front cover of Called to Holiness
Called to Holiness
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
Catholic University of America Press, 2017
This edited collection is the first to gather in one volume the most relevant addresses, speeches, and homilies of His Holiness, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to seminarians and consecrated men and women into a single volume for the English-speaking world.
[more]

front cover of A Guide to Formation Advising for Seminarians
A Guide to Formation Advising for Seminarians
Edward J. McCormack
Catholic University of America Press, 2020
The future of the Church depends, in part, on forming future priests and ministers who are ready to accompany, lead, and love the People of God. Formation advising is one important part of that work. A Guide to Formation Advising for Seminarians/Seminary Faculty offers a practical guide to formation advising as a ministry of accompaniment, participation, and evaluation. Deacon Edward McCormack offers a comprehensive introduction to the ministry of formation advising for seminarians studying for priestly ministry. These volumes are for men and women who are new to the ministry of formation advising. The recent Vatican guidelines for seminary formation call for professional accompaniment of seminarians throughout their formation. This book explains in concrete detail how to do this through the entire formation process. Beginning with an overview of the formation process, A Guide to Formation Advising for Seminarians/Seminary Faculty explains the role of the formation advisor and the skills required for that ministry. It describes the various ways the formation advisor accompanies a person through the formation process. McCormack also provides concrete suggestions for how to promote in seminarians’ active participation in the process. Formators will also find explanation of the evaluation process with a style sheet and examples of written evaluations. The handbook contains an annotated bibliography on all the major topics a formation advisor comes across.
[more]

front cover of A Guide to Formation Advising for Seminary Faculty
A Guide to Formation Advising for Seminary Faculty
Accompaniment, Participation, and Evaluation
Edward J. McCormack
Catholic University of America Press, 2020
The future of the Church depends, in part, on forming future priests and ministers who are ready to accompany, lead, and love the People of God. Formation advising is one important part of that work. A Guide to Formation Advising for Seminarians/Seminary Faculty offers a practical guide to formation advising as a ministry of accompaniment, participation, and evaluation. Deacon Edward McCormack offers a comprehensive introduction to the ministry of formation advising for seminarians studying for priestly ministry. These volumes are for men and women who are new to the ministry of formation advising. The recent Vatican guidelines for seminary formation call for professional accompaniment of seminarians throughout their formation. This book explains in concrete detail how to do this through the entire formation process.

Beginning with an overview of the formation process, A Guide to Formation Advising for Seminarians/Seminary Faculty explains the role of the formation advisor and the skills required for that ministry. It describes the various ways the formation advisor accompanies a person through the formation process. McCormack also provides concrete suggestions for how to promote in seminarians’ active participation in the process. Formators will also find explanation of the evaluation process with a style sheet and examples of written evaluations. The handbook contains an annotated bibliography on all the major topics a formation advisor comes across.
[more]

front cover of The Mormon Church and Blacks
The Mormon Church and Blacks
A Documentary History
Edited by Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst
University of Illinois Press, 2015
The year 1978 marked a watershed year in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it lifted a 126-year ban on ordaining black males for the priesthood. This departure from past practice focused new attention on Brigham Young's decision to abandon Joseph Smith's more inclusive original teachings. The Mormon Church and Blacks presents thirty official or authoritative Church statements on the status of African Americans in the Mormon Church. Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst comment on the individual documents, analyzing how they reflected uniquely Mormon characteristics and contextualizing each within the larger scope of the history of race and religion in the United States. Their analyses consider how lifting the ban shifted the status of African Americans within Mormonism, including the fact that African Americans, once denied access to certain temple rituals considered essential for Mormon salvation, could finally be considered full-fledged Latter-day Saints in both this world and the next. Throughout, Harris and Bringhurst offer an informed view of behind-the-scenes Church politicking before and after the ban. The result is an essential resource for experts and laymen alike on a much-misunderstood aspect of Mormon history and belief.
[more]

front cover of Power from on High
Power from on High
The Development of Mormon Priesthood
Gregory A. Prince
Signature Books, 1995
 Authority and priesthood were concepts that developed gradually in Mormon theology, not as thunderbolts but as ideas that acquired meaning and momentum over time. Acting initially on the basis of implied leadership, Joseph Smith moved toward explicit angelic authority and an increasingly defined structure drawn from biblical models.

