This is the view of Dr Joe Grayland, theologian, author and parish priest of three parishes in Palmerston North, New Zealand.

He questions whether we need another form of the clergy. - Originally reported 31 May 2021

Grayland made the comments, Thursday, during Flashes of Insight - Women Deacons in the Catholic Church, a conversation with Dr Phyllis Zagano, Emeritus Professor of New Testament at the Ecole Biblique, Justin Taylor and hosted by Emeritus Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham Thomas O'Loughlin.

Grayland asks if the Church actually needs permanent male or female deacons.

If it does, he suggests we need to change the understanding projected by the transitional diaconate modelled in seminaries.

Grayland says he works with eight women across the three parishes; they serve the community, they work full time, but none are ordained.

We might need more priests, but Grayland says the last thing we need is an expanded clerical class, the permanent diaconate.

It is not a perspective Zagano shares.

Zagano is an internationally recognised scholar, prolific writer and advocate for women deacons.

She says that if anyone wants to be a deacon to get power, they have other issues.

The ministry of the deacon is one of service, she says.

Zagano says it is important to have a specialised view of ministry and that the diaconate should not be limited to in-house Church functions.

Zagano says the office of the deacon is distinct from the function of deacons.

Deacons hold the same office, but their ministry of service would be expressed differently, she said.

She says that if people want to go to confession, they see a priest, and if they go for food, counselling or spiritual direction, deacons can offer the service.

If our prime concern is not to expand the clerical class, why ordain anyone, she asks.

She however noted that if the Church were to reintroduce deacons, there is a question around whether they would be installed or ordained.

Zagano says there is no doubt that women were deacons in the Early Church.

It is a point that Taylor, who works on some of the earliest evidence the Church has, agrees with.

Taylor says that it is clear from both scripture and the documents from the first thousand years that women were deacons.

When the Early Church spoke of deacons, there was no distinction made between male or female.

Taylor says that referencing deacons, men or women, the Early Church saw deacons as officeholders and not just functionaries.

Questioned by O'Loughlin about the future, Grayland says that women's ministry should not be seen as a threat to male in ministry.

He commented when looking at the evidence if the Church is going to have women deacons, the church needs to popularise it as part of the Church evolving.

He says that reflecting on what Zagano and Taylor have discussed; the Church needs to understand that the development of women's diaconate is not a straight-line trajectory but an evolution.

Grayland says he hopes our Church's understanding of women's ministry and women's diaconate will change but wonders why we do not have women deacons now.

Zagano agrees and says we must not go forth in political discussion but with a spirit of discernment.

She says that a wise bishop once wrote to her and says this about discernment.

"Discernment is not an organizational technique, and it's not a passing fashion, but it's an interior attitude rooted in an act of faith."

"Discernment is the method and at the same time the goal."

"It's based on the belief that God is at work in the history of the world in the events of life and the people we meet and who speak to us."

"This is why we are called to listen to what the Spirit suggests to us with often unpredictable ways and directions."

"As one might assume, he's a Jesuit bishop," she says.

Zagano concludes by saying it is important that theologians listen to the People of God and for the People of God to make their needs known.

In a spirit of discernment, Zagano is convinced that if the People of God make their needs known, they will not be denied.

As to the future, Zagano says that we need a genuine discerning discussion, a prayerful discussion, to move to a future where the Church will restore the tradition of women in ministry and the diaconate.

No doubt there are many angles to explore in the 28,000 word document. But let's take a quick dive into it to see what it says about the role of lay people, their mission and vocation - their lay apostolate - and the role of the lay apostolic movements, the two themes that we have developed on this site over the last couple of years.

Word frequencies

Starting very simply by looking at a few word frequencies. The word "pope" appears 15 times and the word "papal" three times more. "Bishop" appears 98 times and the word episcopal another 28 times while "priest" appears 27 times.

In contrast, the word "laity" only appears twice while the adjective "lay" appears another 17 times. The word "nun" does not appear at all but there are 10 references to "consecrated life" in relation to both men and women.

On the other hand, there are 26 references to the "baptised," emphasising the equality between all who form part of the Church.

Well, at the end of the day, a Synod is still a Synod of bishops, rather than an Assembly of the People of God such as the ones we've seen emerging in Latin America.

Still, given the Synod's disavowal of "clericalism," it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Church is still an extremely clerically-centred institution! Lay people - the 99 percent - and consecrated religious thus inevitably take a more - ironically - peripheral role.

Ministry

Another word that's very striking in its frequency in the Final Document is the word "ministry" and its variations (minister, etc.), which appear 108 times in the English translation and 98 times in the original Italian.

Almost all of these references to ministry relate to internal roles and functions in the Church - the Church ad intra, as it were.

There are only a couple of specific references to lay ministry. And these also relate to ad intra functions:

66. A missionary synodal Church would encourage more forms of lay ministries, that is, ministries that do not require the sacrament of Holy Orders, and this not only within the liturgical sphere.

77. The lay faithful, both men and women, should be given greater opportunities for participation, also exploring new forms of service and ministry in response to the pastoral needs of our time in a spirit of collaboration and differentiated co-responsibility.

In particular, some concrete needs have emerged from the synodal process.

All this illustrates the fact that the Synod was overwhelmingly preoccupied with internal aspects, which is frankly quite surprising, given the Synod's stated aim of promoting a missionary Church, which implies looking outward, ad extra.

The specifically lay role of lay people

Having said all of the above, the Final Document does contain some excellent passages affirming the role of lay people.

Thus, §66 insists that "mission involves all the baptised." And it continues on to say that:

The first task of lay women and men is to permeate and transform earthly realities with the spirit of the Gospel (cf. LG 31.33; AA 5-7).

It continues:

At the behest of Pope Francis (cf. Apostolic Letter in the form of Motu Proprio Spiritus Domini, 10 January 2021), the synodal process urged local Churches to respond with creativity and courage to the needs of the mission.

But why then does the rest of §66 go on to speak about "charisms" and "ministries," even if they are "lay ministries"?

This response should involve a form of discernment among the various charisms in order to identify which of these should take a ministerial form and thus be equipped with adequate criteria, tools and procedures.

Not all charisms need to be configured as ministries, nor do all the baptised need to become ministers, nor do all ministries need to be instituted.

For a charism to be configured as a ministry, the community must identify a genuine pastoral need. This should be accompanied by a discernment carried out by the pastor who, together with the community, will make a decision on whether there is a need to create a new ministry.

As a result of this process, the competent authority reaches a decision. A missionary synodal Church would encourage more forms of lay ministries, that is, ministries that do not require the sacrament of Holy Orders, and this not only within the liturgical sphere.

They can be instituted or not instituted. Further reflection should be given to the most effective way of bestowing lay ministries at a time when people move from one place to another with increasing ease, specifying the times and areas of their exercise.

It's as if the underlying thinking is that those "earthly realities" will only be permeated and transformed provided that the Church identifies enough charisms and organised enough ministries!

Fortunately, this is not the whole story! §58 and §59 do in fact spell out the lay vocation more clearly albeit without specifically naming it as such:

58. Each baptised person, man or woman, responds to missionary needs in the contexts in which they live and work, according to their dispositions and abilities. This demonstrates the freedom of the Spirit in bestowing God's gifts.

Owing to this dynamism in the Spirit, the People of God, listening to the reality in which they live, discover new forms of commitment and new ways to fulfil their mission.

Christians, each according to their diverse roles - within the family and other states of life; in the workplace and in their professions; engaged civilly, politically, socially or ecologically; in the development of a culture inspired by the Gospel, including the evangelisation of the digital environment - walk the paths of the world according to their life situations and proclaim the Gospel, sustained by the gifts of the Spirit.

This does indeed reflect the vision of Lumen Gentium §31-33 much more closely.

Strangely, however, it avoids mentioning the term "lay people," i.e. the 99% who live in families, work in workplaces and professions, etc.! Nor does the term "lay apostolate" - the chosen term of Vatican II - rate even a single mention in the whole document!

There's an almost-reference to the see-judge-act, recognising the need for people to "listen to the reality in which they live" and and to find "new ways to fulfil their mission," i.e. act, although oddly it misses out the judge or discern stage!

§59 is also important - perhaps the most important of all - recognising the need for the Church to sustain people in their mission in life.

59. In doing so, they ask the Church not to abandon them but rather to enable them to understand that they are sent and sustained in mission. They ask to be nourished by the bread of the Word and the Eucharist, as well as by the familial bonds of the community.

They ask that their commitment be recognised for what it is: Church action in light of the Gospel, and not merely a personal choice. Lastly, they ask the community to accompany those who, through their witness, have been drawn to the Gospel.

In a missionary synodal Church, under the leadership of their pastors, communities will be able to send people out in mission and support those they have sent.

Communities will, therefore, see themselves as primarily devoted to the service of a mission that the faithful carry out within society, in family and working life. They will, therefore, not remain focused exclusively on the activities that take place within their own communities and upon their own organisational needs.

Yes, this is indeed necessary and a very welcome affirmation by the Synod!

The role of lay apostolic movements

Again, strangely, however, there is no reference in §59 to any particular role of any of the lay apostolic movements that for the last century have sought to sustain lay people in their role in the world.

In fact, there are only six references in the Final Document to the role of "movements."

True, §7 does recognise that "the simplest but most precious fruits (of synodality) mature in the life of families, parishes, movements, small Christian communities, schools and other movements."

§9 also insists on the need to "continue their daily journey" with those communities and movements "with a synodal methodology of consultation and discernment."

Similarly, §65 recognises that "associations, movements and new communities, all have a special contribution to make to the growth of synodality in the Church."

But it also adds a word of warning to those groups not to remain isolated;

At the same time, synodality invites - and sometimes challenges - pastors of local Churches, as well as those responsible for leadership in consecrated life and in the movements, to strengthen relationships in order to bring to life an exchange of gifts at the service of the common mission.

Sure, movement leaders do indeed need to work on building relationships with the whole Church and avoid isolating themselves or turning into sects.

Finally, §118 does explicitly highlight the role that those groups and movements can play:

We recognise that institutes of consecrated life, societies of apostolic life, as well as associations, movements and new communities, have the ability to take root locally and, at the same time, connect different places and environments, often at a national or international level.

Their action, together with that of many individuals and informal groups, often brings the Gospel to highly diverse contexts: hospitals, prisons, homes for the elderly, reception centres for migrants, minors, those marginalised and victims of violence; to centres of education and training, schools and universities where young people and families meet; the arenas of culture and politics and of integral human development, where new forms of living together are imagined and constructed.

Conclusion

In the end, the Final Document does de facto recognise the lay apostolate lauded by the Vatican II documents Lumen Gentium and Apostolicam Actuositatem, albeit without naming it, and it does endorse the role of the lay apostolic movements.

But if the Church is to become a community of genuinely missionary lay disciples and apostles acting ad extra for the transformation of the world in the light of the Gospel then that needs to be the focus.

