Social scientists have used sophisticated instruments to provide well-documented descriptions of the present crisis in the Catholic priesthood. Now Father Richard Guerrette, a parish priest involved in socio-religious research at the Ecumenical Continuing Education Center at Yale goes beyond a description of the problems.
At a point where theology meets the social sciences and takes them seriously he develops new model and constructs to help resolve the ministry’s crisis of identity. He projects for today’s priest and tomorrow’s Church a path of discovery on which can be developed a search beyond what is already known and experienced. The priest can “find himself in a common quest for ministerial identity not only with his ordained Protestant and Orthodox colleagues but with every other Christian.