Clerical Career Research Articles

Clerical Old Age and the Forming of Rites of Passage in Early Modern Scotland

This article investigates the rites that marked the end of a clerical career in early modern Scotland. It discusses what would take place when a minister had accepted that he was too old for his charge. It explores the ways in which ministers described their aging bodies, the impact of age on their vocation and how parishioners observed them. The article argues that the bureaucratic machinery devised to address the challenges of clerical old age created personal and professional rites of passage.

Illustrissime Princeps, Episcope Reverendissime: How Did John of the Lithuanian Dukes Finance His Life as Prince and Bishop?

From childhood, the son of Sigismund the Old and Catherine Telniczanka, John of the Lithuanian Dukes (1499-1538), knew he was a prince, and so did his contemporaries. However, maintaining a princely estate does not come cheaply. The aim of this article is not to examine in detail the financial records of this princely cleric, for such documents no longer exist, nor shall we speak in general of the official income of the bishops of Vilnius; rather, we shall examine, where the meagre sources permit, how the bishop garnered income from property deals, the patronage of artisans, loans, and tax farming to fund his activities as a prince of the Church and a responsible secular lord. A broad account is given of John’s income and expenditure in childhood, his clerical career in the sees of Płock, Poznań and Vilnius, and his acquisition of property in Šiauliai and Volyn. Attention is also paid to the bishop’s use of the adoption law to his financial advantage.
 John was by no means a poor man but he was not as wealthy as he might appear – he promised to pay for building work in Poznań but left debts; he was expected to restore the city walls, but died prematurely. He pledged to present the Poznań cathedral treasury with a golden chalice but left only a debt of 300 złoty; the same goes for the ring he promised on his joyful ingress into his new see. He was economically astute – he built the first glass foundry in Vilnius on condition it provide him with window glass and tableware. He purchased houses and rented them out for long term occupation – the rent of at least three generations of Kirchel burghers in Vilnius funded his mansionary chapel in Vilnius cathedral. He gives the impression of never having enough ready cash at hand, despite obtaining large swathes of financially profitable grand-ducal territory which produced the considerable income he needed to spend on administration.

Tales of Ancestry, Inheritance, and Possession: New Documentary Evidence on Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala and the First General Land Inspection

Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala's 1616 El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno stands as the author's staggering attempt to obtain by privilege that which he could not secure through justice: status as a native lord and title to lands. Indeed, the last 20 years of the native chronicler's life as we know it, roughly from 1595 to 1615, are marked by the usual milestones of an ascending clerical career in the service of provincial priests, inspectors, and administrators from the south central Andean region stretching between Jauja and Huamanga.1

Thomas Hoccleve of London: New Evidence of Hoccleve's Family and Finances

Abstract: Building on the 2014 identification by Estelle Stubbs and Linne Mooney of Thomas Hoccleve's father as the London draper "William Occlyf," this article presents more records that connect William Hoccleve to the prominent Londoners William and Maud Holbech. These real estate documents and wills reveal that William Hoccleve was operating as a draper in London as early as 1365, before Thomas's birth; they record his property dealings with Maud Holbech and suggest that William Hoccleve died between 1381 and 1383; and they identify Thomas as being on a clerical career path, lending credence to the claims that these men are indeed the poet and his father, and that Thomas Hoccleve was born a Londoner. This essay places the documents within the context of Hoccleve's marriage and frustrations at the benefice system; examines the care with which Maud Holbech sought to provide for Hoccleve and others in her will; and suggests that Maud Holbech may have been William Hoccleve's sister and Thomas Hoccleve's aunt. These documents establish a previously unrecognized professional and likely familial network for the Hoccleves in London.

