The President of the Pontifical Council for the Sciences, Dr. Mary Ann Glendon, said Wednesday at the Vatican that the Catholic lay faithful needs a catechesis on par with the demands of today’s world.

During a meeting with American journalists at the Pontifical Council for the Sciences, Glendon, a professor of law at Harvard University and member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, said the Catholic lay faithful of today “have an intellectual level that is unprecedented in the history of the Church,” but “unfortunately they do not have a formation in the faith proportional to this education,” she added.

According to Glendon, who led the Vatican delegation at the UN Summit on women in Beijing, “Catechesis, the Christian formation of today’s laity, needs to prepare them to face the challenges of the modern world.”

The meeting with American journalists, which was also attended by the President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop John Foley, took place at the “Casina Pio IV,” where the Pontifical Council for the Sciences has its offices.