Surely it has been many days since posting here-but I will make up for lost time by linking to two articles which look at the role of the laity in the Church-historically and currently.

The first is by our favorite author on the topic, Russell Shaw. In the May/June issue of Lay Witness Magazine (article available here), Mr. Shaw tries once again to clarify that lay ministry is not lay apostolate:

The council said very little about lay ministry. The Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity reduced it to two sentences: "The hierarchy entrusts the laity with certain charges more closely connected with the duties of pastors: in the teaching of Christian doctrine, for example, in certain liturgical actions, in the care of souls. In virtue of this mission the laity are fully subject to ecclesiastical control in regard to the exercise of these charges" (AA, no. 24).

Lay apostolate is something that takes place in secular environments- the home, the neighborhood, the workplace, the school. "The laity . . . are given this special vocation: to make the Church present and fruitful in those places and circumstances where it is only through them that she can become the salt of
the earth" (LG, nos. 32-33).

The Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity hammers home these basic concepts. "The characteristic of the lay state being a life led in the midst of the world and of secular affairs, laymen are called to make of their apostolate . . . a leaven in the world," it says. And again: "Laymen ought to take on themselves as their distinctive task this renewal of the temporal order" (AA, nos. 2,7).

Read the whole article (or buy the book, Catholic Laity in the Mission of the Church!).

Also of interest on this topic came in Friday's daily dispatch from ZENIT. Ramiro Pellitero, professor of pastoral theology at the University of Navarra and author of "The Laity in the Ecclesiology of Vatican II" says:

...the fact that, by baptism, all Christians are "the Church." Within our common baptismal vocation, diverse conditions and vocations can be found. The lay faithful are called to take God into temporal realities such as the family, work, culture, the communication media, politics, sports, etc. They do this from within society, in and for the ordinary realities that make up their lives.

Again, read the entire article.