AUSTEN IVEREIGH is right to resist panic about “priest numbers” and to call for “the missionary, synodal conversion of our parishes” (Letters, 2 May). But his argument remains too sociological. Statistical ratios of clergy to population cannot bear the theological weight of the question.

Synodality is not a clever way of staffing the existing parish machine with fewer clerics. Nor is it simply a matter of encouraging “some to the priesthood, most to other ministries”. It asks something more fundamental: whether we have allowed priesthood to be imagined too narrowly, as the preserve of a sacred caste administering holy things to passive recipients.

The synod’s own working document says the renewal of the Church is not a request for “technical or procedural improvements to make the Church’s structures more efficient”, but a discernment of the forms of mission to which the whole Church is called.

Get Instant Access

Continue Reading

Register for free to read this article in full

REGISTER

Subscribe for unlimited access

SUBSCRIBE NOW

From just £37.50 quarterly

  Print copy of The Tablet delivered directly to your door.
  Complete access to all Tablet website content including all premium content.
  Access to the weekly digital copy of The Tablet.
  Full access to The Tablet’s archive – over 180 years of back issues.

Already a subscriber? Login