Reform of the Ministries

for the sake of the People of God

Preparation for the ordination of women in the Catholic Church should go hand-in-hand with a reform of the ministries. Here we publish some material on questions relating to that reform. More will follow!

Why reform the ministries? – because the people of God have changed!

• 
  ‘God and our new Selves’
  , by John Wijngaards, paper presented at a consultation convoked by the Council of European Bishops Conferences, Vienna 1998. Religioni e Sette del Mondo 4 (1998) pp. 172 – 193.
• ‘Obedience a Questionable Virtue’, by Marie Louise Uhr, St Mark’s Review, 173, pp 3-9, 1998.
• ‘Christian Autonomy and the Church’, by John Wijngaards, Theological Conference, Newman College, Birmingham, 24 June 2000.
• ‘A Pope the Laity Want’, by Sr. Joan Chittister, National Catholic Reporter 1999.
• Women in Church Ministries. Reform movements in ecumenism, Report of an Ecumenical Conference held in Osnabr�ck Germany in Dec. 2017.

Can the ministries be reformed?

• ‘Oneness of the Community’, by Michael Deeb
• ‘Ministry in the Church’, by Gregory Baum, from Women and Orders, ed. Robert Heyer, New York 1974.
• ‘A New Look at Orders: Ministry for the Many’, by Thomas F. O’Meara, from Women and Orders, ed. Robert Heyer, New York 1974.
• ‘The implications of Christ’s priesthood’, by John Wijngaards, from Did Christ Rule Out Women Priests?, Great Wakering 1977.

What could new ministries look like?

• “Gender Empowered Church”, CRI National Assembly Statement – 2006 (India)
• ‘Where are the Priest-Prophets?’, by Owen O’Sullivan, The Furrow 54 (2003) no1, pp. 37 – 42.
• ‘Understanding the ministerial priesthood according to the New Testament’, by Paul Wess, European Society for Catholic Theology, Graz 2001.
• ‘The New is Elsewhere’: Women’s Leadership in Community-Profit Organisations, by Patricia Marlette Black, Queensland University of Technology, 1999. (a complete book!!)
• A discipleship of love : Mary of Bethany and the ministry of women by Tina Beattie, published in The Month, May 1997, pp171-175.
• ‘On being Women in the Church’, by Lavinia Byrne, from Women before God , SPCK 1988, pp. 97-108
• Feminine in the Church, edited by Monica Furlong, SPCK, 1984.
• Ministry, Muddle and Mystery. Reflections on Ordination and Service from a Lay Perspective, by Clare Watkins, The Way (Supplement), 1995, No 83.

What?! No human rights for Church members?

• ‘The Status of Women in the Code of Canon Law and in the United Nations Convention’, by Marie-Thérèse Van Lunen Chenu and Louise Wentholt, Praxis juridique et religion 1 (1984) pp. 7-18
• 
  “Human rights in the Church: a non-right for women in the Church?”
  , by Marie-Thérèse Van Lunen Chenu, in Human Rights. The Christian contribution, July 1998.
• Church Law and ‘Women Priests’ by John Wijngaards.

The future Church?

• A Pope for the Time to Come: Bishop of Rome and Universal Pastor, statement by IMWAC
• ‘A Council in the Likeness of Pope John’, by Joseph Dunn, from No Vipers in the Vatican(The Columba Press, 1996), pp. 133-142.
• ‘The Catholic Church in the Next Millennium’, by Joanna Manning, in Is the Pope Catholic? A Woman confronts her Church, Malcolm Lester Books, Toronto, 1999. Chapter 6, pp. 192 – 226.
• The Reform of the Papacy : The Costly Call to Christian Unity by John R.Quinn, (1999), review by Robert Blair Kaiser.
• La Vocation des Servantes: Regards sur l’économie des vocations by Didier Levy (2015) (in French)

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as published by www.womenpriests.org!