Laypeople are 99.999% of the Church

“If laypeople don’t love their Catholic faith enough to struggle for it in the public square, nothing the bishops do will finally matter.” -Archbishop Charles Chaput

A reader comments:

AMEN. A lot of our brethren need to spend less time worrying about what the bishops are doing/saying and more time speaking up publicly (while it’s still legal to do so). Our opponents are far less concerned with winning the debate than they are with silencing us and prevening our view from even being heard.

This is partly why I have such a burning lack of interest in liturgy wars. I regard them as a form of clericalism. Laypeople wasting time minding the priest’s business about minutiae instead of doing what is properly lay. Our work is out in to the world bringing the gospel to the marketplace, not endlessly infighting about whether the priest’s stole was the correct shade of green in ordinary time.

We have to be lay apostles. And to be an apostle we have to recover a sense of discipleship to Jesus Christ, not mere membership in an institution. If you’ve not done it yet, I urge you to read Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry Weddell. One of the most important books of the decade.