An Interview...

I know it has been a while since I posted here. We will try to catch up on some things....

Russell Shaw was interviewed by ZENIT on "Why Vatican II Emphasized Lay Apostolate". The whole interview is well worth reading, (11/28/05 daily dispatch) but here are a couple key excerpts:

Q: According to the document, the laity are not limited to apostolate in their parish. National and even international apostolate is encouraged. What does this mean for a layperson?

Shaw: The parish is not the primary place where lay apostolate takes place. Nor is some other Church structure or institution the preferred setting for the apostolate of the laity. Lay apostolate is properly directed to, and takes place in, the secular world. As "Apostolicam Actuositatem" puts it, lay people "ought to take on themselves as their distinctive task this renewal of the temporal order" [No. 7].

Our current overemphasis on lay activity within ecclesiastical institutions and structures arises from the overemphasis on lay ministries since the 1970s. The Second Vatican Council said very, very little about lay ministry.

In speaking about the participation of lay people in the Church's mission, it spoke mainly about lay apostolate, and it made it overwhelmingly clear that this is primarily apostolate that carries the Gospel out into the world. Don't misunderstand -- lay ministry is a good thing. But by stressing ministry instead of apostolate, as is now commonly done, we are getting what the Council intended exactly backward.

Q: What is the place of apostolic and spiritual formation, in light of the call to apostolate?

Shaw:...There is another crucial -- and commonly ignored -- point about the formation of the laity which Pope John Paul makes in his apostolic exhortation "Christifideles Laici." It is that lay formation is, or at least it should be, specifically vocational in nature.

"The fundamental objective of the formation of the lay faithful," he says, "is an ever-clearer discovery of one's vocation and the ever-greater willingness to live it out so as to fulfill one's mission" [No. 58]. The Pope is talking about forming the laity for vocational discernment. The lay groups and movements seem to take that seriously. I wish more people did.