All the while the structure of higher and lower priesthoods fluctuated in response to pragmatic needs. Priests were needed to perform ordinances, teachers to lead congregations, bishops to manage church assets, and elders to proselytize–responsibilities which would be redistributed repeatedly throughout Smith’s fourteen-year ministry.

Gregory Prince charts these developments with impressive interpretative skill. Besides the obvious historical significance, he underscores the implications for current Mormon governance. For instance, where innovations have characterized the past, one need not be bound by custom or surprised when church leaders instigate change.

[more]

front cover of The Priesthood, Mystery of Faith
The Priesthood, Mystery of Faith
Priestly Ministry in the Magisterium of John Paul II
Nilson Leal de Sa, CB
Catholic University of America Press, 2022
After almost twenty-seven years of his pontificate, what was John Paul II’s legacy regarding the ministerial priesthood? What answers did he give to the questions still surrounding this reality today? Nilson Leal de Sá, CB, examines the pontiff’s twenty-seven letters of Holy Thursday addressed annually to the priests. Unlike some papal documents, which are drafted by many hands, these letters to priests were born of a personal initiative, wherein the pope spoke ab imo pectore (from the depths of his heart), giving a little of himself and his thought. Cardinal Georges-Marie Cottier, theologian emeritus of the Pontifical House and a connoisseur of the texts of the Holy Father, has confirmed that “the Letters of Holy Thursday were written by John Paul II himself.” Leal de Sá has sought in the diversity of the letters of Holy Thursday the major points of the thought of John Paul II on this important topic. The first chapter dwells on the sources of his teaching and emphasizes his use of the Word of God, Tradition, and the conciliar Magisterium. These foundations are the basis of the second chapter, which highlights the priestly identity in the life of the Church. Finally, the third chapter elucidates the specific mission of the priest. The Priesthood, Mystery of Faith presents itself as a real and stimulating synthesis of John Paul II’s thought about the ministerial priesthood in a systematic way. It renews us in the appreciation of the inestimable gift that God makes to the whole Church through the sacrament of the Holy Orders.
[more]

front cover of Priestly Celibacy
Priestly Celibacy
Gary B. Selin
Catholic University of America Press, 2016
Pope Francis has called mandatory priestly celibacy a "gift for the Church," but added "since it is not a dogma, the door is always open" to change. As this Church discipline continues to be debated, it is important for Catholics to delve into the theological and not merely pragmatic reasons behind its continuation. Priestly Celibacy: Theological Foundations, therefore, fills a critical gap in the current theological literature on this important topic of ecclesial ministry and life, and also helps to contribute to the advancement of the rather underdeveloped theology of priestly celibacy.
[more]

front cover of Prophetic Authority
Prophetic Authority
Democratic Hierarchy and the Mormon Priesthood
Michael Hubbard MacKay
University of Illinois Press, 2020
The Mormon tradition's emphasis on prophetic authority makes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unique within America's religious culture. The religion that Joseph Smith created established a kingdom of God in a land distrustful of monarchy while positioning Smith as Christ's voice on earth, with the power to form cities, establish economies, and arrange governments.

Michael Hubbard MacKay traces the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' claim to religious authority and sets it within the context of its times. Delving into the evolution of the concept of prophetic authority, MacKay shows how the Church emerged as a hierarchical democracy with power diffused among leaders Smith chose. At the same time, Smith's settled place atop the hierarchy granted him an authority that spared early Mormonism the internal conflict that doomed other religious movements. Though Smith faced challenges from other leaders, the nascent Church repeatedly turned to him to decide civic plans and define the order of both the cosmos and the priesthood.

