Lay Leadership Training in the Archdiocese of Kingston has a long and vibrant history, beginning in 1975 when in response to the request of particularly rural Catholics at Archdiocesan Synods in the late 1960’s Archbishop Carter mandated a team of persons – the Rural Lay Leadership Team – to begin a programme of laity training in Portland in September 1975.
This team chose as its mandate an excerpt from Vatican Council II’s Document, Ad Gentes #21:
“The Church has not been truly established, and is not yet fully alive, nor is it a perfect sign of Christ among men [and women], unless there exists a laity worthy of the name working along with the hierarchy. For the gospel cannot be deeply imprinted on the talents, life and work of any people without the active presence of laymen [and women]. Therefore in the very founding of a Church, the greatest attention is to be paid to raising up a mature Christian laity.”
What does it mean: ‘a laity worthy of the name’ and ‘a mature Christian laity’?
It means: