John 6: 51-58

Lay Ministry is Essential for Parish Life. Co-responsibility was closely linked with lay ministry, particularly the need for meaningful training, support, and recognition of lay leaders, especially women and young adults.

Lay ministry was recognised as essential, not only because of the declining number of clergy, but also to meet parish needs and to provide lay men and women with the opportunity to live out their baptismal call to mission and ministry.

‘The active role of the laity in ministry is vital for parish life,' one comment affirmed, while another called for ‘training and commissioning lay ministers to serve in pastoral care, catechesis, and liturgy.' One group stating plainly, ‘lay people should be more involved in the decision-making of the Church' and another, ‘We need more lay-led services, especially in rural areas where priests are few.'

Expansion of lay ministry was also seen as a corrective to clericalism, noting that ‘clericalism is a barrier to the gifts of the laity being recognised and used,' and that ‘greater humility and openness from clergy' is needed so that lay and ordained may truly work together in service of the Gospel.