[more]

front cover of A Spiritual Theology of the Priesthood
A Spiritual Theology of the Priesthood
The Mystery of Christ and the Mission of the Priest
Dermot Power
Catholic University of America Press, 1998

front cover of Understanding the Religious Priesthood
Understanding the Religious Priesthood
History, Controversy, Theology
Christian, OSB Raab
Catholic University of America Press, 2020
Most contemporary theologies of Holy Orders consider priesthood mainly in its diocesan context and most contemporary theologies of religious life do not consider how ordained ministry functions when it is internal rather than external to religious life. Understanding the Religious Priesthood provides a history and theology of religious priesthood that contributes to our understanding of this vocation’s identity and mission. It uncovers what religious priesthood shares with diocesan priesthood and non-ordained religious life and what makes it different from both those other vocations. Christian Raab begins by tracing the history of religious priesthood from its origins in the early Church to the eve of the Second Vatican Council. He demonstrates that religious priests often faced questions about how to reconcile their two callings, but that they also provided answers in their theologies and spiritualities of priesthood and religious life. Meanwhile, they made key contributions to the Church’s life and mission. Raab then investigates the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on priesthood and religious life. Observing that the Council presented priesthood according to a diocesan typology and presented religious life without sacerdotal associations, he argues that the lack of imagery of religious priesthood contributed to a post-conciliar vocational identity crisis among religious priests. He then seeks to remedy this lacuna by appealing to the biblical images for religious priesthood Hans Urs von Balthasar offered in his theology of vocations. Raab argues that Balthasar’s imagery is a promising way forward for understanding the identity and mission of religious priesthood. In a final part, Raab provides a substantial theological articulation of religious priesthood which illuminates its liturgical signification, ecclesial mediation and mission, and ministerial identity. Here he draws not only from Balthasar but also from Pope John Paul II, Yves Congar, Jean-Marie Tillard, Brian Daley, and Guy Mansini to construct his profile.
[more]

front cover of A Year in White
A Year in White
Cultural Newcomers to Lukumi and Santería in the United States
Carr, C. Lynn
Rutgers University Press, 2016
In the Afro-Cuban Lukumi religious tradition—more commonly known in the United States as Santería—entrants into the priesthood undergo an extraordinary fifty-three-week initiation period. During this time, these novices—called iyawo—endure a host of prohibitions, including most notably wearing exclusively white clothing. In A Year in White, sociologist C. Lynn Carr, who underwent this initiation herself, opens a window on this remarkable year-long religious transformation.
 
In her intimate investigation of the “year in white,” Carr draws on fifty-two in-depth interviews with other participants, an online survey of nearly two hundred others, and almost a decade of her own ethnographic fieldwork, gathering stories that allow us to see how cultural newcomers and natives thought, felt, and acted with regard to their initiation. She documents how, during the iyawo year, the ritual slowly transforms the initiate’s identity. For the first three months, for instance, the iyawo may not use a mirror, even to shave, and must eat all meals while seated on a mat on the floor using only a spoon and their own set of dishes. During the entire year, the iyawo loses their name and is simply addressed as “iyawo” by family and friends.
 
Carr also shows that this year-long religious ritual—which is carried out even as the iyawo goes about daily life—offers new insight into religion in general, suggesting that the sacred is not separable from the profane and indeed that religion shares an ongoing dynamic relationship with the realities of everyday life. Religious expression happens at home, on the streets, at work and school.
 
Offering insight not only into Santería but also into religion more generally, A Year in White makes an important contribution to our understanding of complex, dynamic religious landscapes in multicultural, pluralist societies and how they inhabit our daily lives.
 
[more]

front cover of The Year They Gave Women the Priesthood and Other Stories
The Year They Gave Women the Priesthood and Other Stories
Michael Fillerup
Signature Books, 2022
In this new collection of short fiction, award-winning author Michael Fillerup explores the shuttered landscapes of Mormon culture where feel-good clichés falter and the faithful are scorched in the refiner’s fire. The seventeen stories in Fillerup’s new compilation run the gamut in length, style, and voice, but all share an unapologetic authenticity. Whether examining the hypocrisy of sexism, the crucible of forgiveness, or the heartbreak of parenthood, Fillerup leads readers through a labyrinth of emotions but never feeds them to the Minotaur. Light shines at the end of each tortuous tunnel and, to the thoughtful reader, genuine joy.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter