Word: priesthoods
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...year-old Jesuit who will be ordained to the priesthood this June. If I had five more lives to lead, they would all be in the Society of Jesus...
...ears, mouth, heart and soul of the bishop" because of their closeness to the laity. But eventually, blurred distinctions (and a growing rivalry) between priests and deacons sent the diaconate into decline. In the Middle Ages the office was only a preparatory stage on the road to the priesthood; even now, in seminaries, it remains the last step before priestly ordination...
Despite the training and age requirements (at ordination, candidates must be 35 or older), the diaconate is far more flexible than the priesthood and can accept candidates who would not qualify academically for present-day seminaries. Exactly what the new deacons should be, however, is still a matter of argument both inside and outside the program. Many of the deacons want to function as something other than a sort of assistant priest. One thought, backed by Belgium's Leo-Jo-zef Cardinal Suenens, is that they should serve as "activators of grassroots communities"-an idea enthusiastically received in such...
...Rene Schaller, 37, once studied theology at Strasbourg and Paris but decided he did not have a vocation to the priesthood. Now a marriage counselor, he is married, has two children and is a driving force behind the international expansion of the diaconate. A deacon since 1970, Schaller has made his "parish" a newly built quarter on the periphery of Lyons. There he is president of a tenants' union, which defends renters in disputes with landlords. He also performs marriages and baptisms for anticlerical couples who resent the presence of priests but are willing to accept the new deacons...
...African blacks are excluded from the Mormon priesthood because they are said to be descendants of Noah's cursed son Ham and his wife Egyptus, a descendant of the fratricide Cain. Supported mainly by the Mormon Book of Abraham, a document "translated" from Egyptian burial papyri by Joseph Smith in 1835, this teaching resembles the Southern Christian theology that was used to justify slavery. Historians have noted that the Mormons, who began as egalitarians, were sojourning in slave-state Missouri-and having serious troubles with their Missouri neighbors about their free black brethren-when Smith's revelation...