Perhaps the next Synod…

• First published in Substack.com
• Stefan Gigacz is an Australian researcher and writer with a special focus on the life and work of Joseph Cardijn, founder of the Young Christian Workers (YCW) or Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne (JOC).

We are not told how he got the fish or given details of the preparation, but we can imagine silver fillets laid out on red hot stones and the air fragrant with breakfast.

Was everything back to normal?

No. The disciples, emptied by fear and grief at Jesus' crucifixion, are now being filled with something more than fish.

They are being moved to a larger, deeper place, and the Church, as we know it, will be born.

We meditate on that.

Earlier in the Gospels, we see the decimals as simple men attracted to Jesus, following him like someone would now follow a film star.

They squabbled amongst themselves as to who his favourite was, but they did not understand his teachings.

When their master was arrested, they fled.

His crucifixion found most of them in a locked room, afraid that they would be next.

But now, in the resurrection days, something different is happening.

The disciples, especially Peter, are being taken to a new place.

Jesus is handing over his ministry, promising that his Spirit will always be with them.

At Easter each year, we adopt this story and take it to ourselves.

We follow Jesus, seek understanding, sit by the cross on Good Friday and celebrate the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Is it then back to work?

No, not really.

If we sit still in contemplation, we realise that the Sacred Spirit is cooking something for us.

It is more than breakfast.

Deep down, there has been some change that we can't describe, a call to come kind of newness.

I wait for it

My mind is concerned with looking after my body, so I need to go to my heart. It is filling with a sweetness that will eventually reach thought.

We all know this sweetness. We all connect with Gerard Manley Hopkins when he writes about the beauty in deep-down things.

In prayer, we can look at our own crucifixions and resurrections and realise that with Jesus, what is resurrected is always greater than what has died.

So now we are on the beach with Jesus. He has fed us and is moving us to some kind of ministry.

What is it?

I don't know what he is asking of me, but one thing is sure.

Easter is not over.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

He'd been a plumber for 32 years before that.

"When you hang a toilet, fit a bath, turn it on and it's done, you walk away" he said.

Gray says life is extremely different going from a 9am to 5pm plumbing job to what he calls the '24/5′ - 24 hours, five days a week - hospital chaplaincy job.

There's no walking away from the hospital at 5pm if you're needed - or complaining that it's too early at 6am.

Being a chaplain at the hospital is like being on an emotional rollercoaster ride, he says.

"You're with one family who are really happy because they've got good news and they're walking out the door.

"You're with another family and the news isn't as good for them. You're riding that rollercoaster ride with them.

"I find it very hard not to actually personally get involved. It's how I'm wired that I actually do [react] emotionally with people.

"They're in tears and I'm in tears, so I know that I connect with their story and their journey."

Being a chaplain can be extremely difficult, Gray says.

"The most difficult would be where I don't sense I'm helping or making a difference in people's perspective of where they are."

But he's happy with his new role and is pleased to welcome everyone to the hospital chapel, whatever their needs are.

He says people from all walks of life and faith, even those with no faith, are welcome.

Gray says here is there to serve the spirit and people of Taranaki.

"It's worth it" Gray says.

Nonetheless, winding down after work is essential.

Sometimes he'll have a coffee with his wife. Other times he'll get out for fresh air and physical exercise.

A lie down doesn't go amiss either, he adds.

Source

• Stuff

In each State, however, there are conditions and restrictions. Advocates for euthanasia are currently calling for a review of some of these restrictions.

There has been, for instance, a call that advice on euthanasia and assisted suicide should be available via telehealth.

It should not be restricted to a personal face-to-face interview with a doctor.

It is argued that regional patients in particular are disadvantaged by the current restrictions. Although a recent Federal Court judgement (Justice Abraham: 30 November, 2023) rejected such a submission, it is inevitable that a variation of the original submission will be drafted and re-submitted in the near future.

There is also lobbying that doctors and health care professionals should be permitted to initiate discussions on euthanasia with patients rather than being restricted only to answering patient-initiated enquiries.

It is not surprising, then, that the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference should have responded to these further attempts to make euthanasia more accessible, firstly by restating the Church's strong opposition to euthanasia and all forms of assisted suicide, and, then addressing some of the emerging issues that may arise specifically for Catholics in this end-of-life context.

The bishops' document: To Witness and Accompany with Christian Hope, (27 November, 2023), draws directly on a previous Vatican Letter, Samaritanus Bonus (14 July, 2020), which in turn draws on the Encyclical Letters of Pope John Paul II Veritatis Splendor (6 August, 1993), and Evangelium Vitae (25 March, 1995).

The Australian bishops also acknowledge, as a source, parallel documents drafted by the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference.

The Vatican Letter, Samaritanus Bonus, begins by rehearsing the traditional Catholic arguments against euthanasia and assisted suicide, in specific, the dignity and inviolability of human life and the adverse social effects of compromising this basic human value.

It then goes on to distinguish euthanasia from what is morally permissible, namely, foregoing needlessly aggressive and futile treatments in the terminal stages of life.

It insists, however, that basic nutrition, hydration, nursing and health care must always be maintained unless their administration, too, becomes unduly burdensome.

The Letter then adverts to the specific case of infants born disabled with severely limited life prospects.

Even though their situation is irredeemably parlous, this does not disqualify them from being treated under the same principles already outlined for terminally ill adults.

This very specific section of the Letter dealing with disabled infants with limited life prospects is particularly pertinent in view of the number of cases that have recently been brought to the attention of the Vatican.

There is a parallel section, too, insisting that the general principles apply also to those in a vegetative state and in a state of minimal consciousness, while recognizing, of course, that what constitutes overly aggressive or futile treatments in such situations is both specific to the patient and variable in view of their condition.

Samaritanus Bonus then openly canvasses the use of strong analgesics to combat pain.

Even though the use of such analgesics may result in terminal unconsciousness, it is permissible, provided that the intention is to alleviate pain and any resultant hastening of death, while possibly foreseen, is not intended.

Indeed, the administration of such analgesics, as with palliative care in general, may extend, rather than hasten, death.

The importance of family and hospice support, the rights of health care workers and the respect that must be accorded to their conscientious objections to euthanasia and assisted suicide, the importance of palliative care as an alternative to euthanasia - all these are treated extensively within the parameters of the Catholic tradition in the Vatican Letter. Continue reading

• Bill Uren SJ AO is a Jesuit Priest, Scholar in Residence at Newman College at the University of Melbourne. He has lectured in moral philosophy and bioethics at the Universities of Melbourne, Murdoch and Queensland, and has served on over a dozen clinical and research ethics committees in universities, hospitals and research institutes.

The question is resounding more loudly as the summit of bishops and lay Catholics known as the Synod on Synodality, scheduled for October, draws near.

Participants and observers alike recognize that any conversation about reforming church hierarchy or promoting lay involvement, Francis' twin goals for the synod, has to include honest exchanges about the role of women.

"It's not just one issue among others that you can tease out," said Casey Stanton, co-director of Discerning Deacons, a group committed to promoting dialogue about the female diaconate in the Church.

"It's actually kind of at the heart of the synod and we need to take a step forward that is meaningful, and that people can see and feel in their communities."

Stanton believes that opening the door for women to become deacons — allowing them to oversee some aspects of the Mass but not consecrate the Eucharist or perform other duties reserved for priests such as anointing the sick — could send an important signal to Catholics that the Vatican is listening to their concerns.

The upcoming synod already gives a greater role to women, who will be allowed to vote for the first time in any such meeting.

Of the 364 voting participants, mostly bishops, more than 50 will be women.

But women were never the intended focus of the synod, a project Francis hoped would inspire discussion of a "new way of being church," which was interpreted to mean a focus on church power structures and rethinking the privilege enjoyed by clergy.

But by the end of the last phase of the synod, when gatherings of bishops divided by continents examined the topics brought up at the grassroots level, it was clear that the question of women had taken center stage.

The document that emerged from those discussions, with the telling title "Enlarge Your Tent," spoke to the "almost unanimous affirmation" to raise the role of women in the church.

The document described the peripheral role played by women in the church as a growing issue that impacted the function of the clergy and how power is exercised in the historically male-led institution.

While it made no mention of female ordination to the priesthood, it did suggest that the diaconate might answer a need to recognize the ministry already offered by women all over the world.

"It's remarkable the shared cry that came through in ‘Enlarge the Space of Your Tent' around the deep connection between creating a new synodal path in the church and a church that more fully receives the gifts that women bring," Stanton said.

When, in June, the Vatican issued its "instrumentum laboris," or working document that will guide the discussion at the synod, it explicitly asked:

"Most of the Continental Assemblies and the syntheses of several Episcopal Conferences call for the question of women's inclusion in the diaconate to be considered. Is it possible to envisage this, and in what way?"

Attributing the question to the continental assemblies and avoiding the words "ministry" and "ordination" in asking it, said Miriam Duignan, co-director of Women's Ordination Worldwide, constituted a "preemptive strike" against open discussion of priestly ordination.

This avoids a direct challenge to the Vatican, which has shut down the possibility of women's ordination many times.

In 1976, the Pontifical Biblical Commission established that Scripture did not prevent the ordination of women and voted that female priests did not contradict Christ's vision for the church.

But soon after, the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, intervened to state that the church was not authorized to ordain women.

Pope John Paul II had the final word on the issue when he definitively stated that "the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women," in his 1994 apostolic letter "Ordinatio Sacerdotalis" ("Priestly Ordination").

Francis and synod organizers have emphasized that the synod has no intention of opening that door.

"For the Catholic Church at this moment, from an official point of view, it's not an open question," said Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary at the Vatican's synod office, in an interview.

The question of the female diaconate, however, remained open.

Pope Benedict XVI changed canon law in 2009 to clarify the distinction between priests and bishops, who act as representatives of Christ, and deacons, who "serve the People of God in the diaconates of the liturgy, of the Word and of charity."

"Benedict predicted that the call for women priests and ministry was going to get stronger and stronger," Duignan told Religion News Service on Tuesday (July 25) in a phone interview.

The demand for women deacons was an underlying topic during Francis' previous synods on young people, the family and the Amazonian region. Francis created a commission to study the possibility of women deacons in 2016, and when no clear results emerged, he instituted another in April 2020.

According to Duignan, the commissions were "set up to fail," since a decision on the matter required a unanimous vote.

While it's undeniable that women deacons existed in the early and pre-medieval Church, theologians and historians remain divided on whether women were ordained deacons or if they occupied the role in a more informal way.

"There were women deacons in the past. We could do it again," Stanton said. "Let's just settle that."

The division on the question means that Francis will likely have to decide.

"Our prediction is that there is going to be a bit of a stalemate between those bishops who fear a diaconate role for women, and those who say now it's the time, let's give them the diaconate," Duignan said.

Advocates for female deacons hope the pope will finally welcome the demand felt by many Catholic women. "For many young people it has become untenable," Stanton said, "an obstacle to feeling the gospel."

The pope could leave the decision to individual bishops, which would create a patchwork of policies.

Stanton, who has witnessed many experiments for new ministries for women, said that while one bishop may open new opportunities for women, the issue will "wither on the vine" if another bishop doesn't see it as a priority.

In the end, she added, "it's one cleric getting to determine the scope of a woman's vocation and ministries."

Historically, the path to priestly ordination follows the steps of lector, acolyte and deacon. In January 2021, Francis allowed women to become lectors and acolytes; a decision in favor of female deacons could signal a cautious opening for the cause of women priests.

"The glacial pace for change in the modern Catholic Church means we have to accept any steps forward as progress," Duignan said.

The female diaconate would in her opinion offer some recognition for the women who catechize, evangelize and assist faithful all over the world.

"Once they start seeing women at the altar in an official role and seems to be leading the Mass there will be more calls for women priests," she added.

Advocacy groups such as Women's Ordination Worldwide will be in Rome in October to make their demands known through vigils, marches and conferences.

The Synod on Synodality will draw the attention not just of Catholics but women everywhere, putting the question of female leadership in the church and beyond in the spotlight.

"The women are coming," Duignan said. What remains unknown is whether the Vatican is prepared.

• Claire Giangravé is an author at Religion News Service.
• First published by Religion News Service. Republished with permission.

And rightly so.

People make decisions to behave unethically and destructively, but they do so drawing on cultures and systems that are already themselves dehumanising.

The damage done not just to individuals but also to whole communities is writ large; the disregard for basic human dignity and the perpetuation of injustice has been incredibly costly, both psychologically and financially.

The Catholic Church has not and should not be spared.

Among the numerous recommendations handed down in the final report by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2017 was the requirement for all religious and pastoral ministry workers to undertake professional supervision.

The goal is to create safe environments

As a psychologist practitioner and educator with many years working in abuse and trauma, I have come to understand the crucial importance of professional supervision as a response to the dire organizational and cultural structures that have made possible so much harm.

Professional supervisors support practitioners in caring vocations to critically reflect upon and refine their professional religious or other work practices.

The goal is to help those working with vulnerable clients and communities to create environments that are safe and responsive to their clients' needs.

In faith-based settings, such supervision includes taking account of the spiritual dimensions of the human person and organizations.

Professional supervision of organizational leaders and practitioners is all about inspiring a greater awareness of values-based professional conduct, consistent with acknowledged current best-practice standards.

The organization, its practitioners and its clients all benefit, with greater institutional accountability, improved service, and opportunities for practitioners to further develop compassionate and ethical work practices.

Not about policing, but accompanying

When we use the word supervision, we can sometimes think it's about policing — making sure people are doing the right thing. But this is a superficial understanding of the practice. In fact, it's about accompaniment, having an ally to help a member of an organization enhance their professional practice. That's never been more important institutionally than now.

Supervision is not a new practice — in health and caring roles, clinical supervision is recognised as an essential aspect of a health practitioner's professional development. A professional gets to talk through their work-place challenges and practices with someone trained to support them to understand their values and ethical frameworks. In this way, supervision strengthens a worker's willingness to actively support the values of their organization.

So why did the Royal Commission recommend that all people in religious and pastoral ministry in the Catholic Church — bishops, provincials, clergy, religious, and lay people — undertake mandatory professional or pastoral supervision?

Providing support for best practice

In the context of the Church, I would argue that everybody involved in Catholic ministry is in a caring role.

Pastoral work, at its core, cares for the soul, the spirit, the mind, the heart and the body.

Such holistic vision of care should distinguish a Catholic workplace from a secular one.

So a teacher at a Catholic school is responsible for inviting not just minds to grow but also hearts and spirits and souls.

A youth minister in a parish seeks to form the hearts and souls of young people who are building up their spiritual and interior life.

A social services worker in the many Catholic welfare agencies seeks to reclaim hope and humanity in devastating situations where people are trying to respond to domestic and other family violence.

All this requires support.

Such is the role of supervision: to provide support for best practice.

Supervision makes visible practices of power and influence, and guarantees a conversation about power in a discursive space.

The effect of supervision, if used consistently and authentically, is it ensures that it's harder to misuse power — not because the supervisor seeks to control, but because supervision offers the space for a person to understand their power, to ensure they do no harm and can become informed so as to withdraw consent from situations in which they are experiencing harm.

From my experience, supervision breeds cultural safety.

All corporate organizations should adopt supervision

In the five years since the Recommendations were handed down by the Royal Commission, many dioceses and institutions have responded to Recommendation 16.25 by launching initiatives which encourage clergy and seminarians to undertake professional supervision sessions.

Australian Catholic University has developed a set of award courses to provide expert training to people who wish to become professional supervisors and register with professional organizations such as the Australasian Association of Supervision (AAOS).

All courses enable such professional registration and so attempt to respond to the dearth of suitably qualified and registered supervisors.

While the Royal Commission has recommended supervision for all religious institutions, I would encourage all corporate organiszations, especially leaders, to consider this practice as part of regular Professional Development.

Given the scarcity of appropriately trained supervisors, I encourage those with a sense of the importance of this role and its significance for occupational health and safety to undertake training.

As accompaniment practice, supervision ensures safe cultures where people's differences are honored in an inclusive manner and where dialogue is fostered.

As a professional practice, supervisors work to support meaningful and safe workplaces of best practice, preventing such horrendous and damaging evils as bullying, abuse and violence in churches and workplaces.

• Jamie Calder is a Jesuit priest and practicing psychologist who teaches theology at Australian Catholic University. Republished from La Croix International.

They offer the chance to adapt to new needs and serve people differently, and a ministry of service means going wherever the people are, says Martin (pictured).

Martin says that Pope Francis has officially supported ministering to LGBTQ people. He's encouraging the embrace of LGBTQ within Catholic families — creating new possibilities for in-reach.

"Even as some may feel constrained by vows of obedience that obligate leadership to line up with papal directives, others are finding support for new areas of ministry and outreach to underserved and marginalised groups," says Martin.

Besides various communications roles, Martin brings a sense of Catholic belonging to many who had been disaffected or unchurched, particularly LGBTQ people.

With more than 645,000 followers on Facebook, 309,000 on Twitter and 81,000 on Instagram, he ministers to people wherever they are.

Martin says he's just copying Jesus; instead of waiting for students to come to him, Jesus went out into the community to call his first disciples.

"Maybe they're not on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so you go somewhere else," he says. "They're on Facebook, they're on Instagram, they're on Twitter."

But that's just a first step.

The other step is just as important: "When you go there, you speak in their language," Martin says.

Jesus did; with fishermen like Peter, Andrew and James, he used terms they would understand.

"He said: 'Come after me, and I will make you fishers of people.'"

"And if it's not beneath Jesus to do it, it shouldn't be beneath us," he says.

Martin found community life shifted online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even though online ministry can't replace going to Mass, encountering Christ in the Eucharist and communal worship, opportunities to gather as online communities appeared.

Today Martin runs a Facebook Bible study every Friday. It draws about 500 people.

He interacts with online communities on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, plus more informal communities.

His ministry to the LGBTQ+ community began after a mass shooting at a gay nightclub where 49 people were killed in 2016.

"I felt like I needed to say something," says Martin.

Very few bishops said anything. "Even in death, they're invisible to the Church," Martin noticed.

He now has an ongoing ministry to LGBTQ people, something Martin said God led him to.

Source

• Religion News Service

Parishes are being combined, the ordained ministers being spread more thinly around communities, and the access to gathering for Eucharistic activity is being curtailed.

The process is sometimes given an elegant name derived from analogies with businesses that are "down-sizing", but this does not hide the reality that this is driven by two key factors: fewer and ageing presbyters.

Moreover, there is little prospect that this situation—even with the addition of presbyters from Africa and India (a practice that is itself a form of colonial exploitation)—will change any time soon.

In answer to this, we need to reflect on the basics of ministry and not merely imagine that what has been the paradigm of ministry in the Catholic Church since the early seventeenth century is either set in stone or in any way ideal.

Rather than being an ideal, it was instead a pragmatic response to the Reformation which, in terms of the Council of Trent's vision of "the priesthood" (sacerdotium), was perceived as an officer-led rebellion that was to be prevented from recurring.

Liturgical ministry

Every religion, and every Christian denomination, has spiritual leaders, and these take the primary roles at its rituals. Moreover, ritual requires expertise, and the amount of expertise required is usually a direct function of the length of the group's remembered tradition.

But there is a binary model at work here: a sole minister or small ministry group that acts, leads and preaches/speaks/teaches on one side and, opposite them, a much larger group that attends/listens/and receives ministry.

We see this model in a nutshell in the statement "the clergy administer the sacraments".

This is a valuable and widely appreciated model because it fits well beside other expert service providers in society (e.g. medics providing healthcare to the rest of the community, or accountants providing financial services), and so full-time "ministers of religion" are aligned by society, and often by themselves, with those other experts.

Because society needs a "chaplaincy" service, we have a justification for the clergy and their liturgical ministry within society.

Discipleship as community service

In stark contrast to such highly structured notions of ministry or priesthoods, Jesus was not a Levite; his ministry barely engaged with the formal religious expert systems, and when those structures are recalled (e.g. Lk 10 31 and 32; Jn 4:21), they are the objects of criticism or presented as transient.

Moreover, while Jesus was presented as appointing messengers/preachers (apostles), there is no suggestion that these were thought of as ritual experts.

Leaders emerged in the various early Churches with a variety of names: e.g. "elders" [presbuteroi] or "overseers-and-servants" [episkopoi kai diakonoi]. The latter was possibly a double name for a single person, which we would later divide into two ranks: "bishop" and "deacon".

But it took generations (until the later second century; we now know that Ignatius of Antioch wrote after AD 150 at the earliest) for those patterns to be harmonized between communities, and then systematized into authority structures.

There is no suggestion in the first-century documents that leadership at the two key community events, baptisms and Eucharistic celebrations, was restricted in any way to or was the preserve of those who were community leaders, much less a specially authorized group.

The link between (a) leadership of the community and (b) presidency at the Eucharistic meal (a linkage that would drive much later thinking on ministry and even today is a major source of Christian division) would not be forged until the third century, and only later again would "the history of its institution" by Jesus be constructed.

The Church within society

It has long been an illusion of the various Christian denominations that a study of history—particularly the first couple of centuries and the texts from those times that they held to belong to the New Testament Canon—could provide a blueprint for ministry (e.g. "the three-fold structure of order": bishop, presbyter, deacon).

Neither can it offer a conclusive answer to issues relating to ministry that have arisen in later situations (such as, at the time of the Reformation, what "power" can be seen to come from the Christ to the priest, or whether a woman can preside at the Eucharist today).

This is an illusory quest. Not only does it fall victim to the anachronism inherent in all appeals to a perfect original moment, a much imagined period in the past when all was revealed (at least in nuce).

But it also assumes that ministry as it later developed was not itself the outcome of multiple, often conflicting, forces in particular societies, as well as adaptations by Christians to well-known inherited religious structures (e.g. orienting worship in churches because pagan temples were so aligned).

