JUNE 2020 ISSUE: Member Comments

 

JUNE 2020 COMMONWEAL ISSUE


COLUMN    

Reopening churches by Rita Ferrone


SHORT TAKES     

A gay priest’s vocation by James Alison    

‘The 1619 Project’ by Andrew Bacevich   

COVID-19 in Mexico City by Joseph Sorrentino   


ARTICLES     

What are deacons for?  by Christopher Ruddy, Thomas Baker, William T. Ditewig     

Theology in a neoliberal age by Paul Lakeland

Martin Buber’s life of dialogue by Patrick Jordan


INTERVIEW

Jonathan Stevenson with Rand Richards Cooper


ARTS

Dorothea Lange’s humble gaze by Griffin Oleynick


BOOKS

The Thirty-Year Genocide by Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi    Reviewed by Gabriel Said Reynolds

Places I’ve Taken My Body by Molly McCully Brown     Reviewed by Katherine Lucky

From the Underground Church to Freedom  by Tomáš Halík     Reviewed by Santiago Ramos

Unbelievers by Alec Ryrie   Reviewed by Costica Bradatan

Zed by Joanna Kavenna     Reviewed by Valerie Sayers


RELIGION BOOKNOTES

Luke Timothy Johnson

POETRY

“Aftermaths” by Peter Cooley

“The Proof Cloth” by Nate Klug 

“Sit Tibi Terra Levis” by Deborah Warren

LAST WORD

The ‘incomparable’ Mary Ward by Jerry Ryan


CLOSING SHOT

Andrew Steiner


Please make a separate comment for each article to which you wish to respond.  If someone has already responded to an article use the REPLY option to place your comment underneath that comment so that all the comments about an article will be together.

INCIDENTALLY, you cannot edit your comments after you publish them. You can however delete the comment (but it leaves a notice that you have deleted it) and make a new comment. 

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT unless you are a very good editor you will find some errors. It is just something that  you will have to learn to live with. 

It is also possible to use HTML to put italics, bold, and links in your comments. 



Comments

  1. What are Deacons for? An exchange

    These articles are a response to Francis statement that deacons are “guardians of service not first class altar boys or second class priests.”

    Christopher Ruddy uses exegete John N. Collins to argue that deacons are heralds of the Gospel rather than humble servants of charity and justice. He argues that the Church’s diakonia is not humble service but evangelization and apostolic service. Pope Francis had indeed said that the Church is not an NGO, another non-profit doing good. However he has also said that everyone in the church is called to humble service, including himself as “the servant of the servants of God.”

    Thomas Baker, as a deacon, has several interesting points: 1) that deacon should be more field representatives of the Church working in innovative settings that are not possible for priests, 2)
    that there is too much diaconal theory and not enough pastoral imagination, and 3) that deacons who are theoretically ordained to service the bishop (i.e. the diocese) actually end up serving a priest in a parish.

    William Ditewig argues that intrinsic unity of the deacon’s ministry of Word, sacrament and charity have been well established by the American bishops. He claims the real challenge is that the growth of the deaconate has taken place at the same time as an explosive growth of lay ministry and a decline in vocations to the priesthood. Deacons tend to be asked to replace priests.

    None of these authors take up another challenge by Pope Francis who on several occasions has asked why ordain a perfectly good lay leader as a deacon. He applies this to men as well as women. Do we want to create a situation in which good lay people think that they need to be ordained as a deacon? With Francis, I think clericalism is THE problem in the Church. The “humble servant” model of ministry whether of deacons, priests, bishops or pope has been one of the few barriers to clericalism.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment