SACBC launches Council for the Laity

The Chairperson of the Laity Council in Southern Africa has reminded Catholic lay persons in the Southern African region that they have ‘a distinct and very real role’ in the spreading of the Gospel, which the Church desperately needs them to carry out with authority. Malatsi Leonard Kope said this, recently, when he spoke in the presence of Southern African Bishops. This was during the launch of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference Laity Council.

The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC) have been meeting at St John Vianney Seminary in Pretoria, South Africa. The Bishops’ conference comprises Botswana, the Republic of South Africa and Swaziland.

“To many of us, lay faithful, there is a notion that the only real vocation in the Church is in the ordained or vowed priesthood and religious life. We still believe the Church is the ordained office of priests and the religious. (We think) of them as being the only ones who are called to serve. The actual teaching of the Church is that lay people have a distinct and very real role in the spreading of the Gospel, which the Church desperately needs them to carry out with authority, creativity and power that the Holy Spirit has given to them in Baptism,” said Malatsi Leonard Kope, the council’s chairperson.

The Chairperson of the Laity Council thanked the Bishops for their role in bringing about awareness and encouraging them to play their distinctive role in the life of the Church.

Kope urged the laity in Southern Africa to participate and engage more meaningfully in all the Commissions of the Bishops’ Conference, dioceses and parishes.

“Through continued formation and more involvement of the laity in the (life of) mother Church, the world will be brought closer to encountering Christ. Let us all jointly work together with our religious, clergy and the Magisterium of our Church to accomplish the mission of the Church. (Let us) accept the call of God to our specific mission and vocation; encourage Sodality members to live their devotions as a way of making Christ known to the world,” the laity Chairperson said.

Kope further urged Catholic laity in the region to strengthen family life since it was in  the family where the first contact with God happens. The family was the first Church, he emphasised.

“Let's encourage good family-life amongst ourselves with proper marriages- blessed in Church by our Catholic clergy. (Let us) promote the family and marriage life,” Kope said.

(Source: Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference)

(Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va)