Mission, Ministry, Order: Reading the Tradition in the Present Context

<div>What is the mission of the church? What are the ministries that futher its mission? How should the traditional orders of bishop/overseer, priest/presbyter, and deacon be reconsidered in the light of 21st century challenges and ecumenical unity? These big questions involve a constellation of neuralgic issues both within the Roman Catholic Church and between it and its sister churches, both East and West: women priests, women bishops, married priests, lay ministries, the unaccountability of bishops to their flocks. The rapid decline of priests in the US has led to an enormous number of lay people in leadership positions, but they can't preside at the Eucharist (the heart and soul of Catholic identity and practice), and their roles are nebulous, undefined, and severely constrained. Catholic women are voting with their feet over the church's failure to ordain women. Lay theologians, men and women, now outnumber priest theologians, but have little "standing" in the church outside of academia. Far-reaching agreements on theological issues have been made between Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism and Lutheranism, but the practical consequences (e.g., shared Eucharists) are nil. It is against this background that David Power, the doyen of sacramental theologians in North America, has written a magisterial work on the mission, ministry, and order of the church that is historically comprehensive, theologically progressive, ecumenically and globally focused, and practical in its prescriptions. </div>>

Born in Dublin in 1932, David N. Power, OMI (Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate), is Professor Emeritus of the School of Theology and Religious Studies, The Catholic University of America, where he taught from 1977 to 2000. He has also taught at the Gregorian University and St Thomas Aquinas University, both in Rome, as well as at the Milltown Institute of Philosophy and Theology, Dublin. He has been a visiting professor at St Paul University, Ottawa, Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, St John's University, Collegevillie, and at seminaries in Tahiti and South Africa. He has also lectured in Australia, Pakistan, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. He's been a recipient of the Berakah Award of the North American Academy of Liturgy (1992) and the John Courtney Murray Award of the Catholic Theological Society of America (1996). He is the author of 10 books, including Gifts That Differ (1980), Unsearchable Riches (1985), The Sacrifice We Offer (T &T Clark and Crossroad, 1987), The Eucharistic Mystery (1992), and Love without Calculation (2005).