The true city, the holy one, allows us, in the words of Paul Philibert, an alternative "vision of human relationships where beauty is more desirable than financial profit, friendship more precious than advantage, and solidarity in a common vision of human dignity more compelling than self–fulfillment." A simple paraphrase of Dorotheus of Gaza – I’d much rather do things with others and have them come out wrong than do them myself to make sure they come out right.

(This is a talk given on Nov.16, 1998 at the opening session of the U.S. Bishops’ Annual Fall Meeting in Washington D.C. Bishop Anthony Pilla’s term as President of the Bishops’ Council ended at the conclusion of this three–day gathering.)

Before I begin the main body of my talk, I would like to acknowledge a special and, for the popes elected in our century, a unique occasion. During our meetings in Rome last month, I presented a letter to the Holy Father expressing congratulations on the 20th anniversary of his pontificate. The telegram, which I am about to read, embodies much of what I said in that letter:

"Your Holiness, as the National Conference of Catholic Bishops opens its semiannual general assembly, the bishops gathered here offer you our most sincere congratulations and fervent prayers for God’s continued blessings upon you on the occasion of your 20th anniversary as supreme pontiff.

"As we look forward to your continuing leadership of the church on the threshold of the new millennium, we gratefully recall all that you have already done as the church’s universal shepherd. We thank God for your gifts as a teacher expressed above all in your encyclical letters which are always profoundly rooted in the word of God and of which Fides et Ratio is the most recent inspiring example.

"We thank you for the collegial spirit in which you have promoted the significance of the ordinary and special assemblies of the Synod of Bishops, in particular for last year’s synod for America, to whose apostolic exhortation we look forward with eagerness.

"We thank God for your pastoral concern for the American people, which has been so clearly apparent in your many visits to the United States. We look forward to celebrating the Eucharist with you once again in our country next January in St. Louis.

"Your commitment to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue has brought the papacy close to the enormous variety of Orthodox churches and the Protestant communities made up of our fellow citizens, as well as to our nations’ growing Muslim population and to the large Jewish community, which is deeply appreciative of how hard you have worked to create a good relationship between Catholics and the Jewish people.

"Your stirring words on your visit to the United States in 1995 did much to remind our nation of its own most fundamental and cherished ideals and revealed you once again as the world’s foremost champion of human rights, especially of the voiceless and the most vulnerable. You have brought the gospel of respect for the God–given dignity of every human being from conception to natural death to the furthest reaches of the globe and above all to your own beloved native Poland and the whole of Eastern Europe.

"Through your pastoral visits, through your writings and talks, and through your gifts in using the media, you have brought the papacy closer to the Catholic people and to all the world than could have ever before been imagined. In you we have a pope who is not a stranger in any part of the globe and who does not want others to be strangers to him.

"On this happy occasion please accept our most sincere sentiments of love and esteem."

Two years ago I took the opportunity of this address to affirm and encourage our priests in their vocation, and also to speak of some of the challenges we are experiencing together. Today, I would like to do the same with regard to the many lay people who have dedicated themselves to the church through professional service, volunteer work, or simply the daily living of the Christian life.

When the bishops gathered nearly four decades ago for the Second Vatican Council, most would have expected them to speak of the church first of all in terms of the hierarchy. Yet they took a different approach, meditating first on the "mystery of the church" in its fullness and, before discussing its hierarchical nature, identifying the church with the biblical phrase which has had such an impact, "the people of God."

In doing so, the council confirmed that baptism is the basic Christian sacrament. It gives every member of the church the vocation to sanctity and to the mission of spreading the Gospel. The whole church is truly "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of (God’s) own" (1 Pt. 2:9). The concept of the common priesthood of all believers re–entered the mainstream of Catholic belief after its neglect in the wake of the Reformation–era controversies.

The council affirmed that the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood differ "essentially and not only in degree" (Lumen Gentium, 10), but also that they are related. In his first Holy Thursday letter to priests, the Holy Father urged priests to consider not only the theoretical but also the "existential meaning" of this relationship. For, as he wrote, the ministerial priesthood ‘serves to make the faithful aware of their common priesthood and to activate it.’(No. 4)

I would like to take the Holy Father’s call to consider this "existential meaning" in another direction. For me personally, I can say in all sincerity that the laity’s response to the renewed vision offered by the council serves to make me more aware of the gift I received in the ministerial priesthood and helps me live it more faithfully. I do not mean to say that before the council there were not many lay people who were models for me of devotion to Christ and the church. However, the encouragement given to the laity by the council and their response to it have enriched my experience as a priest and as a bishop.

It has been a great joy to see and to share in the flowering of so many gifts through the activity of the laity in bringing their faith to bear on the secular arena and their participation in the evolving forms of consultation and advice within the church; in the professional services they provide when they use their talents and abilities for the church rather than the marketplace; in the wide variety of their volunteer work, without which the church could not carry on her multifaceted mission; and in the liturgy. In all these ways, lay people have added vitality to my own vocation to such an extent that it is hard to recall church life being any other way.

I would like to dispose of the idea, often expressed, that this emphasis on the role of the laity is merely pragmatically useful, given the fewer priests in so many areas of our nation. While the laity have certainly helped cope with the situation, the renewal of their role is more than a pragmatic necessity. It springs from an interior renewal of the very meaning of what it is to be church, in which we are guided by the Holy Spirit who renews the face of the earth.

