When we examine ‘who ministers what to whom’ in the church we have to look at our expectations of what the church should do for those inside and out of the church, as well as the expectations of what society should offer. Such an examination of expectations has to consider the structure of this takes place in a relationship between agency and structure: who acts and in what context? This at a time when the place of the individual in the church has changed hugely since the beginning of the twentieth century, from passivity to participation. The article finally relates this theoretical analysis to the current crisis in the church.

Pope Francis has brought a fresh style of ministry, including his own, to the Catholic Church. This reflects the accounts of ministry in the New Testament, which eschews privilege and position, and focuses on ministry on service and sees ministers as servants and slaves.

Christian discourse tends to treat the concept of ‘priesthood’ univocally, so that ordained priests are seen to share the priesthood of Christ. But a careful reading of Hebrews shows clearly that the priesthood of Christ is unique to him. There are four (even five) types of priest in the New Testament and each of them is distinct and not to be confused.

The Catholic Church cannot, at present, find sufficient clergy to staff its parishes and this is provoking a massive pastoral, and so a liturgical, reorganization. However, these changes are not primarily driven by the demography of the actual churches, communities of people, but are solely the result of a decline in clerical numbers. Most attempts to deal with this turn on seeking to increase the number of deployable persons in presbyterial orders (e.g. seeking clergy from Africa or India), making a wider use of deacons, and scaling up the size of liturgical communities, irrespective of the nature of that liturgy, so that areas are ‘covered.’ But this assumes that actual communities, when gathered for the eucharist, are a function of the number of clergy; but surely the number of ministers is secondary to the location and size of the communities who are in need of ministry? This paper seeks to ask fundamental questions about the nature of liturgical ministry in keeping with the conference's theme of ‘who ministers what to whom?’ What is the basis of liturgical ministry? Does it exist independently of a worshipping community? Is it primarily as an individual's ‘vocation’ to ‘be a priest’, who then ministers, or a community need provided from within that community in union with the larger church? This ‘bottom up’ approach affects how we see not only actual liturgical ministry, but the priesthood of the Christ, the priesthood of all the baptized, and our pneumatology of vocation within actual churches.

This article is a personal reflection on the twelve-year experience of being a parish without a resident priest. The article offers a socio-historical picture of St. Joseph's Parish, Bunhill Row, London EC1. It considers how some Church documents refer to ‘parish’, including the Code of Canon Law; the 1980 National Pastoral Congress; and Pope Francis’ vision of ‘parish’ in ‘The Joy of the Gospel’ and some other addresses. It concludes with some personal reflections.

Since Vatican II the restored Permanent Diaconate in the Latin Church has played an increasingly important role in the life of the Catholic Church, particularly in Western Europe and North America. Is there a theology of the diaconate, and if so what are the contentious issues? How far is the diaconate really distinct from the priesthood and the ministry of laypeople? A way forward is to revive the subversive character of διακονία, both in practical pastoral ministry and in serious engagement with Catholic Social Teaching; this necessitates major changes to diaconate formation programmes. A clearly defined diaconate would be able to help the Church renew and reform its understanding of ministry.

When it is misapplied, canon law can cause great unjustified unhappiness, but this paper argues that the content is basically, the practice of which is an authentic form of the church's ministry that is necessary for the structure and life of the church.

This paper considers some of the issues relating to Christian ministry in a cultural world that thinks of itself as post-religious. It builds upon some ideas of Simone Weil on forms of the implicit love of God (with particular attention to beauty and music), Karl Rahner's anthropology and the Christian doctrine of the creational relationship. It discusses the way Rousseau's bifurcation of religion into personal religiosity and a public civil religion is a template that the modern world seems to favour, making it difficult for Christian religion to find a place in liberal cultures of rights and tolerance. It ends by exploring Marilynne Robinson's suggestion that ‘people live profound lives’ and suggests that the virtues of hope and love might be signs of serious living in the absence of explicit religious belief.

This article revisits the past decades of scholarly use (or rather non-use) of Bernadette Brooten's Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue to reveal that citation practices in biblical studies—or any field—can be inherently political (e.g. misogynistic) whilst maintaining a pretence of scientific objectivity. As a corrective, the author calls for the abandonment of the myth of neutrality in the biblical studies classroom. She argues that rape is only one end of a long spectrum of behaviours that silence; at the other, more subtle end of that spectrum, and all along it, are thousands of lesser instances of silencing and diminishing that occur in the classroom, that are gentler extensions of the notion that women's bodies do not belong to them, that men are the default human beings, and that women are valuable only insofar as they are pleasing or useful from a male standpoint. Parks advocates a biblical studies pedagogy that intentionally upholds inclusion and diversity in its curriculum, its group dynamics, and its citation practices, even (or especially) within institutions that do not. This is especially important given the prevalence of survivors of sexual assault and gender-based violence in every classroom; maintaining a neutral stance implicitly re-inscribes and encourages the status quo of rape culture.