So, for example, the clerical system, within which was/is located liturgical ministry, for much of Christian history-related originally to the political needs of the Church as a public body within the Roman Empire.

Given that there was no "original" plan for liturgical ministry in the Church and, as a result of centuries of disputes, there are many conflicting views about what constitutes someone within ministry, so it is quite impossible—except within the mythic spaces of particular denominations—to produce a systematic "original plan" for liturgical ministry.

However, given that ministry occurs and is needed, one can set out some criteria that can help individuals and communities to develop a pragmatic theology of liturgical ministry.

Criteria for ministry

Every specific ministry is a particular variation of the ministry of all the baptized, and in baptism there is a radical equality: "there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28).

This radical equality is a characteristic of the new creation brought about in Christ.

Therefore, any subsequent distinctions such that particular ministries are not potentially open to every baptized person are tantamount to a defective theology of baptism by which all ministry is brought into being.

So, by making further demands for "signs" of particular divine election (e.g. being able to speak in tongues or handle snakes) as indications of suitability for ministry fly in the face of the incarnational dispensation seen in baptism.

Likewise, regulations that restrict ministry to particular states of life (e.g. demanding celibacy as a condition for the presbyterate) have to be seen as an undue concern with the status of certain ministries.

They imply that baptism is merely some basic entry requirement for "Christianity" rather than that which creates the new person who can minister, and in that new creation no such distinctions exist.

Similarly, the notion that women, as such, can be excluded from ministry on the basis of some pragmatic historical appeal (e.g. "Jesus did not ordain women!"—assuming such a pre-critical view of "history" has any value), fails to take account of the fundamental role of baptism in all Christian existence and action.

We must also respect the awareness that all action and ministry by Christians is Christ-ian in nature.

Christians form a people: a priestly people. We all too often, and too easily, lose sight of the fact that Christians must think of their liturgy in a way that is radically opposed to that commonly found in other religions of a "religious service" due to God or the gods.

In that paradigm, the divine is the opposite of the world in which we live and to which something is owed, presented or transferred, and this constitutes a mode of contact with the divine realm, which might constitute a debt of loyalty/praise/petition or appeasement.

Making this connection, whether by an individual or a group, assumes a technical knowledge and some sacred skill—usually the work of a special priesthood—such that the divine recognizes that the action performed is the appropriate sacred deed.

The priesthood holds the sacred key not permitted to the mere worshippers!

Christians, contrariwise, conceive their worship on the basis that their servant is with them in a community.

Therefore, where two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus, he is with them (Mt 18:20).And so their actions together—such as celebrating a meal—take place in the presence of the Father, because the Christ present among them, is always their High Priest.

This theological vision has important implications for individual Christians who find themselves performing specific acts, ministries, within the Church. Within Christianity, the ministry is that of the whole community.

Language and priestly ministry

It is also worth remembering that language plays us false in understanding "priestly ministry" in particular.

The Old Testament cohen (which we usually render by the word "priest") performed special tasks on behalf of the rest of Israel (see Leviticus and Numbers).

This was rendered in the Septuagint by the word hiereus—a word commonly used for pagan temple officials—and then, later, into Latin by sacerdos, which was a generic word covering all the various special temple "priesthoods" such as flamenes and pontifices.

The early Christians did not use these words for their leaders. Hiereus and sacerdos belonged to Jesus alone in the heavenly temple. Christian leaders were designated by their relation to the community: as the one who oversaw, led, or served it.

Later, the hiereus/sacerdos language was absorbed and became the basis of Christians' perceptions of their presbyters. Our word "priest" is etymologically from the word "presbyter", but conceptually it relates to the sacerdotal functions.

Once this had occurred, it had to be asked what made them different and what special religious quality they had that others did not possess.

The answer came with the notion of a power "to consecrate", and then this power (itself the subject of rhetorical inflation) became the basis of "ontological difference" between them and "ordinary Christians" or whose ministry is "praying, paying, and obeying".

After more than a millennium and a half of these confusions in Christianity, both East and West, it is very hard for many who see themselves as "ministers" in a Church—especially those with elaborate sacerdotal liturgies—to break free of this baggage.

Tradition can be like a great oil-tanker turning at sea: it takes a long time to overcome inertia, and for the ship to answer the helm!

Where do we start?

In every community, there are those who have the skills that have brought that group together and given it an identity. The task is to recognize these actual ministers and to facilitate them to make that ministry more effective and fruitful.

Some will have the gifts of evangelizing and welcoming, others the skills of leading the prayer and offering the thanksgiving sacrifice of praise, others the gifts of teaching, others of reconciling, others for the mission of each community to the building up of the kingdom of justice and peace, and some will have management skills.

None is greater and none is less!

In every discussion of ministry we need to have the advice of Paul to the Church in Corinth around 58 CE echoing in our heads as he presents ministry as the working out of the presence of the Spirit in the assembly:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another, various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit (1 Cor 12:4-13).

If these statements were to reverberate through our discussions today we might need to talk less about "closing churches" and "combining parishes" and could then move on to the more fruitful task of discovering the wealth of vocations that are all around us.

But there is only one [merely logical] certainty: the future will not be like the past. And when the present seeks to recede into its past, it is untrue to its own moment.

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a presbyter of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and professor-emeritus of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK). His latest book is Discipleship and Society in the Early Churches.

Three of the women are under 30 — deemed good news for the age profile; a further three are between 30 and 39; six are 40-49; four are 50-59; and two are between 60 and 69.

Of the men training for stipendiary ministry, two are in the age bracket 30-39; one 40-49; four 50-59; and two 60-69.

Women also outnumber men among those training for self-supporting ministry, at 16 to 11.

However there is concern about numbers training for licensed lay ministry, said the Principal, the Rev. Professor Jeremy Duff. There were ten women and two men currently in training, with the majority in the higher age brackets. "We need to see how the Spirit is prompting people to engage in lay ministry [generally across the Province]," he suggested. Continue reading

Whether it be physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, or any other form of abuse, it needs to be called out at every level.

It is usually perpetrated by men against women, precisely because they can.

Physical strength, the male combative nature and patriarchal cultures all play a role in this male-dominated scourge, but none of these factors can be used as an excuse.

The most obvious examples of abusive behaviour are usually seen at the individual level - a man berating his wife in the supermarket, a woman being talked over in a group discussion, a male boss speaking to a female employee in a patronizing way.

The curse of structural abuse

But the most insidious form of abuse is structural abuse, where the abusive behaviour is camouflaged within the rules and guidelines of the institution. It is more subtle than some other types of abuse, but it's just as real.

The Catholic Church's exclusion of women from ordained ministry is a form of structural abuse.

The same elements that characterize individual abusive behaviour are present in the way the hierarchy relate to women - patronizing language, efforts to disempower, silencing of voices, refusal to engage.

Currently in Australia we are engaged in a Plenary Council process. Well over 200,000 participants contributed to the preliminary stage when submissions were called for.

The 300-page summary of those submissions clearly shows a strong call for greater and more meaningful participation of women in the Church, including ordained ministry.

And yet the Australian bishops refused to allow any reference to women's issues to see the light of day in the final agenda.

They silenced women's voices, because they could. They spoke over the top of them, because they could. They disempowered them, because they could. They refused to engage with them, because they could.

Pope Francis and his blind spot

Even Pope Francis, despite his warm and pastoral nature, clearly struggles in trying to understand and relate to women, particularly with regard to his language. His "strawberry on the cake" comments are embarrassing.

When Donald and Melania Trump visited him at the Vatican in 2017, after speaking to President Trump, Francis then turned and spoke to Melania, asking her what she cooked for her husband.

It's tempting to say, "But the pope is an elderly man and a product of his culture and era."

I'm tempted to do that myself. I'm one of his greatest fans.

But we can't do that. Any form of abuse, no matter how benign it may appear, contributes to the broader abusive behaviour against women that we see around the world, particularly in religious cultures.

Women reduced to servitude

In his prayer intention for the month of February, Francis invites women "to fight when, in some cases, they are treated unfairly, even within the Church". He then notes that they have been "reduced to servitude - sometimes by men of the Church".

The clear implication is that these women have endured abusive behaviour by members of the clergy in the way they have been treated.

The pope's words, on this particular occasion, are addressed to religious sisters and consecrated women, but they can also be applied in a broader sense.

Many Catholic women feel they have been "treated unfairly" and "reduced to servitude" in the way they have tirelessly worked for the good of the Church but have been excluded from leadership roles and have been reprimanded for even raising the issue.

Pope Francis' exhortation to women who have been treated unfairly to "fight" for justice is admirable. But there is no point fighting if the "men of the Church" who have exploited them won't even listen to them.

Bishops never advocate for women

Why is it that, by and large, bishops have no empathy with Catholic women and their struggle to be recognized in the Church and be treated fairly?

Why do they never advocate on their behalf?

Why don't they say something as simple as, "We understand how you feel?"

It never happens. The bishops' response is always dismissive if there is a response at all.

At least part of the reason for that is the fact that most clergy spend little time conversing with women in any depth. Their world is a very male world.

Their colleagues in ministry are all male, and in many cases, their close friends are also male.

They don't understand the hurt experienced by women who feel betrayed by the hierarchy. They never feel their pain.

Added to that, the clergy have little or no experience of being marginalized. They don't know what it's like to have their voice silenced.

Bishops, in particular, have never felt the distress of being excluded, of being ignored, of being disempowered.

Then there is the broader patriarchal culture that pervades the Church hierarchy. It produces a club mentality among the clergy that is exclusive and elitist.

In the context of structural abuse in the Church, it's a perfect storm.

Is there hope?

Things need to change, but it won't happen unless there's a change in the attitude of the clergy towards women.

The hierarchy, in particular, need to take women more seriously. They need to listen respectfully to their voices and accept them as equals.

But despite everything, I remain optimistic.

Recently the Vatican agreed to add a link from the "Women's Ordination Conference" to their Synod on Synodality website. It was a break-through moment for all concerned.

Let's hope it's a first step on a longer journey.

• John Crothers was ordained presbyter in 1985 for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney (Australia). Author of The Clergy Club (ATF Press, 2018), he also posts songs on his "John Crothers Singer-Songwriter" YouTube channel, calling for a more inclusive Church.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

The purpose of ministries within the Church is to provide nurture and formation for that mission. It is the mission that matters.

Part I - Ministries

For some years we have all been aware of a growing gap between the number of parishes and the number of priests available to serve in them.

This reality serves as a wake-up call, but it is not the basis for greater lay involvement.

That involvement has its roots in Baptism and the very nature of the Church. Through Baptism we are all united to the priestly and prophetic mission of Christ.

This is the basis for our shared responsibility for what the Church is and what it does:

"Co-responsibility requires a change in mentality, particularly with regard to the role of the laity in the Church, who should be considered not as "collaborators" with the clergy, but as persons truly "co-responsible" for the being and the activity of the Church…" (Pope Benedict XVI, 10 August 2012).

