Lumen Christi Institute

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$30 Student (with ID) / $60 General / $600 Host Committee
Registration includes lunch.

The Church has long taught that all baptized Christians share in Christ’s royal priesthood, and that we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,” who should “declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

The current crisis in which the American Church finds herself lies in a failure to realize this common priestly vocation, and has led to clericalism, the cover-up of sexual abuse, lack of lay discipleship, and a dearth of vocations. Fr. Michael Sweeney, OP, has developed a theology of the laity that addresses this theological misunderstanding. He has applied this theology of the laity both as co-founder of the St. Catherine of Siena Institute and as the co-founder of the Lay Mission Project of the Western Dominican Province. 

Fr. Sweeney will speak to the suggestion of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that we ought to recognize a lay office in the Church in order to promote the full participation of the laity in the Church’s mission, with a view to enabling a real collaboration between the laity and the hierarchy.

Fr. Sweeney also participated on a panel discussion on similar topics on the afternoon of November 15.