Expert: Griff Ruby - 1/3/2007

Question
How has Vatican II changed the role of the laity in the Church?

Answer
One whole document (one of the less important and far less well-known ones) of Vatican II was devoted to the topic of the Laity.  To summarize it, it recommended greater "participation" on the part of the Laity in the activities of the Church.  Some portions of it are said to quote almost word for word from Frank Duff's fine Legion of Mary Handbook.
Unfortunately, in the usual form of generalized fuzz-phrasing and ambiguous statements that dominate all documents of Vatican II, one fails to find in it any clear distinction between the sort of Lay involvement envisioned by Frank Duff (and practiced by the Legion of Mary) and the utterly different form that "Lay involvement" actually took as a direct response to Vatican II.
The Pre-Vatican II Legion of Mary vision for Lay participation had it that the laity should involve themselves with the mission of their parish priest, serving as an extension of him ministry in the community, by such things as door-to-door visitations, parish census, prison and hospital visitations, and also to serve as his eyes and ears in the community.  As such, they are organized as subjects to him, operated at his express direction, and reporting to him (though much of the practical application and accountability would be provided by the Legionary organization itself as his delegate).
This sort of lay involvement is a good and worthy activity, but in view of the fact that it already existed it most certainly had no need of Vatican II in order to exist.
The kind of "lay involvement" that emerged from Vatican II consists primarily of the forming of various "lay committees" to decide on how the parish is to be run, from such questions as to how the money is to be spent to such questions as whether the next week's liturgy will feature clowns or dancing girls.  In this vision of lay participation, the priest has little or no say in how his parish is to be run, but must be surprised (pleasantly or not) by whatever he finds when he enters in Sunday morning.
Of course, indirectly, a different form of more useful lay involvement has also formed, albeit indirectly as a result of Vatican II, and that is a kind of Catholic activism which strives to push church leaders into a more Catholic direction, and providing the kinds of research needed for finding and understanding the path back to Catholic normalcy.  Unfortunately these are outnumbered (and hopelessly outshouted) by other lay activists (dissidents) who press in the opposite direction for more aberrations, for priestesses, homosexual "marriages" and so forth.