Lay movements challenge Synod to prioritise lay apostolate
Lay movements challenge Synod to prioritise lay apostolate
Ten international lay apostolate movements issued the call at a special Mass at the Domitilla Catacombs on 12 October 2024
At a special Mass celebrated in the Domitilla Catacombs in Rome, fifty lay leaders from thirty countries working with international lay apostolate movements adopted a declaration addressed to participants at the Second Session of the Synod on Synodality.
Entitled “Protagonists of Synodality: A Message from Lay Leaders to the Second Session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod,” the statement challenged Synod participants to clearly affirm the primacy of the baptismal vocation and the need to work to ensure that all lay people will become protagonists of a synodal Church promote the formation of responsible citizens active in the world.
The signatories also reaffirmed the original 1965 Pact of the Catacombs adopted by Vatican II bishops, who committed themselves to work for servant Church of the Poor.
The lay leaders were meeting in Rome at a conference on “Lay Mission and Vocation,” which took place from 9-13 October 2024.
The conference was held to mark the 60th anniversary of the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium, including its pathbreaking Chapter Four on The Laity.
Domitilla Declaration
Protagonists of Synodality: A Message from Lay Leaders to the Second Session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod
We, lay leaders, animators and chaplains from 30 countries representing millions of Catholics in 10 international movements of specialized Catholic action convened in Rome to reflect on the past, present, and future of the lay apostolate alongside the meeting of the Synod on Synodality. Together at the
Domitilla Catacombs, we reaffirm the Catacombs’ Pact of the Poor and Servant Church (1965), and we:
give thanks to God for Pope Francis, for his ministry and for the synodal process;
lament the suffering caused by social injustice, marginalization, and violence wounding our world and celebrate the witness of peacemakers;
denounce the sins and wounds of clericalism and all forms of power abuse that inhibit the organized apostolate and we acknowledge our own limitations and fragility;
affirm the fundamental baptismal vocation of all the baptized, no matter what stage, to become protagonists of the apostolate and to proclaim in word and action the Reign of God;
celebrate the prophetic work of the Holy Spirit through our members in hundreds of local realities worldwide as legacies of our ancestors who walked before us including our leaders who were at the Second Vatican Council as members and auditors; and
confirm our specific mission as actors of the lay apostolate in the “sanctification of the world from within as a leaven” (Lumen Gentium, 31), living in various realities and circumstances in family and social life in the world.
We, therefore, collegially, ask the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod in these final days of the Second Session to:
affirm the primacy of the baptismal vocation and the urgent need to create a church where all the baptized can be protagonists in the formation of responsible citizens in the world;
recognize that there are more than one methodological pathways for synodality, including the inductive and action-oriented method of the see-judge-act and the Review of Life; and
more explicitly acknowledge and engage the role of the organized lay apostolate as autonomous structures of synodality led by the laity at the local, national, and international levels.
Together, as international lay movements, we:
pledge to continue to work together as movements of specialized Catholic action (MIACS) in common projects at the intersection of faith and life; and
recommit ourselves here at the Domitilla Catacombs, individually and collectively, to live with Hope the option for the poor.
Organizers included the International Young Christian Workers (IYCW-JOCI); International Coordination of Young Christian Workers (ICYCW-CIJOC); International Young Catholic Students (IYCS-JECI); International Movement of Catholic Agricultural and Rural Youth (MIJARC); International Movement for the Apostolate of Independent Milieux (MIAMSI); World Movement of Christian Workers (WMCW-MMTC); International Movement for the Apostolate of Children: MIDADE. International Catholic Movement of Intellectuals: (ICMICA-MIIC Pax Romana); International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS-MIEC Pax Romana), the Australian Cardijn Institute (Australia), Dorothy Day Center (Manhattan University), Centre International Cardijn (Lille, France), Centro Internacional Cardijn (Bogota, Colombia), Laudato Si’ Center/International Youth Training Centre (Chiang Mai, Thailand), Cardijn Community International Africa (CCIA).
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Lay mission and vocation conference, Rome, 9-13 October, 2024
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Photo of the Mass at the Domitilla Catacombs, courtesy of Nate Tinner-Williams