The Primacy And Infallibility of the Pope have long stood as roadblocks to fellowship between the Roman Catholic Church and other church bodies. Now, however, as many churches strive for greater ecumenical rapprochement and ecclesial unity, scholars from a variety of Christian traditions have been exploring together the possibility that church unity may indeed be well served by the ministry of St. Peter. How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Unity of the Universal Church? assembles twenty-one forward-looking essays on the papal office by an assortment of theologians, canonists, ecumenists, ecclesiologists, sociologists, and Scripture experts from diverse backgrounds, including Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, and Reformed. They examine the conditions under which the papacy might one day be re-received by Christian church bodies worldwide unot as an autocratic monarchy but, rather, as the unifying agency for a diverse yet cohesive universal church. James F. Puglisi is Francis Joseph Cardinal Spellman Professor of Catholic Theology at Graduate Theological Foundation in mishawaka, Indiana, and director of the Centro Pro Unione in Rome.
