THE SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP OF THE BAPTIZED
Promulgated on November 18, 1965, this Vatican II document has not received the attention that it deserves. Discussion of the role of the laity has focused upon Lumen Gentium, the Constitution on the Church with its emphasis upon the People of God and the universal call to holiness.
Constitutions are more theoretical documents and therefore get the long term attention of theologians; decrees are more practical pastoral documents adapted to the differing needs of times and cultures
Language has been a big barrier to the use of this document; very long Latin sentences; a very bureaucratic style, and words that are not attractive in English. The document needs to be condensed and address the contemporary situation in America. The present document is a step in that direction
The word “laity” has been translated as “the baptized ” because the apostolate is the common shared activity of priests, religious and laity that flows from baptism. It is also a reminder that we live in a society in which most of the baptized are not laity of the Catholic Church.
While the document sometimes talks about the People of God, most of the time it uses the word Church. The word Church has been retained when it can only apply to Catholic laity. However when it could apply to all the baptized including non-Catholics, Church has been altered to People of God.
Apostolate in this document is a technical word that describes all the activity of the baptized in promoting the kingdom of Christ for the glory of God the Father. In English, this word has pious and churchly conotations unfaithful to the intent of the document. After the Council people began to use the word ministry for the apostolate in Church organizations, and service for the apostolate in secular contexts. However this is unfaithful to the common denominator of the word apostolate.
The best way to translate "apostolate" for our contemporary American situation is “spiritual leadership of the baptized. Strong agency is in the Latin title APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM.
LEADERSHIP is defined as “person A influencing person B to think, feel, and behave in ways that A desires.” This is the way psychologists define leadership; it is not about role, office, or management. Leadership and following (discipleship) are two sides to the same coin. In the two person situation Person A can only lead if Person B agrees to follow. As Greenleaf pointed out in Servant Leadership discerning when to follow is just as important as discerning when to lead. We are always involved in both leading and following. As Greenleaf argues, it is an extremely important dimension of life, central to all organizations, the object of educational and religious formation.
SPIRITUAL will be defined in terms of the four medieval transcendentals. It is the pursuit of the ONE (revelation, what we usually think of as religion), the TRUE (e.g. academic and profession life), the GOOD (public life), and the BEAUTIFUL(the arts and performance). John O’Malley describes this in his Four Cultures of the West. “Spiritual” and “spirituality” have become valued words in our culture more so than being “religious.”
While some people say they are spiritual but not religious, most people who say they are religious say they are spiritual. So it can be used as a broader more inclusive word. It is also a word that allows the baptized to collaborate across denominations and with non-Christians in secular situations where transcendental values like truth, goodness, love, justice, and beauty are likely to be invoked.
Bold indicates active agency formation; italics indicates paragraphs of particular relevance to CLCs.
SUMMARY
1. To intensify the spiritual
leadership of the people of God, the most holy synod earnestly addresses
itself to the baptized, whose proper and indispensable role in the
mission of the Church has already been dealt with in other documents. The spiritual leadership of the baptized
derives from their Christian vocation and the People of God can never be
without it.
In
this decree the Council seeks to describe the nature, character, and diversity
of the spiritual leadership of the baptized, to state its basic principles, and to give pastoral directives for
its more effective exercise. All these should be regarded as norms when the
canon law, as it pertains to baptized spiritual leadership, is revised.
CHAPTER I THE VOCATION OF THE BAPTIZED
TO SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP
2. The Church was founded for the purpose of spreading the kingdom of
Christ to enable all men to share in His saving redemption, and that
through them the whole world might enter into a relationship with Christ All activity of the Mystical Body directed
to the attainment of this goal is an exercise in spiritual leadership,
which the Church carries on in various ways through all her members. For the
Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to spiritual
leadership. In the People of God there
is a diversity of ministry but a
oneness of mission. …the laity likewise share in the priestly, prophetic,
and royal office of Christ and therefore have their own share in the mission of
the whole people of God in the Church and in the world.
The
baptized
exercise spiritual leadership in fact by their activity directed to the
evangelization and sanctification of men and to the penetrating and perfecting
of the temporal order through the spirit of the Gospel. Since the baptized, in accordance with
their state of life, live in the midst of the world and its concerns, they are called by God to exercise spiritual
leadership in the world like leaven, with the ardor of the spirit of
Christ.
For the exercise of this spiritual
leadership, the Holy Spirit Who sanctifies the people of God through
ministry and the sacraments gives the
faithful special gifts also (cf. 1 Cor. 12:7), "allotting them to
everyone according as He wills"(1 Cor. 12:11) in order that individuals, administering
grace to others just as they have received it, may also be "good stewards
of the manifold grace of God" (1 Peter 4:10), to
build up the whole body in charity (cf. Eph. 4:16). From the acceptance of these charisms, including those which are more
elementary, there arise for each believer the right and duty to use them in the
Church and in the world for the good
of men and the building up of the People of God, in the freedom of the Holy
Spirit who "breathes where He wills" (John 3:8).
