Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly spoke at the Catholic professional organization’s annual dinner after receiving its highest honor
By Columbia staff
4/24/2024
Source
Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly spoke to the John Carroll Society in Washington, D.C., April 13, emphasizing a message that Pope Francis, in a recent audience, specifically asked him to share: the importance of the co-responsibility between laypeople and the clergy.
“As lay people, we’ve been given an essential role, not in Church governance, but in advancing her mission,” the supreme knight said. “The Gospel makes that crystal clear. And the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the laity provides a framework for living out our calling.”
Supreme Knight Kelly was speaking at the society’s 38th annual awards dinner, during which he and four others received the John Carroll Society Medal, the organization’s highest honor. The John Carroll Society is an organization of Catholic professionals that promotes spiritual, intellectual and social fellowship among its members, in service to the archbishop of Washington; Supreme Knight Kelly, a past state deputy of the District of Columbia, joined in 1997.
The lay calling has different duties, the supreme knight noted, but the duty to evangelize is particularly crucial today. “All of us are called to be missionaries in a society that often views religion, at best, as a matter of private opinion — or at worst, as an enemy of the public good,” he said. “This requires that we live out our mission constantly … at all times, in all places, and to all the people we meet.”
To this end, Supreme Knight Kelly added, laypeople must form themselves in the faith — through prayer, study and growth in virtue — and form authentic relationships grounded in love.
“In this era of fading faith and rising secularism, let us commit ourselves to the personal work of evangelization,” the supreme knight concluded. “And let’s use the gifts that Christ has given us to build up his Kingdom, fulfilling the call that we equally share, yet is even more, uniquely ours.”