New Mexico's Spanish Catholic Past

New Mexico's Spanish Catholic Past Ramón A. Gutiérrez La Conquistadora: The Autobiography of an Ancient Statue, by Fray Angelico Chavez (Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1954), 96 pp. In the years following the initial voyage of Christopher Columbus seeking a western route to the riches of the East Indies in 1492, Spain rapidly established a far-flung empire. By the 1560s Spain's sovereignty extended from Madrid to Manila. Its expeditionary forces had captured the wealth of the Aztec and Inca Empires and explored much of what became known as the Spanish Borderlands of North America, that southern third of what became the United States extending from Florida to California. The Kingdom of New Mexico, established in 1598, is the oldest and most enduring of Spain's settlements in the United States, antedating the founding by the English of Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth colony in 1620. The person who chronicled New Mexico's Catholic history most intensively during the twentieth century was Fray Angélico Chávez. In his lifetime he published twenty-three books and more than six hundred articles describing different facets of Catholic experiences here under Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. rule. The focus of this essay is on Chavez's 1954 book, La Conquistadora: The Autobiography of an Ancient Statue, in which he narrates the history of New Mexico's Christianization through the eyes of a wooden statue of Our Lady of the Rosary, brought by the Franciscan friars in 1625. Fray Angelico performs as a ventriloquist, giving the statue her feminine voice, which in turn she uses to narrate her triumphs and travails as New Mexico's virgin, queen, and mother over a span of more than three centuries. Chavez occasionally wrote with the female pseudonym as "Ann Jellico" assuming the persona of a woman, making his work by today's standards rather queer and campy. Males assuming female personas in [End Page 61] European and American literature is hardly unusual; what is, is that a piece of wood does. Chavez was born in 1910 to Fabian and Nicolasa Roybal in Wagon Mound, New Mexico and baptized as Manuel Ezequiel. When ordained a Franciscan friar in 1937 he chose Angélico as his clerical name to honor Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, the Catholic patroness of Los Angeles, California. Fray Angélico was born into an ancestral line he traced to members of one of the first Spanish colonizing parties to enter New Mexico in 1598. A year after Angélico's birth his family moved to San Diego, California where his father worked as a carpenter building the pavilions for the Panama-California Exhibition inaugurated in 1915 to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. New Mexico's exhibition there, modeled after Acoma Pueblo's Franciscan church, became the pavilion that attracted the fair's largest crowds and subsequently inspired Santa Fe's city fathers to refashion the town's architectural style from Victorian to Spanish colonial in the 1930s. Some scholars opine that young Manuel's exposure to Spanish neocolonial architecture in San Diego and later Santa Fe may have inspired his fascination with the region's Spanish past. As a child Angelico was educated by the Sisters of Loretto who undoubtedly encouraged his pursuit of a clerical career. At the age of fourteen he enrolled at St. Francis Seraphic Seminary High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, moving to the nearby novitiate of the Saint John the Baptist Province of the Order of Friars Minor in 1929, obtaining a bachelor's degree in theology at Duns Scotus College in 1933. On returning to Santa Fe he was ordained a Franciscan priest at St. Francis Cathedral on May 6, 1937. He was the first native-born New Mexican ordained by the Order of Friars Minor begun by St. Francis of Assisi in 1210, having been educated entirely in Catholic schools by priests and nuns. Angelico Chavez became a prolific writer at a young age, first of poetry while he was still in high school, eventually adding essays and tomes on colonial art, history, and imaginative fiction to his literary repertoire anchored in themes derived from New Mexico...

Patronage, Performance, and Reputation in Sterne’s Early Clerical Career, 1737–1742

Whereas current research into Sterne’s life chiefly seeks to explore the connective sinews of the author’s social networks at the height of his literary fame, this essay argues that new pathways for investigating Sterne’s formative years can be discovered through the re-examination of his early clerical career. Whilst Sterne is usually treated as the focal subject when looking at the Church in York, the completion of an extensive historical investigation into Lancelot Blackburne’s archiepiscopate (1724–1743) has made it possible to reinsert him into a refreshed historical context and thereby test old assumptions about the formation of his clerical identity. This provides a foundation for the reassessment of patronage connections between Sterne and his uncle Jaques. Attention is also drawn to the case of Lewis Stephens (1689–1747), prebendary of York, and satirical writer — hitherto unknown to Sterne studies — whose experience of breaking patronage ties with Blackburne in the 1730s provides an instructive comparison for Sterne’s later rejection of the same in 1742. This essay utilises the guiding themes of patronage, performance, and reputation, and its findings are supported by new discoveries from the York diocesan archives and elsewhere.