This is more than just a matter of management, or meeting an emergency. It, too, is rooted in Baptism and the nature of the Church.

So why does this require a "change in mentality" if it already belongs to the nature of the Church?

History gives the answer.

During the first four centuries of the Church, laypeople had roles in the liturgy, preached, had a say in the election of bishops and nomination of priests; contributed to the framing of church laws and customs, prepared matters for, and participated in church councils, administered church properties, etc.

Then, after the conversion of the emperor Constantine and the mass conversions that followed, responsibility shifted one-sidedly into the hands of the clergy. And following the barbarian invasions, responsibility for public order also fell to them.

Over the following centuries, society came to see the priesthood as a profession, with social privilege.

During earlier centuries it had been a point of honour for ministers of the Church to live and look like everyone else.

Perception changed also within the Church.

This is perhaps symbolized by the altar being pushed back to the apse of the church, where liturgy became mainly a clerical affair with diminishing involvement of the laity.

Scholarship and a better understanding of the early Church would eventually return the liturgy to the whole body of the faithful and restore roles of pastoral care and administration to laywomen and men.

Most see our own day as a time of privileged opportunity for renewal.

It is challenging because it involves the need for more personal responsibility and moving away from the forms of tutelage and guardianship that shaped Church practices right up till the time of Pope Pius XII.

Others feel safer clinging to that recent past, often misunderstanding the meaning of "Tradition".

Part II - Mission

In Christ, God became immersed in human life; showed us how to live it, destined us to its fullness, and sent the Holy Spirit to draw us into what Christ did for us.

That is God's purpose, and the Church can have no other - "Humanity is the route the Church must take" (Pope John Paul II).

How we do this comes down to how we "do" love.

There is a loving that does not go deep enough to transform society. It works at the level of what seems fair and reasonable and deserving. This is what governments are properly concerned with.

Society must do better, and the Church's mission is to be the leaven in society.

It deals with a deeper kind of loving - love that is not limited to what seems fair and reasonable and deserved.

As Church, we are uniquely placed to do this because in the Person, life, death and resurrection of Jesus we see love that is unconditional, undeserved, and unstinting.

When we love as we have been loved, our love becomes a circuit breaker - precisely because it is not calculating and limited to what seems fair and reasonable and deserved.

Running through family life, civic life, industrial, commercial and political life, this kind of love "changes everything".

It brings about a way of living - of being human - that is true to what God made us for.

But, note, it starts with seeing God's love for us - contemplative seeing!

Christians have the least excuse for not recognizing the intrinsic link between contemplation and working for social justice because in celebrating Eucharist they move from contemplating God's extraordinary love for us to receiving and becoming the body broken for others and the blood (life) poured out for others.

This is how faith makes a decisive difference to all of human life, while fully respecting the rightful autonomy of everything that is properly secular.

In the midst of life God is drawing us towards the fulfilment of our own deepest yearnings, and wonderfully more, involving God's purpose for the whole of creation.

On that understanding of "the route the Church must take", we come to know what ministries are needed to nurture us for that mission, and what kind of formation is needed for those ministries.

Part III - Formation

To be involved in the processes of making our lives more truly human is a wonderful mission.

So what kind of formation is needed for ministries that serve that mission?

Writing about the formation needed for priests, Pope John Paul II said it needs to be "human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral", and went on to say that continuing formation was a matter of a priest's faithfulness to his ministry, of love for the people, and in the proper sense a matter of justice, given the people's rights (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 70).

Commenting on some of the characteristics of human formation, the Congregation for the Clergy explicitly singled out the specific contribution of women, "not only for the seminarians' personal life but also with a view to their future pastoral activity" (Ratio Fundamentalis, 95).

The Congregation's reference was to Pope John Paul's emphasis on "what it means to speak of the ‘genius of women', not only in order to be able to see in this phrase a specific part of God's plan which needs to be accepted and appreciated but also in order to let this genius be more fully expressed in the life of society as a whole, as well as in the life of the Church; (Letter to Women, 1995, 10).

In our country, women have been carrying out significant roles at both Holy Cross Seminary and Good Shepherd College for some years.

What still needs to be developed, however, are ways of allowing parishioners generally to play a bigger part both in seminarians' formation and in the discernment of their vocation.

Those who will live with the results of formation, for better or for worse, should have a say in that formation and the selection of candidates.

Programmes for the formation of laywomen and men for parish ministries already exist, and I leave it to others to comment on them.

My concern here is with a very specific feature needed in Church leadership - both lay and ordained.

It is needed all the more because general education in our country has been gradually reduced to learning mainly practical skills.

Skills, both human/relational and technological properly belong within education, but not more so than the deeper aspects of what it means to be human.

Even when we know how to do the things necessary for successful living, we still need to know what ultimately gives meaning to it all.

Knowing that one's life has a purpose can make the difference between surviving, or not surviving, life's toughest times.

The will to live needs a reason to live. The need I am pointing to is the need for leaders who are "in the service of meaning" (Ratcliffe).

This is what it means in practice to be ministers of God's word. Knowing how much we mean to God is the most important thing we can know about ourselves, and truly life-giving.

Within a culture that has become superficial, reductionist and utilitarian, one of the ways we are in the service of meaning is by knowing how to identify flaws within that culture, especially where important aspects of daily life are devalued by becoming disconnected from what gives them their meaning, or at least their full meaning.

Formation will be incomplete unless it is formation "in the service of meaning".

Part IV - Where to start?

I referred to the increasing gap between the number of our parishes and the number of priests.

Simply combining parishes, whether for the sake of having a parish priest in every parish or out of due concern for future financial resourcing, does not resolve the problem because ultimately everything depends on pastoral effectiveness and enlivening.

An alternative to combining parishes is available where Church law allows for the pastoral care of parishes to be entrusted to laypeople, with a priest appointed to provide general supervision (canon 517/2), usually from another parish.

We already experience the insufficiency of suitable priests which is what justifies recourse to this canon.

Of course, where this happens, priests are still required for sacramental ministry.

It is possible that some priests might even prefer that kind of role, leaving the management of the parish to a team of qualified lay women and men.

Lay leadership of parishes requires proper formation - of parish and leaders - and proper remuneration.

Yet another starting point for renewal can be found in the experience of small base communities pioneered by the Church in some countries in South America and Asia.

Of course, we cannot simply transfer other local churches' experience to our situation. But we, too, can establish smaller communities within parishes, where leadership can be shared by teams and on a voluntary basis.

Such gatherings would be lay-led and need no official authorization. They can happen already, and develop in home-spun ways.

The Christian Base Communities in South American countries grew out of lay people coming together to pray and reflect on the scriptures and on their life situations, using the Catholic Action principle: "see, judge, act".

Their aim was a more just society and more truly human life for everyone - "the route the Church must take".

If this were happening in our own country, we could ask the kind of questions they asked: what are the causes of poverty in our country, and what can we do about those causes?

Indeed, this is an appropriate level at which to analyse whatever flaws in our culture leave us less able to deal with the epic issues of our time - those that degrade human life, human dignity, human rights, and the planet itself.

Addressing those issues - through the lenses of divine revelation - is itself a way of participating in the mission of the Church.

It is a good place to start because it is already do-able; it can be inclusive of those who feel unable to participate in other aspects of the Church's life; it does not need clerical leadership or control, but makes room for the ordained priesthood to present itself as a supporting ministry; it can model shared leadership, and lead to whatever forms of ministry might need to come next.

It is also a way of being Church that is "synodal", i.e. being "on the road together".

The larger gatherings that we call "Synods" presuppose the experience of walking and working together before we are ready for the decisions we gather to make at Synods. It also gives scope and opportunity for the participation of many who will not be at the Synods.

Part V - What More?

Pope Francis has rightly said: "the Church's customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures" all need to be channelled for what best serves the Church's mission of evangelising the world"; (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, n.27).

To act on that would make big differences.

Yet, even these changes are ‘small change' compared with where the Church has already been, and can yet go.

Bigger changes rightly need wider consultation. And synodality is pointless if it isn't about the road ahead and exploring what might yet be.

Ministry that is authorized to speak and act in Christ's name has its origin in Christ's historical intentions.

But its structure and concrete forms were determined by the Church during the apostolic period and after, continuing until late in the second century.

What the Church gave shape to after the apostolic period, it can give a different shape to now.

Being faithful to the Tradition involves more than just receiving what the early Church did; it involves doing what the early Church did: it shaped its ministries to meet the needs of its mission.

So long as the fullness of ordained responsibility remains intact - as in the college of bishops with and under the bishop of Rome - lesser participations in ordained ministry can be redistributed.

The ‘powers' presently distributed within the three ministries of bishop, presbyter and deacon would live on but enshrined within a wider variety of ordained ministries.

This would open up significant new pastoral opportunities, and incorporate a wider range of charisms into ordained ministry.

Whatever about that, fifty years ago, the International Theological Commission said "It is urgent to create much more diversified structures of the Church's pastoral action as regards both its ministries and its members, if the Church is to be faithful to its missionary and apostolic vocation." (The Priestly Ministry, pp 99,100).

• Peter Cullinane is Emeritus Bishop of Palmerston North. He has a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum, Rome and a Master of Theology from Otago University. Bishop Cullinane is a former President of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference and between 1983 and 2003 he was a member of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL).

"We want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts and say how proud we are of what you have given in the service of Christ", said the bishop who is also president of the church's governing body.

John also heaped praise on clergy who "held their nerve" and for being "light on their feet and discovering new and innovative ways to care for others".

He described the pandemic as the most significant event to affect humanity since the Second World War.

"The impact on our economy and national well-being has been profound," he said.

"It is perhaps too early to understand and describe completely how life is being reshaped, whether in the workplace, our communities, or even the effect on the global economy. The landscape of life is changing, and, to use the words of St John, admittedly entirely out of context, it is not yet clear what we will become."

"We are wondering what to take with us on the next stage of our journey, and what to lay down. We are conscious that the numbers of those who worship in person might be fewer than was the case pre-Covid, and that a diminished base of support will ask new questions about our mission, property, and finance.

"But external stimuli have always shaped Christian purpose and polity: the persecution of the Early Church led to the first missionary journeys, and the demand of new tasks led to the calling of the first deacons. What is significant has never been the size of the challenge, but the scale of the faithful response," said John who spoke in the changed context of ministry and possible new ways of being church.

Saying the pandemic is asking lots of questions of the Church, John indicated the Church in Wales will front-load it's priorities and finances to reflect the new realities and hopes.

"The ‘authority of the eternal yesterday' must not be a millstone around our necks, but provide a basis for a courageous embrace of what God is doing in the world around us.

"Mission always lies at the heart of faith, and being alive to God, to what might happen next, is part of remaining curious and open to new opportunity."

John said he expected diverse expressions of church to become more normal and that he is in no doubt that the hybrid of "mixed ecology" of church life is here to stay.

