ROMA, Father Alberto Eronti.Saturday, March 5th, the first meeting of the year 2005, of the Movements and the New Communities in the Pontifical Council of Laymen took place. 26 Associations participated and the theme was: "Laity and laicism". Mons. Josef Clemens, Secretary of the Council, presided over this meeting. The theme is very timely, especially in what we call the New Europe. The tension between the Church and some governments has increased in an accelerated manner during the last months.

The standard bearers of this tension have been the governments of France and Spain, but there others to be added that have made less noise and who follow the same direction. Without a doubt that the most stinging subjects have been: the European Constitution (that did not want to name the "Christian roots" of Europe) and a series of moral subjects such as: the manipulation of human embryos, euthansia, contraception, using different methods and means, the so called "homosexual marriages", the teaching of religion in the schools, the external religious symbols, etc. What is behind this reality? What ideas, forces, what to they want to accomplish with this accelerated race against what the Church calls "divine law"? Father Kentenich used to say that "to understand something, you had to know what forces were at the origin". That is what this encounter wanted to do and at the same time to catch a glimpse at the reponses.

The right and the responsibility to act in society

Mons. Clemens made the introduction to the theme recalling the words of the Holy Father to the Diplomatic Corps in the year 2004:

"Religion in society should be a dialoguing presence. Believers hope that their right to participate in public life be recognized, because today what seems to be in danger is participation and the lack of religous freedom. The limitations that are placed on the believers, in the name of laicism..."

Ater the introduction, a conference about the theme took place, as usual. This time Professor Guiseppe Della Torre, Rector of LUMSA (Libera Universita "Maria SS. Asunta), was invited. He began recalling that today "layman"and "laicism" have a generic and ambigious meaning, which permits that different affirmations and even contradictory ones be made. At the bottom of this is the ignorance of the etimology and the history of these terms. For the Church the meaning of both is precise, not so in the social usuage. For example, we should recall that the word "layman" comes from Greek and it was commonly used until the end of the First Century to indicate members of the Church who were not consecrated

"to the things of God". Pope Clement I, as well as, Tertullian, used this word with the same meaning. The ambiguity only began in the Middle Ages and it gained more strength since the French Revolution until now. It was the Vatican Council II that gave a clear and definitive concept of what the Church means by layman and laicism, for which - being opposed - it clarified the concept of the term "laicism". For the Church it is clear that the layman, as a member of the Church, has the right and the responsibility to act in society since that is his sphere or area.

The term "laicism" is today identified with absolute rationalism and humanism, ending with negating objective truth. That is why it insists that "religion is a private act" It intellectually, and practically, gives supremacy and a subjection of the religious to the State. The final consequence is that the law is dictated by the State and not a supernatural reality. the "ethical relativisim" and the "total tolerance" are the favorite sons of laicism, that does not recognize the spiritual and religious dimension and it rejects all objective truth. It is the empyting of the most sublime values and ideals of the human spirit, and for that reason, from that point there is a very short path to nihilism. The church does not reject the laicism of the State. It recognizes the autonomy of the temporal reality. but it affirms that it is an relative autonomy because the temporal is not what is everlasting, it is God.

Synthesis of the most significant contributions of the dialogue

The Church has entered a new stormy time. We must not go "against", but search for what God asks to develop today as the newest evangelical.

We must renew ourselves interiorly in the "transcendental act" of history: God became man. God became man and he walked the way of man.

Jesus Christ is Truth incarnated. This is the Truth we are called to live and to announce. Not only to reveal the truth of God, but also reveal the truth of man and the human community.

The challenge is to live our faith. God calls through circumstance not to go "against", but to live more. The danger of the Church is mediocrity of life, a reality that does not convince the one who lives nor the one who sees it lived. Youth need role models. Adulthood of life and the faith transforms us in witness of a message that is lived with gifts and tasks. John Paul II told the youth in France on his first visit: " Let you be an irresistible questioning". A force of life! The failure of values demands of us values and truths that are lived. First, it is truth that is alive and lived, the only undeniable reality.

Today Europe is asking us to develop a pedagogy of faith. It is about preaching in the first place with life, then give the reason for what is lived, by word.

The Church in good measure has lost its mission consciousness. The Father sent his Son and the Son sent the apostles to "the ends of the world". The mission is the will of the Father, it is accomplished in the Son and it continues in the Church. A Church without mission consciousness, becomes disfigured and becomes old, mission consciousness is the guarantee of its youth.

In this sense the old molds and methods melt. There cannot be a response to the new things of the 21st Century with responses from the centuries of the past. The only everlasting thing is the act that God made man and left it in message in deeds and words. What is the pedagogy of the 21st Century?

Youth need to learn how to think and to reason. They no longer do it, they are capable of "turning on" the TV or the cell phone, or the computer, but not their minds. They are more capable of mobilizing their "desires" their "emotions", but not their ideals or values that have been "turned off".

May these notes, although incomplete, help us and encourage us to live our love for the Church and renew us in the gift we have received.

Translation: Celina Garza, Harlingen, Texas, USA