LAITY
“Enlivening and encouraging the promotion of the vocation and mission of the lay faithful in the Church and in the world” (Praedicate Evangelium, Art. 129) is an important part of the everyday work carried out by the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. The lay faithful, as individuals, married or not, and as members belonging to associations, ecclesial movements, new communities, are the largest component of God's holy faithful people. The Holy Father's attention is directed to them through the work and pastoral care of this Dicastery, to encourage their participation and co-responsibility in the life and mission of the Church.
To this end, the Dicastery collaborates with the various lay ecclesial realities so that the lay faithful may share their faith experiences in social realities as well as their own secular expertise in the pastoral care and governance of the Church. Furthermore, it is the Dicastery's responsibility, in agreement with the other Dicasteries of the Roman Curia involved, to evaluate and approve the proposals of the Bishops' Conferences concerning the establishment of new ministries and ecclesiastical offices to be entrusted to the laity, according to the needs of the particular Churches. Through its work, the Dicastery expresses the Church's special solicitude for the youth; it accompanies the life and development of aggregations of the faithful and ecclesial movements; it deals with any hierarchical appeals relating to the associative life and the apostolate of the laity; and it strives to deepen reflection on the relationship between men and women in their respective specificity, reciprocity, complementarity and equal dignity.
News
Witnesses of the faith
Their respective causes of beatification and canonization will now continue at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
The diocesan phase in now completed in the causes for the beatification and canonization of two great twentieth-century witnesses of the faith: Chiara Lubich and Fr. Oreste Benzi. For the foundress of ...
Lay Holiness
From the plenary meeting of Polish Bishops, approval to request the nihil obstat for the instruction phase in the beatification process of the parents of Pope John Paul II
“There is not the slightest doubt that the spirituality of the future saintly Pope was formed within his family, and was thanks to the faith of his parents.” So said Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the ...
Youth
Secretary Fr. Awi Mello speaks at an international congress marking 40 years since the Puebla Conference
“Like an ideal on the horizon, the construction of a ‘civilization of love’ remains an ongoing project and a mission yet to be realized. Yet much has already been done in Latin America in this sense, ...
Magisterium of Pope Francis on the Lay Faithful