The Bishop of Rome suggested that “there is still a tendency to unilaterally identify the Church with the hierarchy, forgetting the common responsibility, the common mission” of all the baptized.
“Up to what point is the pastoral responsibility of everyone, especially the laity, recognized and encouraged,” he asked.
Referring to laypeople committed in the service of the Church, the Pope said there should not be “a lessening of the awareness that they are ‘Church,’ because Christ, the eternal Word of the Father, convokes them and makes them his People.”
Benedict XVI thus asked priests to transmit to laypeople a “sense of belonging to the parish community” and the importance of unity. He further encouraged that laypeople draw close to sacred Scripture, through means such as lectio divina, and carry out missionary activity, in first place through living out charity.
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Benedict XVI Calls on Laity to Recognize Pastoral Responsibility
The Bishop of Rome suggested that “there is still a tendency to unilaterally identify the Church with the hierarchy, forgetting the common responsibility, the common mission” of all the baptized.
“Up to what point is the pastoral responsibility of everyone, especially the laity, recognized and encouraged,” he asked.
Referring to laypeople committed in the service of the Church, the Pope said there should not be “a lessening of the awareness that they are ‘Church,’ because Christ, the eternal Word of the Father, convokes them and makes them his People.”
Benedict XVI thus asked priests to transmit to laypeople a “sense of belonging to the parish community” and the importance of unity. He further encouraged that laypeople draw close to sacred Scripture, through means such as lectio divina, and carry out missionary activity, in first place through living out charity.
Read it all.