The front line of the Church’s work is the Christian people whose lives are leaven in the dough of all the ordinary circumstances of ordinary life. 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 Read more
Church congregations in Wales “who have shown the power of love in action at a community level” during COVID are receiving praise from Rev Andy John, the Bishop of Bangor. “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 Read more
People on the edges are what the Church sacrifices most today Elizabeth Young RSM told the conversation on Flashes of Insight. 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 Read more
Anything that authenticates, makes visible and validates women’s ministry will help women take their rightful place in the Church says Kate Bell, a theologian and catechist. 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 Read more
Women deacons are in effect working well in the Church, except we do not call them deacons, and they are not ordained. 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. Grayland made Read more
Pope Francis on Tuesday instituted the new lay ministry of catechist, with the apostolic letter Antiquum ministerium (“Ancient ministry”). 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 Read more
Other than sex, nothing is more heatedly debated by Catholics than the liturgy. 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 Read more
“We need to revisit the issue of ministry in the Church,” said Anne-Marie Pelletier in June 25 article in La Croix International. 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 Read more
Anne-Marie Pelletier has been a papally appointed observer at the Synod of Bishops (2001), was the first woman to win the Ratzinger Prize for theology (2014) and authored the meditations used at the papal-led “Via Crucis” on Good Friday (2017) at Rome’s Colosseum. Pope Francis, just this past April, appointed the 74-year-old Paris native and Read more
COVID-19’s impact on liturgical praxis has left us reeling! 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 Read more