Pope at Audience: 'Every baptised person is to bear consistent witness to Christ'

Vatican, March 18, 2026: "Every baptised person is an active agent of evangelisation, called to bear consistent witness to Christ in accordance with the prophetic gift which the Lord bestows upon His whole Church."

Pope Leo XIV made this remark during his weekly General Audience on Wednesday morning.

Continuing his catechetical series on the Second Vatican Council and its documents, the Pope this week returned to the second chapter of the Conciliar Constitution Lumen gentium, which focuses on the Church as the People of God. He recalled that the messianic people receive from Christ participation "in the priestly, prophetic and kingly work office through which His salvific mission is carried out."

Common mission that unites the ordained ministries and lay faithful

The Pope recalled that the Council Fathers teach that the Lord Jesus, through the new and eternal Covenant, established a kingdom of priests, forming His disciples into a ‘royal priesthood.’ He emphasised that this shared priesthood of the faithful is conferred through Baptism, enabling believers to worship God in spirit and truth and to “confess before men the faith which they have received from God through the Church.”

He further noted that through the sacrament of Confirmation, all the baptised “are more perfectly bound to the Church … and the Holy Spirit endows them with special strength so that they are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith, both by word and by deed, as true witnesses of Christ.”

The Pope explained that this consecration is the foundation of the shared mission that unites ordained ministers and the lay faithful.

In this context, Pope Leo recalled how Pope Francis had observed that, “looking at the People of God is remembering that we all enter the Church as lay people. The first sacrament, which seals our identity forever, and of which we should always be proud, is Baptism." Pope Leo reiterated that through Baptism and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the faithful "‘are consecrated as a spiritual house and a holy priesthood’ so that everyone forms the faithful Holy People of God.”

Aimed at our sanctification

The Pope noted that the exercise of the royal priesthood is expressed in various ways, all directed towards sanctification, especially through participation in the offering of the Eucharist.

"Through prayer, asceticism and active charity, we thus bear witness to a life renewed by God’s grace," the Pope said. As the Council summarises, “it is through the sacraments and the exercise of the virtues that the sacred nature and organic structure of the priestly community is brought into operation."

He also recalled that the Council Fathers teach that the holy People of God share in Christ’s prophetic mission.

"Sense of the faith" and the "consensus of the faithful"

The Holy Father pointed out that in this regard, the important theme of the sense of the faith and the consensus of the faithful is introduced. He recalled that the Doctrinal Commission of the Council clarified that this sensus fidei “is like a faculty of the whole Church, by which she, in her faith, recognises the revelation handed down, distinguishing between true and false in matters of faith, and at the same time penetrates it more deeply and applies it more fully in life.”

Pope Leo emphasised that this sense of faith belongs not to individuals independently, but to believers as members of the People of God.

He explained that Lumen gentium highlights this aspect and links it to the infallibility of the Church, within which the role of the Roman Pontiff is inherent and serves this truth.

The Holy Father quoted from Lumen gentium: “The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One, cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples’ supernatural discernment in matters of faith when from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals.”

With this in mind, Pope Leo XIV stated, "the Church, therefore, as the communion of the faithful – which naturally includes the pastors, cannot err in matters of faith: the organ through which this truth is preserved, founded on the anointing of the Holy Spirit, is the supernatural sense of faith of the entire People of God, which is manifested in the consensus of the faithful."

Our responsibility as the People of God

Building on this unity, safeguarded by the Magisterium of the Church, the Pope said that "it follows that every baptised person is an active agent of evangelisation, called to bear consistent witness to Christ in accordance with the prophetic gift which the Lord bestows upon His whole Church."

He also reminded that the Holy Spirit “distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank," adding that through these gifts, the Holy Spirit "makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church.”

The Pope highlighted that consecrated life is a particular expression of this charismatic vitality, continually growing and flourishing through grace. He added that “Ecclesial associations, too," are “a shining example of the variety and fruitfulness of spiritual fruits for the edification of the People of God."

Concluding, Pope Leo XIV invited the faithful: "Let us rekindle in ourselves the awareness of and gratitude for having received the gift of being part of God’s People, and also the responsibility that this entails."

Courtesy : Vatican News