In a recent speech in Dublin, the master of St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, said that challenging failing structures and thinking in the Church is the most promising form of loyalty. Here he explains further the failures of the Church and warns that theologians must speak out to address them Declining numbers of priests looking after declining numbers of practitioners is a picture that reflects just how much the Roman Catholic Church in Europe is not in good shape. Ancient parishes are restructured, combined or dissolved in order to cope with this lack of priests. Of course, the depth of Christian faith can never be comprehensively measured in terms of figures and structures, but the Church as it has been known by generations of Christians, organised in local parishes and served by an ord