February 1, 1987
by Nicholas Lobkowicz
The situation of laymen is very different from country to country. So is the awareness of the dignity and of the tasks of laymen as they were outlined in the constitution Lumen Gentium and the decree Apostolicam Actuositatem by the Second Vatican Council. While in Germany, where I write these lines, there exists a long [...]
February 1, 1987
by Eugene McCarthy
Changes in the role of the laity in the Catholic Church over the next twenty-five years are difficult to project in particulars; general and substantive changes are not likely to be significantly different from changes that have taken place in the last twenty-five years. Those changes have been minimal in contrast with changes in the [...]
February 1, 1987
by D.Q. McInerny
Although the term "the faithful" is comprehensively applicable within the Church, it is commonly used to designate the laity. The faithful — it is a praising and pro-vocative term, telling us, if not so much what in every instance we actually are, what unquestionably we should always strive to he: Faithful. We are all well [...]
February 1, 1987
by Mary F. Rousseau
Most deeply, the vocation of the laity in coming decades will be what it has always been: to evangelize the world. That truth may seem too obvious to mention, but it was missed in a recent survey taken to prepare for a coming synod in a large Midwestern diocese. On the list of concerns of [...]
February 1, 1987
by Robert Royal
During the protracted controversies of the fourth century, Saint Gregory confessed that he felt "disposed to shun every conference of Bishops; for never saw I synod brought to a happy issue, and remedying, and not rather aggravating existing evils. For rivalry and ambition are stronger than reason . . . " This may not be [...]
February 1, 1987
by Janet E. Smith
“The people are the Church," they tell us. "They" are the theologians and their disciples in the community in which I teach and live. But who are these "people" who are the Church? I recently heard one of these modern theologians (a priest) who define the Church as "the people" (is he one of the [...]
February 1, 1987
by Christopher Wolfe
The situation of the Church today, in regard to the lay vocation, is extraordinarily paradoxical. A staple topic of the last twenty years has been "the emerging layman" in the Church, and there is no question that the laity are now much more visible. Yet there is currently a very strong tendency, even among those [...]
February 1, 1987
by Phyllis Zagano
The cynic might say that the typical diocese is headed by a bishop and has various operations which are run by priests, staffed by religious, and paid for by the laity. This checkbook approach to the apostolate of the laity certainly exists, even flourishes, in certain parts, but it has severe dangers for those on [...]
November 1, 1982
by Crisis Magazine
THOSE OF US who planned this new journal did so under the working title Catholicism in Crisis. We did so with the example of Reinhold Niebuhr vividly in mind, who on February 10, 1941, under analogous circumstances, finding existing periodicals inhospitable, launched Christianity and Crisis. There were many crises in 1941, Niebuhr wrote, but only one the crisis the intention [...]
