The Catholic Priesthood

While dissolute bishops and priests around the world grab headlines for their untoward words and deeds, too many other unfruitful priests minister as little more than glad-handing bachelors doing social service work. Top and bottom, is this the Church that Christ intended? Are these the priests we need? “No!” cries author Kevin Wells in these compelling pages that showcase how heroic priests can faithfully tread the narrow path of holy self-sacrifice first blazed by the apostles themselves. From scores of insightful interviews with modern priests, exorcists, seminary formators, and even disillusioned laity, Wells here draws forth a blueprint for priestly holiness that can once again fill our Church with priests abounding with sincere, supernatural faith, on fire with God's love, and moved by the irresistible impulse to save souls, no matter the cost to themselves. Reading this book will deepen your own faith and help you understand what all

The goal of this book is to uncover the meaning of "human formation and development" as it appears in the new fifth edition of the Program of Priestly Formation and The Basic Plan for the Ongoing Formation of Priests. This book is unique in its careful analysis of the depths of human formation for seminarians and priests. Most books written since the awareness of the sexual-abuse crisis in the Church have generally addressed the causes of and remedies for the crisis. But few books outline the overall view of priestly formation. The inspiration for Catholic Priesthood came from numerous reporters and investigators who contacted the author with questions about priestly formation in the wake of the crisis. Paperback

Well written and well presented, Father Osborne's book is a solid overview of the history of the sacrament of holy orders not only for Roman Catholic clergy, but for clergy throughout the Christian world. It will help all of those in ministry to understand the relationships between laity and clergy more deeply, and it carefully delineates the deeper theological significance of women in ministry. By considering the ordained ministry from the standpoint of Jesus as the primordial minister, 'Priesthood' enhances the multiple nature of ministry in ecumenical dialogues of our contemporary world, making them less intransigent. With the extensive discussion on ministry today, 'Priesthood' is a welcome, timely and necessary contribution.

“Courageous and inspiring.”—Karen Armstrong, author of The Case for God “James Carroll takes us to the heart of one of the great crises of our times.”—Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve An eloquent memoir by a former priest and National Book Award–winning writer who traces the roots of the Catholic sexual abuse scandal back to the power structure of the Church itself, as he explores his own crisis of faith and journey to renewal NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY James Carroll weaves together the story of his quest to understand his personal beliefs and his relationship to the Catholic Church with the history of the Church itself. From his first awakening of faith as a boy to his gradual disillusionment as a Catholic, Carroll offers a razor-sharp examination both of himself and of how the Church became an institution that places power and dominance over people through an all-male clergy. Carroll argues that a male-supremacist clericalism is both the root cause and the ongoing enabler of the sexual abuse crisis. The power structure of clericalism poses an existential threat to the Church and compromises the ability of even a progressive pope like Pope Francis to advance change in an institution accountable only to itself. Carroll traces this dilemma back to the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, when Scripture, Jesus Christ, and His teachings were reinterpreted as the Church became an empire. In a deeply personal re-examination of self, Carroll grapples with his own feelings of being chosen, his experiences as a priest, and the moments of doubt that made him leave the priesthood and embark on a long personal journey toward renewal—including his tenure as an op-ed columnist at The Boston Globe writing about sexual abuse in the Church. Ultimately, Carroll calls on the Church and all reform-minded Catholics to revive the culture from within by embracing anti-clerical, anti-misogynist resistance and staying grounded in the spirit of love that is the essential truth at the heart of Christian belief and Christian life.