows that each baptized person is an active agent of evangelization, called to bear consistent witness to Christ in accordance with the prophetic gift which the Lord bestows upon his whole Church.”
The baptized are ‘obliged to spread and defend the faith’
The pontiff recalled that, according to the teaching of Vatican II, the People of God participate in Christ’s mission as priest, prophet, and king. “This common priesthood of the faithful,” the pope explained, arises from Baptism and is strengthened through Confirmation.
Through these sacraments, Christians “are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith, both by word and by deed, as true witnesses of Christ,” he said, quoting from Lumen gentium.
Leo also quoted Pope Francis, to recall that all members of the Church share the same fundamental dignity and “everyone forms the faithful Holy People of God.”
The ‘sense of the faith’
One of the central points of Leo’s catechesis was the explanation of the so-called “sensus fidei,” that is, the “sense of the faith” and “consensus of the faithful.”
The pope noted that the Council Fathers who participated in the Second Vatican Council taught “that the holy People of God also participate in the prophetic mission of Christ.”
The Doctrinal Commission of the Council clarified that this “sensus fidei” is “a faculty of the whole Church, by which she, in her faith, recognizes the revelation handed down, distinguishing between true and false in matters of faith, and at the same time penetrates it more deeply and applies it more fully in life.”
“The sense of faith therefore belongs to individual believers not in their own right, but as members of the People of God as a whole,” he explained.
A living Church guided by the Spirit
The pontiff also emphasized that the Holy Spirit distributes gifts and charisms among all the faithful, contributing to the constant renewal of the Church.
The Holy Spirit “distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank. By these gifts he makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church,” Leo said, quoting from Lumen gentium, and pointing to the charismatic vitality of consecrated life in particular.
He also highlighted the different forms of ecclesial associations as another “shining example of the variety and fruitfulness of spiritual fruits for the edification of the People of God.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister agency of EWTN News. It was translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
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