The understanding of place and role of a layperson in the Church in our times is only possible through a revisit of the Second Vatican Council This council dedicates particular attention to this issue through the scope of an ecclesiology developed in the perspective of the People of God, of communion and participation. It is fundamental to understand the Church as a community formed by all baptized Christians, in a common responsibility of subjects and ministries. And we do it by revisiting the Vatican II, giving a new explanation for the key elements of its theology of the laity. With a foot in the theology of the Fathers of the Church and its essentially communitarian ecclesiology, we bring back here the conciliar magisterium on the layman, highlighting the theological meaning of this term, the specifi city of lay action in the world, the pastoral of the layperson and their dimensions, the layman in the structures of government of the Church. The resumption of teaching of Vatican II on the laity is what gives plausibility to the realization of the ecclesial project of the pontifi cate of pope Francis and the year of the laity in the Church of Brazil.