WISDOM OF Pope Leo XIV Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome! Today I would like to revisit the second chapter of the Conciliar Constitution Lumen gentium (LG), devoted to the Church as the people of God. The messianic people (LG, 9), receive from Christ the participation in the priestly, prophetic and kingly work office through which his salvific mission is carried out. The Council Fathers teach that the Lord Jesus, through the new and eternal Covenant, has established a kingdom of priests, constituting his disciples as a ‘royal priesthood’ (1 Pet 2:9; cf. 1 Pet 2:5; Rev 1:6). This common priesthood of the faithful is given with Baptism, which enables us to worship God in spirit and truth, and to “confess before men the faith which they have received from God through the Church” (LG, 11). Furthermore, through the sacrament of Confirmation, all the baptized “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” (ibid.). This consecration is at the root of the common mission that unites the ordained ministries and the lay faithful. In this regard, Pope Francis 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. Through Baptism and by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, (the faithful) ‘are consecrated as a spiritual house and a holy priesthood’ (LG, 10), [so that] everyone forms the faithful Holy People of God” (Letter to the President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, 19 March 2016). The exercise of the royal priesthood takes place in many ways, all aimed at our sanctification, first and foremost 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 (cf. LG, 10). As the Council summarizes, “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” (LG, 11). GENERAL AUDIENCE St. Peter’s Square Wednesday, March 18, 2026 Continuing series of Catechesis by Pope Leo XIV dedicated to Vatican Council II and its documents to “rediscover the beauty and importance of this ecclesial event.” Quotation from General Audience January 7, 2026 Catechesis. The Documents of Vatican Council II. II. Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium. 4. The Church, a Priestly and Prophetic People
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