Lumen Gentium and the "People of God"

One of the more important Vatican II documents is the one titled Lumen Gentium (or “People of Light”). It is a highly progressive document that appears in many ways to be aimed at reforming an overly-hierarchical church that has vehemently resisted change.

The phrase “People of God” is a term used very often in Lumen Gentium (and the other Vatican II documents) to emphasize the importance of the laity in the function of the church. Adrian Hastings notes that this phrase “had almost completely disappeared from pre-conciliar ecclesiology.” It tends, he adds, to evoke “the basic equality of all the baptized.” Indeed, the phrase “People of God” is meant to convey not only the status of parishioners as Christians, but also their status as priests! The equality of the membership is thus demonstrated not by reducing priests to mere laypeople, but by elevating all laypeople to the priesthood. The authors of Lumen Gentium are careful to note that the “common priesthood” and the “hierarchical priesthood” are different in essence, but then almost immediately negate this reservation by saying that they are “ordered to one another” and share together in “the one priesthood of Christ.” In fact, the difference of these two priesthoods is reduced to little more than a difference of function. Members of the hierarchical priesthood rule and administer sacraments, whereas members of the lay-priesthood receive the sacraments and witness to the world. Priests serve in the church; lay-priests serve in the world and the secular sphere. The Council specifically identifies moral implications for each of the sacraments; we are to understand that when laypeople receive these sacraments they implicitly accept the commission that comes with them. The laity are to be prophetic and missional, to be a concrete witness to unity and charity, and to exercise the gifts of the Spirit to accomplish God’s will in history. Indeed, the message of the council is not intended primarily to appease laypeople who feel undervalued, but rather to emphasize to parishioners that as Christian priests they have as much duty to serve God as do the leaders in their churches.