Beyond Priests. The future of ministry in the Catholic Church
In Beyond Priests Paul Collins contends that the requirements of the clerical priesthood of the Catholic Church – that all priests must be male and celibate – is a gross distortion of scripture and the church’s early history that must be changed. While the roots of the modern priesthood go back to the fourth century and even more remotely to the presbyters or elders who advised local bishops in the early church, the contemporary model that a priest is ontologically changed into ‘another Christ’ is very much the product of seventeenth-century French reformers acting to apply the 1563 decree on the priesthood of the Council of Trent.
Collins argues that the present-day priestly model has increasingly become harmful, even toxic, not only to priests themselves, but to the ministry and the Catholic community. Based on historical analysis, Beyond Priests outlines a whole new way of approaching ministry and leadership that is in tune with contemporary needs, is inclusive of women and men, and is more authentically derived from the New Testament and church ttradition.
Published by Sheed & Ward, Lanham, Maryland. ISBN: 9798881802608. Available as an eBook. ISBN: 9798881802615.
