Miami Beach, Fla. -- Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan of Atlanta called on Catholic laymen to accept the challenge facing them in the chapter of the laity of the Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Church, which he lauded as the “Magna Carta” of the faithful.

Speaking on “The Informed Laymen,” at the 23rd annual meeting of Serra International, the archbishop said that Chapter 4 of the Council’s constitution is the “present homework for every Catholic.”

“Never have the roles of the clergy and the laity -- their rights and duties -- been spelled out more clearly,” he said. “What a profound and thrilling challenge for the laymen, for his is properly the consecration of the world.”

While that chapter may bring “discomfort and struggle, disappointment and frustration,” the prelate continued, the layman must keep trying to live up to its spirit in his home, neighborhood, city, nation and world.

“According to his temperament,” Archbishop Hallinan said, “the layman will face his task either with fear of its dangers, or with hope in its opportunities. The Church asks today that we act not from a timid beleaguered position, identified by warnings, suspicions and condemnations.”

“She asks that we walk toward the future with confidence and boldness, in a real renewal of Christian hope. The informed layman, conformed to Christ, reformed to society’s needs, and informed of his past and his own strength and weaknesses can walk in that manner because he remembers the cry of Christ: ‘Why are you fearful, you of little faith?’”

“But the uninformed Catholic, whether he be docile to the point of indifference or brash to the point of rebellion, cannot walk the path of hope because his faith is deformed.”

Archbishop Hallinan noted that the laity, in fulfilling its role in the Church as laid out by papal teachings, have “freely and generously given of their spiritual obedience, time and energy and money.”

What the Church is now asking, he said, “is a greater gift -- a gift that is harder to give because it is not external. Today the church asks that you give of yourselves, your concerns, your questions, your will to speak up to offer your own initiatives... it is the fullness of love to give your own self.”

Archbishop Hallinan was keynote speaker at the three-day meeting, whose theme was “Co-Laborers with Christ.” Sessions were attended by some 2,500 delegates from 290 Serra Clubs in 20 countries. Delegates represented 11,000 business and professional men affiliated with Serra International and dedicated to the dual task of encouraging young men to enter the priesthood and of furthering Catholicism in society.

Father Bernard Cooke, S.J., of Marquette University, told the convention laymen who wish to Christianize the world must be “guided by a vision which far transcends the greater insights that man by his own powers of intellect can attain... given to us by God Himself.”

Father Cooke said, “It is not for you and me here to decide what it means to be Christian; to decide what our vocation as Christians is. It is not for us, by our own imagination and prudence, to assemble in Miami and by consultation work out a plan for the betterment of humanity.”

“We are in a unique situation, because our task is one committed to us by a God who has called us into His service. And He has told us...who it is that we are and what is the task which are meant to perform.” In Scripture alone, he said, “is found the wisdom that will ultimately give sense to our human existence and the guidance that will bring us to our one and only destiny.”

Despite the differences between today’s society and that of earlier times, “there is not a key situation of human experience, of human tension, not a basic human problem or human aspiration which was not known to the people who experienced the action of God in those centuries that stretched from Abraham to the death of the Apostles...” “Sacred Scripture, then, exists to tell us what life is all about. Herein is contained the only wisdom which can provide for us a grasp of the realities of our existence. It is living word of God.”

Father Cooke cautioned his listeners, however, that “Scripture is not easy to understand. It requires guidance, either through reading or through teaching, so that one can see its pattern and come to understand its message.”

In a pre-convention breakfast (June 27), Bishop John J. Russell told Serra governors and governors-elect that the fostering of vocations to the priesthood is one of the highest forms of the lay apostolate.

“This,” he said, “involves the personal sanctification of those who engage in it, a self-education in their religion, their mutual assistance spiritually to one another by their assistance at Mass together, reception of Holy Communion, their explanation of various points of Catholic doctrine, their maintenance of a speakers’ bureau whereby they interest young people in a call to religious life...”

The bishop of Richmond also told the Serrans that Catholic laymen should be in the forefront of the anti-poverty and fair housing programs, and be Christian leaders in the entire civil rights fight.

“Even when preoccupied with temporal cares,” he said, “the laity can and must perform a work of great value for evangelization of the world. The faithful must therefore assist each other to live holier lives even in their daily occupations that the world may be permeated, by the spirit of Christ.”

Also present at the meeting were about 35 bishops and 200 priests from this country and Latin America.

Highlights included the concelebration of Mass by Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi, Apostolic Delegate to the U.S., and eight bishops and eight Serra chaplains. Participants also marked the 400th anniversary of the introduction of Catholicism in St. Augustine, oldest U.S. City, and in the Philippines.