Posts Tagged ‘Ministry’

Sacrifice, women and ministry: That’s then this is now

Thursday, July 15th, 2021
That's then this is now

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

Ministry clarity or crumbs from the table?

Thursday, July 8th, 2021
ministry clarity for women

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

We don’t need women deacons

Monday, May 31st, 2021
Women deacons

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

What is the new ministry of catechist?

Thursday, May 13th, 2021
catechist

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

Reforming Catholic liturgy

Thursday, April 15th, 2021
Catholic liturgy

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

Revisiting the question of ministry

Monday, July 20th, 2020
shaping the assembly

“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

Revisiting ministries in the Church

Monday, June 29th, 2020
ministries in the church

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

Clericalised lockdown liturgies leave baptised out in the cold

Monday, May 18th, 2020
Sacrosanctum Concilium,

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

Why you should use statistics in ministry

Thursday, March 12th, 2020

I love statistics! I know what you’re thinking…I’m a nerd. Possibly. But, the truth is there are more nerds than you realize when it comes to statistics. It isn’t that I know nothing of sports; I just haven’t kept up much. Even though I haven’t been that guy as a sports fan, Donna and I Read more

Women in the Church: What has been is not what need be

Monday, July 29th, 2019
synod

Can you say where in the Gospels Jesus institutes the presbyterate (priesthood) and the deaconate? Hint: nowhere. St. Paul mentions deacons along with bishops in his letter to the Christians of Philippi. Later, in the first epistle to Timothy, Paul (or more likely someone writing in his name) talks of the qualifications for those ministries. Read more