CHAPTER II. OBJECTIVES OF SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP
8. While every exercise of spiritual leadership should be motivated by charity, some works by their very nature can become specially vivid expressions of this charity. Christ the Lord wanted these works to be signs of His messianic mission (cf. Matt. 11:4-5). ln her very early days, the holy Church added the agape to the Eucharistic supper and thus showed itself to be wholly united around Christ by the bond of charity.
CHAPTER III THE VARIOUS FIELDS OF
SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP
13. Spiritual leadership in the social milieu, that is, the effort to infuse a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws, and structures of the community in which one lives, is so much the duty and responsibility of the those who are neither clergy nor religious that it can never be performed properly by others.
Catholics should try to cooperate with all men and women of good will to promote whatever is true, whatever just, whatever holy, whatever lovable (cf. Phil. 4:8). They should hold discussions with them, excel them in prudence and courtesy, and initiate research on social and public practices which should be improved in line with the spirit of the Gospel.
CHAPTER IV THE VARIOUS FORMS OF SPIRITUAL
LEADERSHIP
16. Individual spiritual leadership, flowing generously from its source in a truly Christian life (cf. John 4:14), is the origin and condition of all baptized spiritual leadership, even of the organized type, and it admits of no substitute.
The group spiritual leadership of Christian believers then happily corresponds to a human and Christian need and at the same time signifies the communion and unity of the Church in Christ, who said, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20).
19. There is a great variety of associations in spiritual leadership. Some set before themselves the broad spiritual leadership purpose of the People of God; others aim to evangelize and sanctify in a special way. Some purpose to infuse a Christian spirit into the temporal order; others bear witness to Christ in a special way through works of mercy and charity. Among these associations, those which promote and encourage closer unity between the concrete life of the members and their faith must be given primary consideration. Associations are not ends unto themselves; rather they should serve the mission of the Church to the world. Their spiritual leadership dynamism depends on their conformity with the goals of the People of God.
Maintaining the proper relationship to Church authorities, the baptized have the right to found and control such associations and to join those already existing
21. All associations of spiritual leadership must be given due appreciation.
CHAPTER V SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIPS
AND EXTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS
The mission of the Church can be better accomplished in certain circumstances by undertakings of this kind, and therefore they are frequently praised or recommended by the hierarchy. No project, however, may claim the name "Catholic" unless it has obtained the consent of the lawful Church authority.
Yet the proper nature and distinctiveness of each form of spiritual leadership must be preserved, and the baptized must not be deprived of the possibility of acting on their own accord.
25. Bishops, pastors of parishes, and other priests of both branches of the clergy should keep in mind that the right and duty to exercise spiritual leadership is common to all the faithful, both clergy and the baptized, and that the baptized also have their own roles in building up the Church. For this reason they should work fraternally with the baptized in and for the Church and take special care of the baptized in these works of spiritual leadership.
26. In dioceses, insofar as possible, there should be councils which assist the spiritual leadership work of the Church either in the field of evangelization and sanctification or in the charitable, social, or other spheres, and here it is fitting that the clergy and Religious should cooperate with the baptized.
CHAPTER VI FORMATION FOR SPIRITUAL
LEADERSHIP
29. Since the baptized share in their
own way in the mission of the Church, their spiritual leadership
formation is specially characterized by the distinctively secular and
particular quality of the baptized state and by its own form of the
spiritual life.
The formation for spiritual
leadership presupposes a certain human and well-rounded formation adapted to the natural abilities
and conditions of each baptized person. Well-informed about the modern
world, the baptized person should be a member of his own community and
adjusted to its culture.
This formation should be deemed the basis and condition for successful spiritual leadership. To cultivate good human relations, truly human values must be fostered, especially the art of living fraternally and cooperating with others and of striking up friendly conversation with them. Since formation for Christian spiritual leadership cannot consist in merely theoretical instruction, from the beginning of their formation the baptized should gradually and prudently learn how to view, judge and do all things in the light of faith as well as to develop and improve themselves along with others through doing, thereby entering into active service to the Church.[2]
30. The training for spiritual leadership should start with the children's earliest education.
The whole family in its common life, then, should be a sort of apprenticeship for spiritual leadership
Likewise, lay groups and associations dedicated to spiritual leadership or other supernatural goals, should carefully and assiduously promote formation for Christian leadership in keeping with their purpose and condition.[4] Frequently these groups are the ordinary vehicle for harmonious formation for spiritual leadership inasmuch as they provide doctrinal, spiritual, and practical formation. Their members meet in small groups with their associates or friends, examine the methods and results of their apostolic activity, and compare their daily way of life with the Gospel.
Formation of this type must be so organized that it takes into account all baptized spiritual leadership, which must be carried on not only among the organized groups themselves but also in all circumstances throughout one's whole life, especially one's professional and social life. Indeed, everyone should diligently prepare himself for spiritual leadership this preparation being the more urgent in adulthood.