A century ago it would have seemed self-evident to most Roman Catholics, and many other Christians, that different ways of life within the Church were associated with different levels of sanctity. From this perspective monks and nuns living an enclosed life within an abbey or monastery were usually thought of as the most holy, then vowed religious living an apostolic life. In this view the ‘secular’ clergy came next, and last in line were laypeople. Even here, those who had chosen to live a single life came in ahead of the married. There were other factors, such as martyrdom, that might move you up the scale, and within the different states of life some individuals clearly appeared to be more holy than others. But, at least at the level of popular piety, this way of ordering the life of the Church was largely unchallenged. The reflections of the bishops who gathered at the Second Vatican Council changed all that. Their document Lumen gentium, issued in November 1964, spoke of a ‘universal call to holiness’. All the baptized are intended to live holy lives, although what this will look like in practice will differ. A married laywoman is no less intrinsically holy than an enclosed monk, and the one has as much access to God, and to the gifts of God, as the other. In the six decades since Lumen gentium was promulgated, the Church has continued to work out its implications, as can be seen in the articles gathered in this issue of The Way.
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