CCC 899

The initiative of lay Christians is necessary especially when the matter involves discovering or inventing the means for permeating social, political, and economic realities with the demands of Christian doctrine and life. This initiative is a normal element of the life of the Church: Lay believers are in the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society. Therefore, they in particular ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope, the common Head, and of the bishops in communion with him. They are the Church.⁴³² Pius XII, Discourse, February 20, 1946: AAS 38AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 38 (1946) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1946) 149; quoted by John Paul II, CL 9.