On Priesthood: Servants, Shepherds, Messengers, Sentinels & Stewards
STEPHEN COTTRELL
(Hodder & Stoughton, 192 PP, £12.99)
Tablet bookshop price £10.99 • Tel 020 7799 4064

Stephen Cottrell is next week to be installed as the Archbishop of York. Since 2010 he has been the Bishop of Chelmsford and each year during that period he has given an address to those about to be ordained, focusing year by year on a different aspect of ordained ministry. Those addresses form the chapters of this short book. They are filled with wisdom, intriguing and instructive. The author has been a priest for more than 30 years, I for more than 50. But there is always something more to be learned from watching with fresh eyes.

Cottrell begins by speaking of priests for a priestly people, exploring the relationship between the common priesthood of the baptised and the ordained priesthood. How people agonise over the relationship between the two, often comparing them and asking which is greater. Vatican II declared that they are different in essence. When two realities are essentially different, they cannot be compared. But they can be related. And in this instance, of course, they are. The ordained are at the service of the priestly people, as Cottrell makes plain. Those who have been ordained serve the priesthood of the whole people of God. In a happy turn of phrase, they don’t do all the ministry, but “ensure all the ministry is done”. They are collaborative.