Cardinal J. Francis Stafford is president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the Roman dicastery that assists the Pope in all matters concerning the contributions the lay faithful make to the life and mission of the Church.

While in Boston to attend the installation of Archbishop Sean O'Malley on July 30 at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the cardinal spoke with The Pilot, the archdiocesan newspaper, on the crisis in the Church and the path to renewal. The following are excerpts from the interview, conducted by Pilot editor Antonio Enrique.

You work very closely with the Holy Father at the Vatican. Can you tell us how aware the Holy Father is of the crisis in the Church in Boston and in the United States in general?

The Holy Father himself initiated the meeting in April 2002 between the American cardinals, himself and members of the Roman Curia. He was present for each of those meetings and heard it firsthand. Cardinal [Bernard] Law frequently brought the Holy Father up-to-date, together with other members of the Roman Curia. Bishop [Richard] Lennon did the same, especially through Cardinal [Giovanni Battista] Re, and through the apostolic nuncio here in the United States.

My sense is that the Holy Father and the membership of the Curia, the leaders of the various Roman dicasteries, are very aware of what has been happening in the United States and, more specifically, in Boston.

You are the president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. How do you see the role of the laity in the wake of the sexual-abuse crisis?

The most significant positive development since the Second Vatican Council has been the flourishing of lay movements within the Church. That doesn't mean that there were not lay movements before. We obviously have analogous groups such as the Knights of Columbus and the confraternities, which go back to the Middle Ages, but the unique expression of that, through the various associations of the lay faithful, has only developed since World War II and after the Second Vatican Council.

They have arisen to meet very specific needs of the laity — the need for a deeper spirituality that, in many ways, they do not feel the parish has been able to meet. And secondly, the need of the laity to give greater evidence of their own desire for evangelizing the world — the world of economics, the world of politics, the world of the university, the world of unions. These new lay movements illustrate the desire of the laity for a greater commitment to the disciple-ship of Jesus, in the world and in the Church.

More specifically, these lay movements assist the lay people especially in living out their sacramental commitment to Christ in baptism, confirmation and marriage. Of course, that means through the ongoing living of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus through the Eucharist. They do that within a commitment to community, to community life.

Your dicastery has been studying the sacraments of initiation — baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist — and highlighting their importance in everyday Christian life. Could you describe how parishes should address the challenge of adult faith formation and the New Evangelization?

One of the greatest gifts the Spirit has given to us from the Second Vatican Council is the renewal of the catechumenate.

The catechumenate has various stages. I would say that the most important aspect for parish renewal is to look at a post-baptismal catechesis, that is, a catechesis or an instruction in the mysteries of Christ and of the Church for all of the baptized, the part of the steps in the RCIA which is called the mystagogia — that is post-baptismal catechesis.

These steps [of the RCIA] attempt to deepen the understanding of the baptized in the mysteries of the faith, especially the sacraments, and to call them into a deeper sense of community within the Catholic Church, especially in the parish, and to call them to a faithful witness to Christ in the marketplace.

Growing conflicts between contemporary culture and faith seem to be keeping many Catholics from accepting the teachings of the Church on moral issues. How can that gap between the magisterium and contemporary culture be healed?

I think the lay people have much to teach us in this. I am thinking of such laypersons as Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, David Schindler, Tracey Rowland in Australia — a great woman theologian — some lay theologians in Great Britain.

They are indicating to us that we have to better our understanding of the theology of culture. I understand them to say that the Vatican Council was too optimistic in its assessment — Gaudium et Spes especially — of the compatibility between postmodern culture and the Catholic faith. I am in full agreement with that judgment.

So, the first issue that the Church must face is to assess, critically, the compatibility between facets of liberal-Nietzchean culture as it's being lived in the West — that is in United States, in Canada, in Western Europe and, increasingly, in many other parts of the world — and to make judgments in light of the Gospel whether this liberal Nietzchean culture is, as a matter of fact, compatible or hostile to the Gospel. I am thinking specifically in the area of human sexuality, of economics, of academic freedom, especially in the university and colleges.

One aspect of that relation between faith and postmodern culture is the relationship between politics and the Christian conscience. The Holy See has issued a document, “Considerations Regarding Pro posals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons.” Local politicians have reacted to the document, saying that it is inappropriate for the Church to instruct politicians. Would you like to comment?

The general principle is this: If we judge that religion is irrelevant to politics, then we are recognizing that the political realm is no longer part of the realm of God. If we divide the religious, the sacred, from the secular, then we are limiting severely, into very narrow confines, the action of God in the life of the world. But that's not what we confess in our faith as Catholics. God is not simply the God who is limited to a very specific area of life. He is the Creator of all that we see and all that is not seen.

For the Catholic politician who lives fully his or her baptism, it is impossible that God should simply be a “tag-on” to the system, whether it is political or economic. That is not the Catholic understanding of God. He is the Lord of Life. We confess in the Creed [that] he is the Spirit, he is the Lord, the Giver of Life.

Gov. [Mario] Cuomo and President John Kennedy, both Catholics, did a severe disservice to the Catholic laity by setting a path that limits God in his role as creator and redeemer of all of mankind. And for Catholic politicians today to believe that they [Cuomo and Kennedy] are guides for their consciences puts them at total odds with the Catholic magisterium and with the Catholic tradition.