Fresco of Christians eating together at a tomb in the Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Via Labicana, Rome.
The Canon Law Society of India offers this lecture by Fr. A. Anandarayar. It begins:
When we turn the pages of early church history we find that lay people had played a significant role in the mission of the church. But due to clericalism in the Middle Ages lay people came to be considered as second grade members of the church and their role was reduced to a passive one. The 1917 code defined laity in negative terms and it had just two canons on laity. Vatican II restores the positive image of lay people and their vital role in the mission of the church. The 1983 code spells out concretely the various possibilities of greater involvement of lay people in the three-fold function of the church. The 1987 Synod of Bishops devoted its attention to the important theme of: “Vocation and mission of the Laity in the Church and in the World, twenty years after the second Vatican Council”. The status and functions of the lay people in the church is certainly one of the foremost ecclesiological phenomena or our time. In this presentation we would like to make a study on the participation of lay people in the governing, teaching and sanctifying office of the church. This study consists of two parts. In part one, we analyze some important concepts such as “Lay Person,” “Ecclesiastical Office”, “Ministry” and “Jurisdiction”. In the second part we make a study on the actual provisions made by the 1983 Code for the participation of the Laity in the governing, teaching and sanctifying office of the church.