"But the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, (...).They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others" (LG 31).

Hence the lay faithful exists and lives as a member of the Body which is the Church and cannot be considered according to individualistic criteria or as isolated, separate from his ecclesial belonging. On the contrary, by virtue of baptism lay people are incorporated in Christ and participate in their own way in the priestly, prophetic and kingly tria munera; therefore their presence and vocations are constitutive of God’s People together with those of the ordained ministers.

Their participation in ecclesial life is fundamental for the Church’s existence just as it is also thus for their identity and mission as non-ordained believers. It is therefore necessary for them to actively participate modo suo in the celebration of the sacraments, welcoming with an obedient heart the apostolic announcement of the faith and persevering in the effort made by their lively intelligence and understanding, bearing witness to the extent that the Holy Spirit has bestowed and experiencing their gifts and duties in full communion with the Church.

The intense ecclesial belonging is inescapable for lay people to adequately fulfil his mission, also bearing in mind that his specific characteristic is to be present within society. Without really experiencing the universal Church’s communion, including the reality of its various particular expressions, the non-ordained believer will find it difficult to bear witness to his faith in a mature manner and so as to exercise an influence on reality. It is however in a similar manner that without the faithful presence and experience of lay people within society, that not even the Church can provide sufficient testimony of the Gospel’s truth as life’s principle and humankind’s redemption. In fact, as Lumen gentium teaches us, the entire Church, "a people made one with the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" (LG 4), is a sacrament, hence as a mark and instrument of unity with God and the redemption offered to Christ’s followers.

It is therefore extremely important that the Church should not fall into the temptation of withdrawing into herself, that she should maintain intact the parresia of the faith, and especially as far as the mission of lay people are concerned, because nothing can replace the testimony they are called up to provide within temporal reality. On the other hand in this manner the Church will be assisted in identifying the most pertinent paths and words for a dialogue with today’s world. The lay peoples’ experience will in fact facilitate a perception of the real problems and specific obstacles encountered in spreading the faith in a society. Furthermore, their presence represents a fundamental testimony – not a unique one but however inescapable – of a real love, a clear love for the creation and for the world, which is certainly an important premise for today’s man accepting an authentic dialogue, for opening the path for evangelisation.

Christianity’s primary assertion can thereby be made manifest: that the Incarnation of the Son of God introduces redemption into history and represents a definitive assertion of the world, ratifying the profound goodness of all things that, as God’s creatures, "all things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order. Man must respect these as he isolates them by the appropriate methods of the individual sciences or arts" (GS 36). His legitimate autonomy of all things created, this profound knowledge present in nature’s laws, is affirmed in the activities undertaken by lay faithful believers not only with their words but also through their actions or work, in which the efforts of art and science are emphasised, addressed at "fathoming the secrets of reality" (ibd.), following precisely the scrupulous attention paid to the profound reasonableness of the entire creation – the origin of which Christians acknowledge in the Logos Creator.

This profound respect for all thinks indicated on one hand the real affirmation of their own truths and consistency, and also implies that these cannot simple be reduced to shapeless matter made freely available to humankind through a merely exploitable reason. On the other hand, it is up to the non-ordained believer to make manifest the meaning of an authentic secularity, open to the use of reason, abandoning possible legendary ideas of the world (present in a sense nowadays for example in New Age or theories stating a similar dignity between human beings and animals).

The enlightenment that the Christian faith brings to the understanding of humankind – the main part of the creation - is particularly significant, because it is only in Jesus Christ that the enigma of His dignity, vocation and destiny is fully revealed (see GS 22).

This profound truth of Christianity’s, often denied in this world, is radically and singularly made manifest by lay faithful through the sacrament of matrimony. A Christian marriage represents a particularly clear sign of the enlightment and redemption brought by Christ, penetrating the bowels of the earth, freeing it from evil and enabling the achievement of its most profound potential. The nature of nuptial love in fact, originates in the hands of the Creator, who moulded humankind to His own image; however the possibility of its fulfilment in history, overcoming the frailty and sin of humankind, is bestowed by Jesus Christ. This is why the Christian marriage is a fundamental aspect of lay peoples’ mission, rendering present in the world the profound truth about human love, transformed into a sign of the redemption present in God.

We have therefore mentioned two important aspects of the commitment shown by Christian believers in the world: first of all, the reasonable relations with the creation, with things, that can be summarised using the word "work" and that implies scientific knowledge, but also a variety of arts that make manifest the profoundness of reality, which is not exhausted in its technical processing. Secondly, the immense compass of human affection and love, symbolized paradigmatically by matrimony.

It is now in particular necessary to mention the great importance of non-ordained believers’ commitment within society in view of the perception and social assertion of humankind’s freedom. This takes place first of all through the very existence of Christians, who, enlightened by the Gospel undertake a legitimate effort to conform their lives to the truth regards to humankind and the world. Hence the assertion that Jesus Christ Himself is at the basis of all adequate relationships between the Church and the State are introduced into the heart of society: "Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God".