Clerics in Church and Society in Late Antiquity

Clerics in Church and Society in Late Antiquity

Le Bret, Cuigy, Casteljaloux, Bignon, Royer de Prade et Regnault des Boisclairs : du nouveau sur quelques bons amis de Cyrano et sur l’édition posthume des États et Empires de la Lune (1657)

This article deals mainly with Henry Le Bret, Cyrano’s friend and editor. Only Le Bret’s Parisian years are concerned here, the ones which preceeded his clerical career in Montauban.Till now very little was known of Le Bret’s Parisian period and nothing at all of his career as a « avocat au Conseil Privé du Roi ». Long investigations in Archives Nationales (Paris, CARAN), mainly in notarial deeds (Minutier Central) and in Conseil Privé’s archives (series V6), as well as in Archives départementales de Tarn-et-Garonne (Montauban), allowed me to revive many of his friends and clients : in the second category can be found Bishop of Albi, Gaspard de Daillon du Lude, related to the Roquelaures, and to Cyrano through the wealthy Feydeau family ; in the first category appear many people named in Le Bret’s posthumous preface of Cyrano’s Etats et Empires de la Lune (1657), like the Cuigys, the Durets, Captain Carbon de Casteljaloux, the engraver Bignon and the dramatist and historian Royer de Prade. They were all living in a delimited area of the « Marais » (Right Bank : rues de la Verrerie, des Billettes, Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie, Simon Lefranc and Sainte-Avoye) ; even Cyrano’s protectors were there, Regnault des Boisclairs at rue de la Verrerie, and Duke of Arpajon, whose residence partly burnt in January 1655, at Vieille rue du Temple. A precious notarial deed reveals that Le Bret was a cleric before Cyrano died, situation which should bring a new light on the making of the posthumous edition, published with numerous cuts (« lacunes ») and variants ; another notarized document concerns the donation of Clamard « seigneurie » to Cuigy junior in 1656, donation which not only explains a variant of the posthumous edition but also provides an irrefutable evidence that Cyrano’s novel was altered after his death.Among the addenda completing this article are the autograph last will of Casteljaloux, written in 1642 in Clamard where he died in 1654, the donation of Clamard to Cuigy junior (1656) and a substantial repayment to Le Bret by Royer de Prade (1657) just before the former went to Montauban.

Otto Pfleiderer und die deutsche Theologie in der kritischen Darstellung von Timofej Butkevič

Abstract In the article, a little-studied question of the critical interpretation of the theological position of the representative of German protestant tradition Otto Pfleiderer (1839–1908) in the eastern orthodox theology, especially in the work of Kharkiv Professor Timofej Butkevič (1854–1925), is presented. At first, the main periods of a clerical and creative career of Butkevič, including his studying at the Kharkiv Clerical Seminary (1869–1875) and the Moscow Clerical Academy (1875–1879), are considered. Then the features of the theological publications and the teaching of Butkevič at Kharkiv University are pointed out. His important works were two monographs: The evil, its essence and origin (1897) and Religion, its essence and origin (1902–1904) in two books. The positions of well-known German theologians such as Karl August von Hase (1800–1890), David Friedrich Strauß (1808–1874), Karl Theodor Keim (1825–1878), Karl Philipp Bernhard Weiss (1827–1918), and others were here analyzed. But Butkevič’s critical interpretation of the theological viewpoint of Otto Pfleiderer in his two volumes work Die Religion, ihr Wesen und ihre Geschichte (1869) and in his Geschichte der Religionsphilosophie von Spinoza bis auf die Gegenwart (1883) occupies a central place in this analysis. In turn, Butkevič’s important achievement was the popularization of the ideas of Otto Pfleiderer in Russia and Ukraine, in particular, because of his translation of extracts from Pfleiderer’s works.

The six ages of Patrick: Yet another return to the dating question

This article returns to the surviving texts of Patrick, apostle to Ireland, in order to refine further his floruit in the fifth century. It argues that Patrick's use of a classical scheme relating age to status clarifies the contexts for the autobiographical details of his life, and that these details can be correlated with the limited historical records that survive for this period. In connecting his excommunication of Coroticus to an Easter controversy c. 455, and his controversial elevation to an episcopal see to a dislocation in clerical authority in Britain c. 441, I argue that Patrick's formal clerical career c. 427-455 matches Richard Hanson's sophisticated literary arguments made in the latter third of the twentieth century. I also propose that the uncertainty over the date of Patrick's death (in a context of exile), as represented by various reports in the Irish and Welsh annals c. 457-493, is inconsequential to his formal period of authority.

