Pope Francis met with members of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life on the occasion of their plenary assembly. In the meeting, they reflected on the role of the laity and their ministries in a synodal Church.
The Pope told them that there are certain ministries that the laity can currently carry out. But he also warned them against pigeonholing the laity into those roles. The Pope said that it is worse when a lay person thinks that this is their only mission.
POPE FRANCIS
I get angry when I see lay ministers who—excuse the word—get 'puffed up' doing this ministry. This is ministerial, but it is not Christian. They are pagan ministers, full of themselves.
Pope Francis stressed that a lay person is not merely an altar server, but is entrusted with the important task of bringing Christian values to the social, political and economic world.
He specifically emphasized the need for the laity to help migrants and to fight against the 'new forms of poverty.'
After his homily, the Pope went out to St. Peter's Square. He greeted many pilgrims who came to Rome for the beatification of Armida Barelli, an Italian woman who lived in the first half of the 20th century.
She was a leader of Catholic Action, the co-founder of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and two other institutions: the Secular Institute of the Missionaries of the King and Society of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Pope Francis reflected on Blessed Armida's vocation, as she decided to consecrate herself without going to a convent or monastery.
POPE FRANCIS
Secular consecration is the paradigm of a new way of living as laity in the world.
St. Paul VI said, 'If they remain faithful to their proper vocation, secular institutes will almost become the 'experimental laboratory' in which the Church tests its concrete relations with the world.'
Armida Barelli's beatification was originally scheduled for April 30, 2022.
JRB
TR: KG