"As diverse expressions of church become more normal, there will be new questions still about how we grow vocations — to the priesthood, and also lay leaders, who will offer the support and direction needed", he said.

The bishop concluded his presidential address encouraging the church's governing body saying "What is significant has never been the size of the challenge, but the scale of the faithful response."

Source

• Church Times

She describes these people as 'lost opportunities'.

Young, a pastoral worker who once worked in a large diocese, says that city dioceses, hospitals, schools and parish communities are generally well resourced and have good systems in place, however, there is an issue on the "missionary edges".

As a sacramental church, the limited resources go first to priests who can celebrate sacraments Young told Flashes of Insight.

She thinks that people are missing out and the Church is sacrificing lots of opportunities by not being able to offer sacraments to people who are being cared for by those who love them and committed to them.

"Sacraments add just so much to ministry", she added.

Young says she loves the fact the Catholic Church is a sacrament-based church but wonders what might be when something so valuable to those on the margins is not available to them.

"Our church is perhaps sacrificing the ability to be there with people Jesus would have been with", she said.

Young says we love the Church but in these times need a lot of hope in Christ, as the Church continues to develop.

Kate Bell a theologian and catechist with the Palmerston North diocese in New Zealand makes the issue tangible.

She describes women's ministry, as, at times, "doing the role with our hand behind our backs and a gag in our mouths."

Bell says it is the Church that is making the sacrifice; the sacrifice and cost to the Church is the loss of potential not being brought into actuality.

It is a point that Jo Ayers, an Auckland theologian and author amplifies, saying she often wondered what would happen to the church if women went on strike for a generous amount of time.

Shifting the conversation back to liturgy, Ayers told Flashes of Insight that women's role of service in the community needs to be reflected in all areas of the liturgy; preaching, welcoming, blessing, missioning, breaking and distributing the bread and ultimately leading the Eucharist.

However, in an apparent contradiction, Ayers however says she is not advocating for women priests!

"A lot of women would not want to be part of priesthood at the moment", she said.

"Women are not into hierarchy and layers of clericalism".

With the conversation ebbing and flowing around ‘women sacrificing to belong to the Church' and the ‘Church's sacrifice by not having women fully involved', Fiona Dyball, a theologian and office holder at the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference says the Church has to find a way forward so women can feel more a part of the Church's liturgy.

She recommends people read "Faithful Stewards of God's Grace" a document for lay pastoral ministers in the Australian church.

Warning of a potential fracture, Dyball says "If the Church does not engage people in the liturgy people will end up doing it for themselves".

Dyball says the Church, women and society are very different to even a few years back when women had a strong focus on the Church".

"It's good that women are not as involved. That's then, this is now".

Women have different things they want to put their lives into and she is glad people do not spend "every waking moment at the buildings".

Dyball emphasised the proper role of sacrifice, and that today it is primarily measured in time.

She was quick to respond saying women, people, are not cheap labour, and that it is important to know what gifts people have in order that they might rightfully offer them to the community.

She says it is just as important for people to know their boundaries.

There is little point to making sacrifices in the name of a power structure that no longer exists and is not serving the community today, she concludes.

She made the comment on Flashes of Insight, a conversation between herself, and fellow theologians, Fiona Dyball, Elizabeth Young and Jo Ayers.

The women discussed the newly approved ministries for women of Lector, Acolyte and Catechist.

"I think it is helpful that Canon Law has been changed and women are formally allowed into ministry.

"It's got to be helpful that women because of the ‘womenness' are no longer excluded from ministry.

However, her view is not all ‘clear water', Bell telling the conversation she has a slight concern that formal recognition of these ministries might alienate the baptised who have been performing them for a long time.

"The people of God, the baptised, might become further disenfranchised from ministry by yet another layer and another process."

While keen to see the introduction of formal ministries Bell does not want ministry to happen only when it is recognised.

"It's the job of all of us to be involved," she said.

Host, Joe Grayland politely suggested Bell was ‘sitting on the fence'.

Pushing her, he made the choice concrete, asking would she support the introduction of these ministries at the Palmerston North Cathedral. (Where Bell works).

Bell ‘weighed up the balance' telling Flashes of Insight that while in the past the parish there was less formality involved with those ministering as Catechist she will support the introduction of the ministry.

"The ministry of Catechist would be perfect for those ministering in the area of marriage preparation", she said.

It is a point echoed by Fiona Dyball, adding that Pope Francis' statement makes the changes very clear.

"It is obviously something very dear to his heart", she said.

Dyball said that women have been performing these ministries for a long time, but in some places, it was said that women do not fit these roles and so were prevented from doing them.

She describes the changes as "a welcome clarity; because these things matter".

The Church has known for a long time that women have these gifts Dyball says.

She sees this as an important step for the church to legitimately use the gifts to help it accomplish its mission, in its service of the community.

Jo Ayers an Auckland theologian and lecturer however took a different perspective.

Responding to Dyball, Ayers said, "I was going to say one thing but Fiona's nearly persuaded that the institute of Acolyte and Reader is a good thing."

The persuasion was a near thing as Ayers went on to describe the institution of these ministries for women as, "crumbs from the table" and "another layer of clericalism.

Ayers says she is looking for real power-sharing.

However, Elizabeth Young RSM, a theologian and pastoral worker in Forbes echoes Dyball, but with a difference, saying it is important for people taking part and for those receiving the benefits of the service to know the minister is authorized.

"Signs make a real difference", she said and so she welcomes that these ministries are now officially open to women.

• Kate Bell, Elizabeth Young RSM, Fiona Dyball, Jo Ayers

You might have questions about what this ministry is and who it is for.

What is the instituted ministry of catechist?

An instituted ministry is a type of formal, vocational service within the Catholic Church. It can be either lay, such as lector or acolyte, or ordained, such as deacon or priest.

The newly instituted ministry of catechist is for laypeople who have a particular call to serve the Catholic Church as a teacher of the faith.

The ministry is "stable," meaning it lasts for the entirety of life, independent of whether the person is actively carrying out that activity during every part of his or her life.

But catechists already exist. How is this different?

Many catechists today serve the Church at the parish level, but the instituted ministry of catechist will be tied to the diocese and be at the disposal of the diocesan bishop.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella explained at a Vatican press conference May 11 that "the institution of a ministry by the Church is confirmation that the person invested with that charism is performing an authentic ecclesial service to the community."

Fisichella is president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, which oversees the Church's instituted ministries.

The institution of this ministry, together with the lay ministries of lector and acolyte, "will make it possible to have a laity that is better prepared in the transmission of the faith," the archbishop said.

He also emphasized that the instituted catechist is dedicated to the transmission of the faith through proclamation and instruction — he or she does not have any kind of liturgical responsibility.

The catechist collaborates with the local bishop and priests in the teaching of the faith to the local community. And it can be a benefit in places where priests are scarce.

Pope Francis "is well aware of how many areas of Latin America and Africa today still have catechists at the head of the community," Fisichella said. He stressed the unique nature of each ministry, noting that they are not interchangeable.

"At stake here is much of what is new in this ministry," he said. "Men and women are called to express their baptismal vocation in the best possible way, not as substitutes for priests or consecrated persons, but as authentic laymen and laywomen who, in the distinctive nature of their ministry, are able to experience the full of extent of their baptismal vocation of witness and effective service in the community and the world."

Who is qualified to be instituted into the ministry of catechist?

Pope Francis' letter said that a layperson called to be instituted in the ministry of catechist should have "deep faith and human maturity," be an active participant in the life of the Christian community, and "capable of welcoming others, being generous and living a life of fraternal communion." Continue reading

Everyone has strong opinions based on years of personal experience.

In the 1960s and '70s, Pope Paul VI implemented revolutionary liturgical reforms laid out by the Second Vatican Council, but after his death in 1978, the Vatican put a stop to the changes.

It is now time for a second phase.

In a previous column, I recommended that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in Rome update the process by which it considers liturgical questions.

I argued for more transparency and consultation in keeping with the principle of collegiality promoted by Vatican II and the principle of synodality promoted by Pope Francis.

The purpose of a transparent and collegial process is to develop good liturgy that is supported by a consensus within the community.

In this column, I offer my own ideas on improving liturgy as an attempt to get the conversation going, inviting liturgical scholars and others to consider my proposals (transparently and collegially).

Inculturation

The Roman rite was developed in Italy and Western Europe centuries ago. St. John Paul II wrote beautifully about the importance of inculturating Christianity — grounding it in cultures beyond its European base.

The unanswered question is how to carry out inculturation in concrete terms in the liturgy today.

Each bishops' conference needs to be encouraged to gather scholars, poets, musicians, artists and pastors to develop liturgies for their specific cultures.

When liturgy is out of touch with local culture, it becomes boring and dies.

These new liturgies need to be beta-tested before adoption.

Ministry

Bishops' conferences should discuss whether new liturgical ministries are needed and who may be called to perform liturgy.

• Can the work of liturgy be separated from the work of administration?
• Do all liturgical leaders have to be celibate, male, full-time employees?
• Can a deacon or layperson anoint the sick or hear confessions? In an age of declining numbers of priests, such questions must be faced.

Ecumenism

Besides liturgical renewal, Vatican II emphasized improving relations with other Christian churches.

One way to do that is to move our liturgical ceremonies closer together.

Is the Eucharist a sign of the existing unity among churches, or can it also be a means of fostering unity? The former excludes intercommunion; the latter does not.

The church might also allow Catholics' spouses to share Communion if they share our faith in the Eucharist.

In 2015, a Lutheran asked Francis what she should do at Communion when she joins her Catholic husband at Mass.

The pope answered sympathetically, but indicated his reluctance to changing church policy.

He ended by saying, "Talk to the Lord and then go forward."

Many took this to mean the woman should follow her conscience.

Theologically, if a couple is united in the sacrament of matrimony, how can we not allow them to be united at the Eucharist?

Pastorally, the practice of barring the non-Catholic parent from Communion gives the children the impression that the church thinks their parent is a bad person.

Translations

When he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, insisted that liturgical texts be translated word for word from the Latin.

Experienced translators and liturgical scholars disagreed, and consider the resulting English translation woefully inadequate.

There was another, better translation done in 1998, which was approved by the English-speaking bishops' conferences but rejected by Rome.

It is more important that the meaning of the text be communicated clearly than that the translation be literal.

There is no reason the hierarchy could not allow priests to use the 1998 translation as an alternative, allowing the priest decide which translation works best in his parish.

This option would be limited to the priest's prayers at Mass, since it would be too confusing to change the people's responses without extensive preparation.

Pre-Vatican II Mass

After the Pauline reforms of the liturgy, it was presumed that the "Tridentine" or Latin Mass would fade away. Bishops were given the authority to suppress it in their dioceses, but some people clung to the old liturgy to the point of schism.

Benedict took away the bishops' authority and mandated that any priest could celebrate the Tridentine Mass whenever he pleased.

It is time to return to bishops the authority over the Tridentine liturgy in their dioceses.