I want to affirm also those who live in various ways the consecrated life. Many of you have taken the renewal called for by the council with special seriousness, and it has not always been an easy journey. Your faith and zeal for the church have been a source of support for my own vocation. I thank God for those of you with whom I have worked personally, and I am grateful for the vision of the council without which I may not have had the opportunity to do so.

I do not intend to speak of the renewal of the role of the laity as if it has been completed. Pope Pius IX described three phases of a council: ‘First there is that of the devil; then comes that of men, finally that of God.’ These same phases may be applied to the implementation of a council. Disputes, some very serious, arise in its wake, while we human beings do our best to make the conciliar decrees effective. Finally, the Spirit completes the work in harmony and peace as the council’s message, at last, pervades our lives.

Sometimes we seem to be living in all three stages. Last year in my talk on reconciliation, I asked those with extreme views at either end of the spectrum of church opinion to treat one another as members of one Catholic family. While people normally deflect criticism by saying that it was not aimed at them, after my talk some seemed to go out of their way to say that while I claimed to be talking about both extremes, I really meant them. This unusual way of dealing with supposed criticism reveals one difficulty of the time in which we live.

Unfortunately, some interpret the council’s vision, which was meant to bring about a sense of closer communion and collaboration among the members of the church, as simply a shift in the power structure of an organization. Thus rivalries, instead of a common purpose, have characterized part of our post–conciliar life. This adversarial approach may actually be a healthy thing in the secular culture; but it can be out of place in the church, where our love for one another – inspired and made possible by the love of Christ for us all – is essential to our Christian witness.

In some ways it is a more difficult situation than in the secular culture, which seems to have recaptured something of a sense of the need for leadership and a willingness to follow it. In the church there are those who seem to have lost this sense entirely and are unwilling to accept a role for authority in the church. They endlessly debate the decisions of their pastors on issues great and small, extraordinary and routine. They appear to live either in a past or in a future of their own imagining but not in the present in which their pastors must make these decisions.

One of our most important tasks as bishops is to discern these spirits for what may be valid in their criticism, without being too quick to disturb the peace of the whole church on their account. It can be a common mistake, especially when the media magnify angry voices, to forget to nourish the many in our attempts to appease an unappeasable few.

This problem exists not only at the extremes. Even in more ordinary circumstances, some can become overly conscious of their own roles in the church and forget that we are all meant to work together in service of the church and to bring about her well–being. St. Paul faced this problem in Corinth where he had to remind the Christians that they are a proper body – not all ear or all nose, saying to one another, "I don’t need you." It is only in working together that the parts of the body make up a healthy and effective totality. As important as one’s particular gifts, as great as anyone’s individual talent may be, none of us by ourselves can make up the church, the people that God has called from darkness into his marvelous light.

This humility about our individual roles and our commitment to living them out in a spirit of unity is important not only for the internal life of the church but also for the primary role which the laity have in bringing the Gospel to the world. This is so for two reasons. The more fundamental reason involves the religious and moral significance of many of the matters about which the laity must engage the world. This

significance can be so great that to engage the world properly and effectively in the name of the Gospel the laity need to be guided by the light of the church’s teaching office. Respect for that office and a willingness to hone one’s own wisdom with the tool of the wisdom of the church are essential to the laity’s proclamation of the Gospel in the secular world.

The other reason is more practical. The world will hardly listen to us about how it ought to arrange its affairs, if "at home" we manifestly cannot do it ourselves.

So all of us, with the bishops exercising appropriate oversight, have the duty actively to develop both internal and external lay leadership as envisioned by the council. This means not only creating the opportunities for such leadership but also offering formation in church teaching and practice. Exhortations to greater involvement are hollow without providing the means to respond to them in an informed and prepared way.

Such formation is already available through programs of adult education throughout our nation. They need to be supported and affirmed. Our schools and religious education programs must also be affirmed as places in which the council’s vision is taught, where effective collaboration begins and where there are opportunities for real service to the church.

Programs of clergy formation and continuing education do and should continue to include the reflection on the theoretical and the existential meanings of the relationship between the common and the ministerial priesthoods, as the Holy Father urged. Bishops, priests, religious and laity need to remain committed to establishing the means of consultation, advice, and shared responsibility such as parish and diocesan pastoral councils, and to developing the skills to use them effectively. In this context I want to call attention to the role of the National Advisory Council on which each of these groups is represented and which is the source of always helpful and often decisive advice on so many matters that come before the conference.

Laity and clergy, in the words of St. Paul, should "anticipate each other in showing respect"(Rom. 12:10b) for what each can bring to the building up of God’s people. Animated by such a spirit of mutual respect and owing "no debt to anyone except the debt that binds us to love one another" (Rom. 13:8), we can make our parishes and other church communities dynamic centers where the disciples of Christ persevere in prayer, bear witness to him and "give an answer to those who seek an account of that hope of eternal life which is within them" (cf. Lumen Gentium, 10).

To alter a famous aphorism, the best is often the enemy of the good. In our quest for perfection, we sometimes forget to thank God for the gifts we already have been given in the renewal launched by the council of the whole church and, in particular, of lay involvement in the church. Can any of us be without the faith that God began this good work among us or without the trust that he will bring it to fulfillment?