Four official Roman Catholic magisterial documents deal with the laity in an extensive way: The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, The Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, the 1983 Code of the Canon Law, and the 1988 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Vocation and Mission of the Laity in the Church and in the World. Yet, it remains difficult to claim theological consensus on the meaning and scope of the vocation and mission of lay people in the Church. Seeking to explore the lack of consensus further, this thought-provoking study systematically probes and compares all four texts, and addresses the problematic questions posed by some recent theologies of the laity: the rejection of the hierarchical structure of the Church, the influence of class-conflict ideology, a lack of emphasis on the secular character of the laity and a neglect of sacramental identity. A major contribution to theological and pastoral studies, this ground-breaking analysis will prove of special service to lay and permanent deaconate formation programs.