The church needs to be clear that it wants the unreformed liturgy to disappear and will only allow it out of pastoral kindness to older people who do not understand the need for change.

Children and young people should not be allowed to attend such Masses.

Eucharistic prayers

The Eucharistic prayer is sadly given little attention by the faithful or many priests reciting it.

Too many focus exclusively on the consecration of the bread and wine while ignoring the meaning of the prayer.

There are currently 13 approved Eucharistic prayers, though most priests use the shortest, Eucharistic Prayer II.

The Eucharist developed out of the experience of the Last Supper, which was a Passover meal.

As a result, Eucharistic prayers were modelled on the Jewish Passover or Sabbath prayers (Berakah) said by the father of a family at the meal.

They begin by remembering and giving thanks and praise to God for his actions on behalf of his people. For Jews, that begins with creation and includes God's works recounted in the Old Testament.

Like the Passover meal, the Eucharist is a sacrificial meal through which the family is united with God and one another. It is also an opportunity to remember and renew their covenant with God.

We give thanks to God for his actions through history, especially for Jesus' life, death, resurrection and promise to return. Through the Eucharist we renew our covenant with the Father through Christ.

More important than the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is the transformation of the community into the body of Christ so we can live out the covenant we have through Christ.

We do not worship Jesus, in this sense; with Jesus we worship the Father and ask to be transformed by the power of the spirit into the body of Christ.

The church needs more and better Eucharistic prayers based on our renewed understanding of the Eucharist.

It would also be nice to have Eucharistic prayers that use more biblical language.

When the Gospel reading is from Luke, the priest could use a Eucharistic prayer evoking the language and theology of Luke. A unique "preface" for each Sunday that picked up themes from the Scripture readings could also tie the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist more closely together.

Other Eucharistic prayers might develop other themes — the church's concern for the poor, or for justice, peace, healing and the environment. All of these new prayers would require beta testing before adoption.

Kiss of peace

Originally, the kiss of peace occurred at the conclusion of the Liturgy of the Word, where it symbolized the agreement of the community to commit itself to what it had heard in the Scriptures.

With proper explanation, it would be a good idea to provide this ancient practice as an optional alternative to its current place before Communion.

Fermentum

After the Lord's Prayer, the priest breaks off a piece of the host and drops it into the cup. In ancient times bishops instead sent this piece, called the "fermentum," to parishes in their dioceses, whose pastors would put it in their chalices as a symbol of communion.

The practice could be revived during Holy Week, when the bishop could send the fermentum from Chrism Mass, in Holy Week, for pastors to drop in their chalices on Holy Thursday or Easter Sunday. On special occasions (perhaps Eucharistic Congresses), the pope could share fermentum with bishops around the world, who would place it in their chalices.

And as ecumenical relations improve, the pope might share the fermentum with the Ecumenical Patriarch or other Christian bishops. Popes have already shared episcopal rings and croziers with non-Catholic bishops; sharing the frementum would be a logical next step.

I doubt I will see many of these reforms in my lifetime, but we need to begin talking about the future of liturgical reform. The conversation will reveal what we think about Christ, the church and our place in the world.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

But what would such a revisiting look like?

It raises several fundamental questions and might be far more undermining of the status quo than the few changes in the Code of Canon Law that are envisaged by those bishops who are willing to even consider the matter.

Where are we now?

Meet any group of Catholics today and within minutes someone will mention that their diocese or local area is undergoing a "re-organization".

Parishes are being combined, the ordained ministers being spread more thinly around communities and the access to gathering for Eucharistic activity being curtailed.

The process is sometimes given an elegant name derived from analogies with businesses that are "down-sizing", but this does not hide the reality that this is driven by two key factors: fewer and ageing presbyters.

Moreover, there is little prospect that this situation - even with the addition of presbyters from Africa and India - will change any time soon.

In answer to this, we need to reflect on the basics of ministry and not merely imagine that what has been the paradigm of ministry in the Roman Catholic Church since the early seventeenth-century is either set in stone or in any way ideal.

Rather than being an ideal, it was instead a pragmatic response to the Reformation. In terms of Trent's vision of "the priesthood" (a sacerdotium), it was perceived as an officer-led rebellion that was to be prevented from recurring.

Liturgical ministry

Every religion, and every Christian denomination, has religious leaders, and these take the leading roles at its rituals.

Moreover, ritual requires expertise, and the amount of expertise required is usually a direct function of the length of the group's remembered tradition.

But there is a binary model at work here: a sole minister or small ministry-group that acts, leads and preaches/speaks/teaches on one side and, opposite them, a much larger group that attends/listens/and receives ministry. We see this model in a nutshell in the statement, "the clergy administer the sacraments".

This is a valuable and widely appreciated model because it fits well beside other expert service providers in society (e.g. medics providing healthcare to the rest of the community, or accountants providing financial services).

So full-time "ministers of religion" are aligned by society, and often by themselves, with those other experts. Because society needs a "chaplaincy" service, we have a justification for the clergy and their liturgical ministry within society.

Discipleship as community service

In stark contrast to such highly structured notions of ministry or priesthoods, Jesus was not a Levite; his ministry barely engaged with the formal religious expert systems, and when those structures are recalled (e.g. Lk 10, 31-32; Jn 4, 21), they are the objects of criticism or presented as transient.

Moreover, while Jesus was presented as appointing messengers/preachers (apostles), there is no suggestion that these were thought of as ritual experts.

Leaders emerged in the various early Churches with a variety of names. For example, there were "elders" (presbuteroi) or "overseer-servants" (episkopoikaidiakonoi), originally a double name for a single person that, later on, would divide into two ranks - "bishop" and "deacon".

But it took generations (until the later second-century - in contradiction of older textbooks we know now that Ignatius of Antioch wrote after AD 160 at the earliest) for those patterns to be harmonized between communities and then systematized into authority structures.

There is no suggestion in the first-century documents that leadership at the two key community events, baptism and Eucharist, was restricted in any way or the preserve of those who were community leaders, much less a specially authorized group.

The link between (a) leadership of the community and (b) presidency at the Eucharistic meal (a linkage that would drive much later thinking on ministry and even today is a major source of Christian division) would not be forged until the third-century. And only later again would "the history of its institution" by Jesus be constructed.

The Church within society

It has long been an illusion of the various Christian denominations that a study of history - particularly the first couple of centuries and the texts from those times that they held to belong to the New Testament canon - could provide either a blueprint for ministry (e.g. "the three-fold structure of order": bishop, presbyter, deacon) or a conclusive answer to issues relating to ministry that have arisen in later situations (such as, at the time of the Reformation, what "power" can be seen to come from Christ to the priest, or whether a woman can preside at the Eucharist today).

This is an illusory quest, for it falls victim to the anachronism inherent in all appeals to a perfect original moment, a much-imagined period in the past when all was revealed (at least in nuce).

It also assumes that ministry, as it later developed, was not itself the outcome of multiple, often conflicting, forces in particular societies, as well as adaptations by Christians to well-known inherited religious structures.

So, for example, the clerical system, within which was/is located liturgical ministry, for much of Christian history-related originally to the political needs of the Church as a public body within the Roman Empire.

Given that there was no "original" plan for liturgical ministry in the Church and, as a result of centuries of disputes, there are many conflicting views about what constitutes someone within ministry, so it is quite impossible—except within the mythic spaces of particular denominations—to produce a systematic basis for liturgical ministry.

However, given that ministry occurs and is needed, one can set out some criteria that can help individuals and communities to develop a pragmatic theology of liturgical ministry.

Criteria for ministry

Firstly, every specific ministry is a particular variation of the ministry of all the baptized, and in baptism there is a radical equality. "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3, 28).

This radical equality is a characteristic of the new creation brought about in Christ.

Therefore, any subsequent distinctions, such that particular ministries are not potentially open to every baptized person, are tantamount to a defective theology of baptism by which all ministry is brought into being.

So, making further demands for "signs" of particular divine election (e.g. being able to speak in tongues or handle snakes) as indications of suitability for ministry flies in the face of the incarnational dispensation seen in baptism.

Likewise, regulations that restrict ministry to particular states of life (e.g. demanding celibacy as a condition for the presbyterate) have to be seen as an undue concern with the status of certain ministries.

They imply that baptism is merely some basic entry requirement for Christianity rather than that which creates the new person who can minister, and in that new creation no such distinctions exist.

Similarly, the notion that women, as such, can be excluded from ministry on the basis of some pragmatic historical appeal (e.g. "Jesus did not ordain women!" — assuming such a pre-critical view of "history" has any value), fails to take account of the fundamental role of baptism in all Christian existence and action.

And secondly, we must also respect the awareness that all action and ministry by Christians is Christ-ian in nature.

Christians form a people, a priestly people. We all too often, and too easily, lose sight of the fact that Christians must think of their liturgy in a way that is radically opposed to that commonly found in other religions of a "religious service" due to God or the gods.

In that paradigm, the divine is the opposite of the world in which we live and to which something is owed, presented or transferred, and this constitutes a mode of contact with the divine realm, which might constitute a debt of loyalty/praise/petition or appeasement.

Making this connection, whether by an individual or a group, assumes a technical knowledge and some sacred skill—usually the work of a special priesthood—such that the divine recognizes that the action performed is the appropriate sacred deed.

Christians, contrariwise, conceive their worship on the basis that their priest has come to them and is with them as a community.

Therefore, where two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus, he is with them (Mt 18:20), and so their actions together—such as celebrating a meal—take place in presence of the Father, because Christ, present among them, is always their High Priest.

This theological vision has important implications for individual Christians who find themselves performing specific acts, ministries, within the Church.

Within Christianity, the ministry is that of the whole community.

Language and priestly ministry

It is also worth remembering that language plays us false in understanding "priestly ministry" in particular.

The Old Testament cohen(which we render by the word "priest") performed special tasks on behalf of the rest of Israel (see Leviticus and Numbers).

This was rendered in the Septuagint by the word hiereus- a word commonly used for pagan temple officials - and then, later, into Latin by sacerdos, which was a generic word covering all the various special temple "priesthoods" such as flamenes and pontifices.

The early Christians did not use these words for their leaders: hiereus/sacerdos belonged to Jesus alone in the heavenly temple. Christian leaders were designated by their relationship to the community: as the ones who oversaw, led or served it.

Later, the hiereus/sacerdos language was absorbed and became the basis of Christians' perceptions of their presbyters. So our word "priest" is etymologically from the word "presbyter", but conceptually it relates to the sacerdotal functions.

Once this had occurred they had to ask what made them different and what special religious quality they had others did not possess.

The answer came with the notion of a power "to consecrate", and then this power (itself the subject of rhetorical inflation) became the basis of "ontological difference" between them and "ordinary Christians" whose ministry is to "pray, pay and obey".

After more than a millennium and a half of these confusions in Christianity, in both the East and West, it is very hard for many who see themselves as "ministers" in a Church—especially those with elaborate sacerdotal liturgies—to break free of this baggage.

Tradition can be like a great oil tanker turning at sea: it takes a long time to overcome inertia and for the ship to answer the helm!

