The Christian vocation of the laity according to the documents of the Catholic Church

Abstract

Lay people are important subjects of the Church's religious life. In his letter to Christifideles laici, John Paul II gives the following definition of the laity: "The faith and sacraments of Christian initiation are for man the beginning of his new Christian state, which introduces the mystery of the Church, forms his spiritual face, underlies all vocations and is the starting point of the Christian dynamism of the life of the laity". The most characteristic feature in the definition of the laity is their secular character.