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Prelates honor lay leader
Headed Christian life movement
Cardinals Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo and Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne of Lima concelebrated a Mass, along with several other bishops and priests, commemorating the first month of the death of Peruvian lay leader German Doig Klinge.
Doig, who had been vicar general of the Sodality of Christian Life and coordinator of the Christian Life Movement, died suddenly in his sleep at the age of 43, on February 13. He was one of the foremost laymen in Latin America. A member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Laity, Doig was invited by Pope John Paul II to attend both the General Assembly of the Latin American bishops’ council in 1992 and the Synod of America, held in Rome in 1998.
“German was truly an Apostle of the ‘new evangelization,’ a role model of a lay person for this millennium—not so much for the numerous books he published or for the appreciation the Holy Father had for him, but especially for his permanent testimony of humility, faith, charity, and fidelity to the Church,” said Cardinal Cipriani.
The Mass, celebrated at Lima’s parish of Our Lady of Reconciliation, was attended by more than 3,000 people, many of whom had to follow the ceremony on the screen placed outside the church. “Coming to celebrate the Mass for German was an honor and an obligation,” said Brazilian Auxiliary Bishop Karl Joseph Rommer of Rio de Janeiro. “German was a faithful servant of the Church and a role model of how holiness must be lived by lay people in the new millennium: with great simplicity and yet great efficiency in serving the poor, the youth, the families, and the evangelization of culture.”