Pray, Pay & Obey

Last weekend, Daniel and I dropped our latest episode of Awkward Asian Theologians, this time on the subject of the laity.

In that episode we looked at some of the presumptions about the laity that de facto operate within ecclesiastical life, particularly what we observed as a de facto two track economy within the Church that treat clergy and laity as two hermetically sealed life worlds when, theologically, it should be a single whole.

Key among these presumptions is the coupling of various states to one’s vocation, and the presumption that it is only clergy and religious that have a vocation while the lay state functions as a kind of vocational waiting room.

In response, Dan and I sought to wrestle this 800-pound gorilla of clericalist presumption with reference to the sacraments and the papal magisterium.

In the first instance, with reference to Lumen Gentium, we looked at how it was the sacrament of baptism, rather than Holy Orders, that laid the foundation of one’s vocation, understood here as being embedded in the reality of the Church’s common mission to make disciples of all peoples. Against the backdrop of a common ecclesial mission, both lay and clerical states are not diametrically opposed to one another, but commonly participate in that mission, albeit in different ways.

We also looked at John Paul II’s encyclical on the lay faithful, Christifideles Laici, which reaffirmed Vatican II’s teaching that the lay faithful did not have an inferior vocation, but a unique manifestation of a common ecclesial vocation, through their direct involvement in the temporal affairs of the world. This is done, not in opposition to the clerical vocation, but in conjunction with it. As such, both these states participate in the Prophetic, Priestly and Kingly mission of Jesus Christ through his body, the Church.

We speak on these and more in our episode on the laity, which you can listen to in full here.