A CHURCH WITHOUT PRIESTS?

by Jacques Duquesne ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1969

A ""church without priests"" is, as the author points out, a conceivable phenomenon. It may occur in one of two ways: either through an excessive number of priests abandoning the ministry and an insufficiency of new priests to replace them, or through a gradual ""declericalization"" of the Church. This book pursues both possibilities. The first section considers ""those who leave""--to marry, to work, to escape, or simply to avoid loneliness--and makes use of case histories to point out the need for reform in the concept of the priesthood. The second part of the book envisages a new Church, one which has seen ""the end of the clergy"" and is staffed by human beings rather than by men of whom an impossible perfection is required, by married priests, worker-priests, and ""professional"" priests. Little that Father Duquesne, a French priest, has to say will be news to the American clergy; indeed the same ground has been already covered in this country by a number of excellent, and somewhat more profound books, treating this problem in its American context.

Pub Date: June 15, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1969

Categories: NONFICTION