For the 5th Conference of CELAM it is imperative to carry on a profound reflection on the lay men and women, given the relevance that the Second Vatican Council at its time conceded them. This paper emphasizes some aspects which are unavoidable at the time of talking about a lay Church. The following aspects are then presented: understanding a discipleship which is a ferment of the common priesthood to
which all are called from the baptism, working for an adult laity, responsible for new faces and new ministries that respond to an authentic construction of humanity, promoting the formation of the laity in order to assume the ecclesial corresponsibility, which includes such aspects as assuming female protagonism and accepting the public dimensions of human life (politics, economy, ecology, ecumenism).