The Church and the people of God : fragments of a constitutional history

Abstract

The re-appraisal of the place of the laity in the Church is well-known to be a task which at once arouses the suspicion and hostility of a certain type of Catholic: it earned Newman himself a formal delation to Rome for heresy, l and the attitude of Newman' s opponents has unfortunately not disappeared with the passage of time, but remains to complicate still further an already sufficiently complex discussion. For some, to recommend a new vision of the laity is nothing less than a challenge to the authority of the Church, calling in question the collective wisdom of Catholicism which has ordained the present relationship of the two orders.