Irish Laity Council opens

IRELAND'S National Council for the Apostolate of the Laity was formally inaugurated on Sunday at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, with a Concelebrated Mass at which the principal celebrant was Cardinal Conway, Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh.
A homily by Cardinal Conway was followed by addresses from Archbishop Morris of Cashel and Mr. Vincent Grogan, Supreme Knight of the Knights of St. Columbanus, the newly elected chairman of the council. Dr. Cornelius O'Leary, of the diocese of Down and Conor, has been elected vice-chairman.
The council's terms of reference, approved by the Irish Hierarchy at Maynooth last June, are: To promote the Apostolate of the I.aity in Ireland; to co-operate with the Holy See's Council on the Laity, and to assist the Hierarchy of Ireland with advice and practical help.
'ALL ARE APOSTLES' Cardinal Conway said in his homily that the expression "Lay Apostles" might give the impression that there were certain members of the laity who might have been set apart for the special role of being apostles — a kind of lay preacher, somewhere between the ordinary layman and the priest.
No such category of persons existed within the Church for the simple reason that every person in the Church, by his Baptism and Confirmation, was an anointed apostle of Christ.
The apostolate of the laity in no way required membership of an association, although such associations gave invaluable service to the Church. The most powerful exercise of the apostolate was the example of a genuinely Christian life.