Common Calling: The Laity and Governance of the Catholic Church

Common Calling will spark critical discussion among academics and church personnel who seek a fuller examination of church policies and an honest vesting of laypeople in pastoral life. By elaborating specific steps toward structural change, the book’s authors furnish both solid historical precedents and constructive proposals for building a pastoral future that belongs to all the baptized members of the Church.

— “Theological Studies”

Editor Stephen Pope says Common Calling will play a helpful role if it contributes some insights of value for the ongoing conversation about the renewal of ecclesial governance. I judge it quite successful and I commend Boston College and Georgetown University Press for bringing it to us. These essays could be appreciated by capable undergraduate and graduate students, and many others. The scholarship, candor and concern of the contributors is quite compelling.

— “Horizons”

Theologians, historians, scripture scholars, and canon lawyers draw on the Church’s own rich tradition to remind bishops and lay people alike that we can do better. The means are at hand for a system of governance that draws on early Christian practices as well as the tested methods of modern organizations. This is an important effort to set things right. Read it.

–Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, author of American Catholics and Civic Engagement

This extraordinary collection of essays responds to the current church crisis with scholarly yet generally accessible knowledge and wisdom. It incorporates urgently needed insights from multiple disciplines into a coherent whole. All co-believers who think about and are concerned with roles in the church will find their horizons expanded. The writers in this volume provide hope for a future that is anchored in a sometimes surprising past, and nourishment for imaginative faithfulness within a living tradition.

–Margaret A. Farley, Gilbert Stark Professor of Christian Ethics, Yale University Divinity School

This is an indispensable tool in the church’s task of finding a way beyond our current leadership crisis. Recognizing that the key to moving forward lies with the laity, the book is challenging, trenchant and to the point. The erudition and focus of the contributors, historians and theologians alike, proves once again that in a situation where ideological polarization is all too evident, there is no substitute for the facts.

–Paul Lakeland, author of The Liberation of the Laity: In Search of an Accountable Church

Stephen J. Pope is a professor in the Boston College Department of Theology. He is the author of The Evolution of Altruism and the Ordering of Love and editor of The Ethics of Aquinas.