Title: The Development of Official or Classical Ministry in the Catholic Church: A Historical Overview
Abstract: That the official Ministry of the Catholic Church has undergone a great deal of metamorphosis over the centuries, needs no gainsaying. This is largely owing to the turn of events in Christendom over the ages, especially in relation to the constant touch with diverse cultures of the world. This work gives a brief overview of the development of it while employing the historical, sociological and descriptive approaches. This led us into tabling a few challenges associated with such a development in the course of time. The process of development of official or classical Ministry in the Catholic Church has been an arduous task, considering the enormous bottlenecks involved. All through the biblical era, post-biblical epoch, the Middle Ages, the reformation period, the Counter Reformation age to the contemporary/Vatican II era. It is thus submitted herein that since the Church is dynamic with the nature of her ministries being statutorily geared towards action and service and not power and honour, the servile spirit of the official Ministry should be better embraced rather than that of mere ecclesiastical status. The official Ministry ought to catalyze, promote or encourage and animate the Ministries of the unordained since there are “variety of ministries” within the Ministry of the Church. With the need for inculturation or modification of ecclesiology in the Church and the fast-expansive nature of the Church and its attendant shortage of priests, this rediscovery poses a new challenge of service.
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-08-31
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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