Vatican II Gave the Laity a Mission — and a Mandate| National Catholic Register

“Vatican II will be remembered in history as the Council of the advancement of the laity in the Church,” commented one Council Father during the discussion of the Council’s document on the apostolate of the laity. 

The decree, which we now know by the title Apostolicam Actuositatem, was approved on Nov. 18, 1965, just three weeks before the end of the Council. This text on the evangelizing mission of the laity, while not one of the Council’s better-known documents, is nonetheless an extraordinarily rich document that illuminates a theme at the very heart of Vatican II. 

The journey to compose Apostolicam Actuositatem was long and arduous. During the preparation of the Council, a special commission, with the help of various subcommissions, had produced an extensive draft for a “constitution” on the lay apostolate, which exhaustively covered both general notions and specific aspects, with entire sections dedicated to charitable activity and social action.  

However, despite touching on many important points, the document was too long and it would not be discussed on the Council floor. 

In the early months of 1963, under the guidance of the Commission for Coordinating the Work of the Council — a body created by Pope St. John XXIII to expedite the Council’s activity — the text was greatly shortened to about a quarter of its original length, with some material transferred to the Constitution on the Church (later known as Lumen Gentium) and the Constitution on the Church’s presence in the world (the later Gaudium et Spes). 

In light of the suggestions made by the Council Fathers in writing, in 1964 the text was further shortened and simplified to a document of just five chapters. This draft offered a succinct overview of the apostolic vocation of the laity, their mission, and their place in the Church. In words that would make their way into the final decree, this text states that “the Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate.” The draft also describes the associations through which the apostolate of the individual reaches its “full efficacy.” 

The Council Fathers would finally discuss the text in October 1964. Despite the extensive revision that the text had undergone, many of the Council Fathers felt that the document had not yet succeeded in fully expressing the specific meaning of the lay apostolate in the Church. Bishop Ignacio Orbegozo of Peru, also a member of Opus Dei, expressed his agreement with the critiques of others and commented that the text was “too clerical” and too focused on the hierarchy, and not clear enough about the laity’s specific role in helping to renew the world in Christ. 

Archbishop Eugene D’Souza of India felt that the draft put too much emphasis on the apostolate of the laity in dependence on the Church hierarchy. He pointedly asked his fellow Council Fathers, “Brothers, are we, Catholic clergy, truly prepared to completely renounce clericalism? To have the laity as brothers in the Lord, equal to us in dignity, even if not in office in the Mystical Body?”

The commission entrusted with the revision of the text would take these and many other suggestions seriously. The result would be a greatly altered and expanded text that was presented to the Council Fathers in September 1965. This new draft provided a much deeper theological foundation of the lay apostolate within the mystery of the Church, drawing from the Council’s Constitution Lumen Gentium, approved the previous November. A totally new paragraph, which would be incorporated into the final decree, identified the root of the apostolate as “the faith, hope, and charity which the Holy Spirit diffuses in the hearts of all members of the Church.” 

The Commission for the Lay Apostolate also responded to several suggestions by adding a completely new section dedicated to the spirituality needed by the laity for their apostolate, and that they are called to live out within their ordinary circumstances. As the later decree would affirm, “The success of the lay apostolate depends upon the laity’s living union with Christ.” 

This richer supernatural perspective was accompanied by a broader vision of the laity’s specific mission in the world. The new text did away with the idea that in their apostolate the laity would be ‘helpers’ who respond to the wishes of the clergy and hierarchy. 

Rather, as the revised draft and final decree note, the lay faithful are “fellow workers for the truth” (3 John 8) along with their pastors. This role, as the decree specifies, involves “the witness of one’s way of life” but also words that seek to lead nonbelievers to faith and strengthen fellow believers. 

With its enhanced description of the scope of the lay apostolate — in “the family, culture, economic matters, the arts and professions, the laws of the political community, international relations” and “all those things which make up the temporal order,” the Council wished to sketch out with more forcefulness the distinctive realms in which the laity are called to bear witness to Christ. 

The revised text also extols the role of associations, with particular mention of Catholic Action, a prominent means of lay apostolate that had developed in previous decades, characterized by close collaboration with the hierarchy. At the same time, responding to the request of various Council Fathers, the later revised text avoids giving the impression that involvement with associations is obligatory. The decree states that the individual apostolate, flowing from a “truly Christian life” (John 4:14), is “the origin and condition of the whole lay apostolate.” 

Vatican II acknowledged the serious difficulties faced by lay men and women in their task of bringing the world to God. The Italian Bishop Biagio D’Agostino stated that if the vocation to apostolate arises from the very reality of the Christian vocation, the laity are also in need of formation. “Just as a vigorous soldier does not arise except by firm discipline,” he noted, “so it must be said of a soldier for the Kingdom of Christ.”

The Council would respond to this and other such concerns by dedicating a new chapter to the topic of “formation for the apostolate,” which asserts the importance of spiritual, doctrinal and human formation for lay persons, both theoretical and practical, which should start with “the children’s earliest education” and “be perfected throughout their whole life.”

With these and many other salient points, Apostolicam Actuositatem presents a stirring vision of the role of the laity in transforming the world, but also an abundance of practical indications for making this vision a reality. The Council’s desires for increased responsibility among the laity were made particularly tangible at the end of the debate on the document, when a lay auditor, the Englishman Patrick Keegan, gave the first address by a lay person during a working session of the Council.

Keegan acknowledged the great challenge of making Catholics aware of their apostolic responsibility. Nonetheless, he expressed his satisfaction at the way the Council debate had brought together the hierarchy and laity, binding them “together inseparably in the single mission of the Church.” The Council’s decree voices the Council’s wish that through this unity within the mystery of the Mystical Body of Christ, the laity might respond generously to — as it states in concluding — “the more urgent invitation of Christ” for them to share in Christ’s saving mission.