Today we are fully aware that freedom of conscience, which attempts to have knowledge of the whole truth, the truth regards to the mystery of God which is the foundation of reality, so as to give shape to one’s own existence (see DH 2), is the centre of humankind’s freedom. Recent history’s totalitarianisms in this world have proved this endlessly, attempting to penetrate and seize control over humankind’s consciences, causing immense disasters.

Hence the presence in the world of the non-ordained believers allows the emergence of the issue of religious freedom with increasingly new strength, and consequently the presence within society of the assertion of the freedom of the human conscience, with the profound respect its dignity is owed.

In this commitment lay people are assisted by their Christian experience, which keeps alive their perception of each human being’s dignity as God’s adoptive child, not therefore reducible to a part of the world’s or society’s mechanisms, but rather provided with their own inalienable freedom and conscience, because bound at a deeper level to God Himself. On the other hand, as members of God’s People, lay people are capable of overcoming inevitable human fragility, helped by the company of their brothers, by the testimony of their faith and charity. They are then in turn capable of loving their neighbours as the Lord wishes and are capable of asserting and defending the singular dignity of their consciences and the value of their freedom.

One must bear in mind that this effort made to acknowledge and defend humankind’s dignity and freedom always tends to decline. As the impetus for research and the capacity to assert one’s neighbours freedom declines in those unable to discover the entire truth – which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ – it is easy to end up by making do with some ideological or power systems, which will be unable to satisfy the stature of human beings. It follows that, faced with a constant tendency of a decline in the tension of asserting mankind’s dignity and fundamental rights, the non-ordained believer, both at individual and communitarian level, offers society a testimony of priceless value: he who believes in the Lord Jesus discovers the greatness of humankind’s dignity and destiny and is helped to live according to the requirements of this acknowledged truth.

This aspect concerning the lay peoples’ commitment within the world continues to be urgent and topical also in our democratic countries. In these in fact there is the temptation to confuse the State’s legitimate lay status with laicism, as well as founding democratic communal life on a degree of "ethical relativism" according to which it is necessary to renounce all acknowledgements of moral truth to live in peace in a pluralistic society.

The principle of laicity, per se legitimate, should be understood as the distinction between the political community and the religions, and expresses a profoundly democratic concept of the State, in which laicity is perceived as being at the service of human rights within the respect for freedom of conscience. Laicism instead confuses society with the State, and since the State is responsible for looking after the common good respecting different beliefs without however imposing any as its own, secularism claims to deny all religions or other ideas of the world the right to exist in society’s public life, thereby effectively imposing its own ideology originating in the State. Laicity on the contrary is not laicism.

In this context, the lay people can provide a great contribution in safeguarding freedom and the harmony of society’s common life, first of all by attempting to know and defend using legitimate means, the justice, freedom and rights of people. In defending mankind’s and society’s good in the various problems in fact, one does not propose confessional values, as a representant of laicism would say, nor does one exercise any form of religious intolerance, as the relativists object; since this is a truth deeply rooted in human beings and that the reason is able to understand. Although the Christian faith allows one to assert these with greater certainty, their assertion represents a reasonable service rendered to the truth and to humankind’s goodness.

Neither Christian believers nor the Church as a whole can allow their voices to be silent in the debate concerning issues of moral importance that influence the world in which life and society are created. Living politically and socially in conformity with one’s conscience is not in fact a form of confessionalism nor is it an intolerable imposition; on the contrary, it is a manifestation of a person’s maturity in his understanding of reality and in deciding to address his freedom at a fairer social order. Denying instead the non-ordained believer the possibility of acting coherently with his conscience, discrediting him for his beliefs, is a form of intolerance.

The lay peoples’ commitment amidst laicity and laicism means effectively avoiding our society’s common temptation to separate the conscience from one’s own public positions. This is not necessarily requested by a State’s legitimate laicity, it is on the contrary true that it undermines the foundations of democratic common living: the acknowledgement of freedom of conscience and religious freedom, mankind’s fundamental rights, which come before the organisation of all social power.

On the other hand, to take for granted the futility of one’s own conscience in public life, would imply the fact that accepting society that does not valorise or search for the truth, in which all authentic forms of exercising freedom, would mean reducing to silence all that is most characteristic of the Christian faith, that discovers in Christ the definitive revelation of the truth regards to God as well as the full truth about humankind.

For lay people instead, all that is secular represents the privileged environment in which the truth and fecundity of the faith, hope and charity that move their lives should be made manifest. Their presence in the world of work and in society’s public life, their defence of humankind’s dignity and rights, the reality of their nuptial love achieved in marriage are an irreplaceable testimony – that belongs exclusively to, and can only be provided by, the lay faithful – of the truth of Our Lord’s Gospel and of his presence in the world through the reality of that sui generic people (as Paul VI called it) that is the Church.