Stephen Cottrell, On Priesthood

Stephen Cottrell, On Priesthood: Servants, Shepherds, Messengers, Sentinels and Stewards (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2020)

This book by the new Archbishop of York is in some ways a fairly standard view of priesthood in the Church of England.  It begins, as many of the priesthood books I’ve read do, with the claim that most books on the priesthood ask for priests to be doing much.  And then, as with most of these books, it goes on to ask a lot from priests.  Specifically, it takes the words from the Church of England Ordinal to suggest that priests should be servants, shepherds, messengers, sentinels and stewards. It finishes, again as is traditional in the genre, with a couple of chapters on the pain of priesthood (‘carrying the cross’) and finding a balance (‘guarding the heart’).  I’m tempted to write that by the end of the book I was exhausted just thinking about everything I’ll have to do as a priest, but perhaps that’s a little unfair. 

Despite not deviating much from the standard approach of books in this genre (even in the early statement that the book was largely put together from addresses given to ordinands on the eve of their ordination, which seems to be the usual way these books get written), this is a useful book.  In particular, I found its approach to self-supporting ministry very refreshing.  It treats self-supporting ministers as equals to stipendiary ministers, and suggests that a priest is who you are not what you do.  There is no such thing as a part time priest (and as a consequence no real day off, which perhaps adds to the exhaustion).  The discussion of the language of priesthood was also very helpful.  Priests need to speak the language of the communities they serve, and a one-size-fits all approach is rarely appropriate.  It is a very nicely written book, and there are some wonderful phrases and images.  For example: ‘Leading like Jesus means expanding our capacity for compassion, empathy, concern for justice, and love. We do this by emptying ourselves of all that is not of God – our self-referential and self-preoccupied ways of inhabiting the world and the ways we screen ourselves from God’ (1900/2343).  I also appreciated the discussion that ordained ministry ‘must be built on two priorities more than any other − time for yourself and time for God.’ (1772/2343)

The introduction contains an interesting discussion of creation care, as one of the five marks of mission.  The chapter on stewardship could have perhaps done a little more to follow up on some of these ideas – it’s more about general management (in a good way) than specifically environmental connotations of this term.  But the book does contain a great quote from Pope Francis that he wanted priests ‘with the smell of the sheep’ (634/2343).  But in a book that is already full of things for priests to be doing, perhaps it’s good that a discussion of environmentalism doesn’t take over.