Where do we start?

In every community, there are those who have the skills that have brought that group together and given it an identity. The task is to recognize these actual ministers and to facilitate them to make that ministry more effective and fruitful.

Some will have the gifts of evangelizing and welcoming; others the skills of leading in prayer and the offering of the thanksgiving sacrifice of praise; others the gifts of teaching; others of reconciling; others for the mission of each community to the building up of the kingdom of justice and peace; and some will have management skills. None is greater and none is less!

In every discussion of ministry we need to have the advice of Paul to the Church in Corinth around 58 CE echoing in our heads as he presents ministry as the working out of the presence of the Spirit in the assembly:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another, various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit (1 Cor 12, 4-13).

If these statements were to reverberate through our discussions today we might need to talk less about "closing churches" and "combining parishes" and could then move on to the more fruitful task of discovering the wealth of vocations that are all around us.

But there is only one [merely logical] certainty: the future will not be like the past. And when the present seeks to recede into its past, it is untrue to its own moment.

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and professor of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK). His latest award-winning book is Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking Up Pope Francis's Call to Theologians (Liturgical Press, 2019).
• A fuller exploration of the theme of this article can be found in "Facing a Liturgy-Starved Church: Do We Need to Rethink the Basics of Ministry?" (New Blackfriars 100 (2019) pp. 171-83).

Pope Francis, just this past April, appointed the 74-year-old Paris native and mother of three to be a member of his new "Study Commission on the Female Diaconate".

In an exclusive interview with La Croix's Céline Hoyeau, Pelletier said the Church needs to creatively revisit ministries in the Church, beyond presbyteral and diaconal ordination.

La Croix: What does the response to Anne Soupa's press release announcing her candidacy to be Archbishop of Lyon reveal to you?

Anne-Marie Pelletier: This declaration of candidacy raises some objections.

First, because she ignores the fact that in the Church's tradition one is called to a position of responsibility; one does not apply for it.

What happens to clergymen has been left out.

Then, because it is not certain that the best way to renew the institution of the Church is to contend for taking over existing roles.

Women must occupy institutional places, certainly, but not necessarily by conquering existing forms of power.

Moreover, the extremism of her announcement offers a good excuse not to take it seriously.

The fact remains that the widespread media attention it's gained shows that the situation is deadlocked. It is as though provocation is the only way forward.

Is it so outrageous that women aspire to be clerics like others? What can be done so that they can play their role to a greater extent in decision-making? Are priesthood and governance inseparable?

That woman could be clerics like others, is it really so outlandish?

If one day they were to accede to the ministerial priesthood - a hypothesis that's currently excluded - it would have to be in order to live and practice it a little differently.

Otherwise, it's all about power and competition.

There are many places where women need to be active today in exercising authority and inspiring new governance, such as parish authorities, episcopal councils and the pope's council. Why not?

Similarly, why not include women in the college of cardinals?

The truth that needs to be heard is that ministerial priesthood cannot be the sole authority to decide on the life and governance of the Church.

If women were already teaching ecclesiology in seminaries, the Church could have another face.

Would the ordination of women deacons allow women to find a better place in the Church?

It would undoubtedly have a strong symbolic value.

But the question is more complex than it seems.

It all depends on the profile of this diaconate, its attributes, its mode of institution.

A lesser version of the male diaconate would only confirm the inequality between men and women.

This is not an illusory risk since some have a great fear that women are getting too close to the sacrament of Holy Orders.

Moreover, to focus too much on this issue risks obscuring the true extent of the problem.

It is the overall question of ministries in the Church that needs to be reopened, as they affect both sexes and the different states of life.

Women write to me to tell me of their expectations of a real conversion of outlook and mentality, a prerequisite for esteem and equality.

They question their legitimacy to proclaim the Word of God, they ask that credit be given to their experience, that their voice is included in the word of the Magisterium.

Where exactly are we on the question of the diaconate?

In fact, it has consistently been raised - by women, as well as by bishops - since Vatican II and the re-establishment of the permanent diaconate.

The historical work has increased.

In 1997, the International Theological Commission was asked to formulate an opinion.

The general tendency was in favour of women's diaconate, but it dodged this conclusion. Continue reading

Significant liturgical decisions have left the liturgical ministry by all the baptised out in the cold and refocused the Mass as a clerical experience.

John N. Collins addresses the issues of priest and presbyter and as a factor in clericalised worship decision in ‘"Is it just the priest"?

The Catholic scripture scholar calls for more creative and evangelical way of conceiving ministry in the Church" in scripture scholar calls for more creative and evangelical way of conceiving ministry in the Church' in La Croix (May 6, 2020).

The clergy's ability to celebrate the Easter sacraments without the active, physical participation of the baptised assembly may be the turning point in a conversation concerning the relationship between clerical ministry and lay ministry in Catholic liturgy.

If it is the turning point, then liturgy has done her work.

She has taken us from the shell of the liturgical question to its Christological kernel or centre. How, now, do we understand and express our common baptismal discipleship through worship, ministry and mission?

The fact of clergy performing public liturgy on their own is problematic enough but more critical is to ask: why would they?

The simplistic answer is clericalism. But the more significant answer lies in the unresolved tension between the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood that all member of the Church share through baptism.

Unresolved tension

This unresolved tension is seen in two examples.

The first example is a preparatory group in the United States that has devised three models for post-COVID Masses with congregations. All three are essentially clerical experiences.

In the first model, communion is not given to the faithful at all.

In the second model, pre-consecrated hosts from the tabernacle are distributed to them after Mass.

And in the third model, communion is distributed to the faithful immediately following the Ecce Angus Dei (Behold the Lamb of God).

The second example is the suggestion that the common priesthood enables the laity to gather in their homes and celebrate the Mass with bread and wine as a more authentic expression of koinonia (service-ministry).

"If the prayer for spiritual communion is the best on offer, wouldn't it be better to do a DIY (do-it-yourself) Mass here at home? It would be more real," wrote one of my parishioners.

"Why is a priest more permitted or sacralised to celebrate a sacrament (excluding marriage) and me a layperson is not sacralised enough to do it, even in extraordinary times?" the person continued.

When liturgical questions of ministry and authority are seriously presented our response must consider the ministry of Christ, the priest, as well as our theologies of sacramentality, sacramental mediation, communion, leadership and sanctification.

Ultimately this crisis is leading us to look more closely at baptism as the source of ministry, mission and priesthood.

Conflicting and forgotten priesthoods

Chapter Two of Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the Church, is titled De Populo Dei (on the People of God).

This title was chosen specifically to show that our primary, universal discipleship is undifferentiated by the terms cleric and laity, for which the name for the latter - laos Theou - is unambiguous.

But "People of God" is also used to distinguish believers who are not ordained from those who are, suggesting that the non-ordained belong to the group of the laos-baptised and are different from the group of the ordained-baptised.

This further suggests that the Church is made up of two different groups equal in some things, but not in all. Clergy and laity share a common source, but some have a more significant share of it.

The result is that "People of God" is not a reliable descriptor of the common discipleship shared by all the baptised.

The same is true of the term Christifidelis; that is, the faithful or Christian faithful.

When John Paul II used the term christifideles laici to reconcile the division, he only showed how deep the problem goes and widened the gap to the christifideles clerici.

Priesthood of all believers

The term "priesthood of all believers" has been used to name the universal baptismal discipleship of believers. Priesthood applied to all the baptised raises many questions concerning the identity of the baptised as priest and the identity of the cleric as priest.

Surely, laity and clergy cannot both be priests?

If priesthood arises out of the sacrament of Christian initiation (baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist), how is ordination a step up and out of this initiation into a new clerical state?

If Christian initiation is initiation into Christ and a participation in his tria munera as priest, prophet and king, what exactly does initiation confer? Is it an incomplete sharing that is only completed through ordination?

Initiatory participation in Christ's tri munera has brought the nature, purpose and theology of priesthood for both lay and ordained ministry into question.

If all "incorporated in Christ through baptism, have been constituted as the People of God" and have "become sharers in Christ's priestly, prophetic and royal office", then all share in Christ's tria munera (CCC204).

But what does this mean for liturgical practice?

If Christian initiation is an initiation into the Church, and it calls each believer to exercise the tria munera of Jesus (teacher, sanctifier and leader) primarily within the Church, some ask why all believers cannot simply celebrate the Eucharist when an ordained priest is not present?

If the answer is that the tria munera is shared in different ways, then one must ask how Christ shares it differently with laypeople and clerics, since he is neither cleric nor lay?

It would seem that the categories we assign do not apply to Christ, or our Christology.

The liturgical problem

The problem for liturgical praxis is the lack of a functional Christology that enables us to understand how Jesus - the primordial sacrament and source of all ministry, mission and sanctification - is most fully expressed in liturgy.

Because the sacramentality of the Church exists within the sacramentality of Jesus. The Christocentric ground of all liturgical mission, ministry and sanctification is its relatedness to the existence and sharing of the tria munera of Jesus amongst the baptised within the Church.

The sacramental connection between the tria munera of Christ and the exercise of it by Christian disciples is pivotal.

At the heart of the matter is this: if initiation confers a share in Christ's priestly office then the ministries that flow from this are sacramental. They are a direct effect of the sacraments of initiation themselves - which seems to be the basis for suggesting that the baptised (lay) celebrate the Mass.

If we say that all Christians share sacramentally in the tria munera of Christ can we also say that laity and clerics inhabit or experience them in fundamentally distinct ways? If this is true, then either what is shared is different, or how it is shared is different.

So, do laity receive an apostolate to do things and clergy a ministry to sanctify? If this is true, then the distinction in the tria munera is a distinction intended by Christ.

Thus, the heart of the problem is not the teaching that baptism brings a universal discipleship shared by all. The heart of the problem is how Christ shares the tria munera with all the baptised in one way and in a substantially different way with the ordained.

If Christ's sacramental sharing in baptism to all believers is "universal" and his sharing sacramentally in Holy Orders to an ordained person is "hierarchical", then the problem lies in our Christology.

This is the basis of the problem we are seeing many COVID-19 liturgical responses. It is clear in the theologies of the "priest-alone" and the "DIY Mass".

Both are inadequate because they forget that liturgy is the exercise of the priestly office of Christ and his priesthood is the paradigm against which "priesthood" in the Church is measured.

In the liturgy, Christ's priesthood is the means of the sanctification of men and women, expressed in symbol and sign in public worship performed by the mystical body of Christ, its head and members, not just by some of them.

Many of the lockdown liturgical responses show us either clinging to the hierarchical forms of worship or laicising worship at home with family.

Overall, this particular lockdown has shown that while the place of the laity has been re-established theologically in many - but not all - churches, the theology of the ordained has not kept pace.

• Joe Grayland is a theologian and a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North. His latest book is titled: Catholics. Prayer, Belief and Diversity in a Secular Context (Te Hepara Pai, 2020).
• Article first published in La Croix International. Republished with the author's permission.