The Clerical Career of the Poet and Translator John Studley

The Clerical Career of the Poet and Translator John Studley

Mary Astell, John Norris, and a Small Mystery

Mary Astell, John Norris, and a Small Mystery E. Derek Taylor and Melvyn New Recently Dr. Michael Ponsford, Marlborough College, purchased from a used book shop in Salisbury, a few miles from Bemerton (where John Norris lived throughout his clerical career), a first edition of Norris and Mary Astell’s Letters Concerning the Love of God (1695). Tucked inside were two slips containing almost verbatim renderings of two separate passages that would be among the changes made to the second edition, “Corrected by the Authors, with some few Things added,” published in 1705. The binding is early Georgian (perhaps 1720–30) and the slips were sewn in, probably inadvertently, the binder not realizing they were there. The first slip (see figure 1), laid facing a3v of Norris’s preface “To the Reader” is marked with two crosses in the printed text at the words “Christ tells us.” In the modern edition, edited by E. Derek Taylor and Melvyn New (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005; hereafter Letters), the passage appears on p. 60, l. 28. As explained in the annotation to this passage, “In the second edition Norris adds a marginal note to this quoted passage from Bishop Lake: “I shall not conceal from the Reader, that Bishop Lake goes off again from this afterward: But ’tis plain that he is thus far very express to our Purpose. And if he knew not how to be consistent with himself, I cannot help it.” Norris is likely responding to Daniel Whitby, who, in his Discourse of the Love of God (1696) had quoted other portions of Lake’s seventh sermon that ‘shew that Excellent Prelate is an Adversary to the [End Page 51] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. [End Page 52] Exposition of Mr. N . . .” (143). The text on the slip is almost verbatim (“I shall not conceal from the Reader that BP Lake goes off again from this afterwards but it’s plain that he is thus far express to our purpose and if he knew not how to be consistent with himself I cannot help it”). It has several changes in punctuation and other accidentals but only one substantive change, the addition of “very” to “express.” This manuscript slip also has a legend attached: “To Put into the 2d Edition.” The second slip (see figure 2) is twice the length of the first, laid facing the verso of the leaf numbered 49–50 of the first edition (Letters, 80) and again accompanied in the printed text with two crosses for insertion after the words, “more than pure Benevolence” (l. 30). In this instance, the Ashgate editors, using the second edition as their copy-text, included the footnote (Letters, 80). This is Astell’s letter III, and again the printed note, almost a verbatim rendering of the text on the slip, reads as follows: The Writer of this Letter, who does not think her self oblig’d to persist in a Mistake because she once fell into it, but shall always be glad to be convinc’d of an Error, and to retract it, as she confesses she was mistaken, and express’d her self crudely in several places of this Letter, so she desires to retract what is said in this: For she owns ’tis her Opinion that next to Sorrow for our own Sins, our Neighbours refusing to receive the Spiritual Good we wish them, is the justest, greatest, and most lasting Cause of Grief; and that though Death, or some Temporary Calamities, may excuse a few Temporary Tears, yet that only can challenge a deep and settled Concern. (Letters, 80, ll. 36–43) Astell had changed her mind concerning her earlier argument that disappointment over the failure of friends to accept the “Good” is selfish, now believing instead that it is a legitimate cause of lasting sorrow. Again, the text on the slip is almost verbatim, with only one substantive variant, wherein “convinc’d of her error” reads “convinc’d of an error.” Again, there is a legend added: the passage concludes after a dash with “this was put into the margin in the second edition by the Lady I suppose.” The slips are written...

Contextualising Books among the Muslim Oromo in Southwestern Ethiopia: Prospects for Future Research

There is a general understanding that Ethiopia runs counter to other African countries, where basically books were introduced by the Europeans to ‘civilise’ the ‘illiterate’ people during the colonial period. This colonialist point of view is problematic for it obliterates the pre-existence of notable centers of Islamic learning located in the continent, for example Timbuktu and Harar. Moreover, Ethiopians, even before the introduction of Christianity, were already equipped with a writing system of their own for more than 3,000 years (Ayele, 1997), and books were not new when Europeans set foot in the country in the 16th century. In Ethiopia, where Christianity arrived long before the European advent, literacy was provided to a limited range of people seeking clerical careers. Thus, pre-modern education was primarily religious in terms of personnel, textbooks, and places. Clerics taught those children who wished to pursue a clerical career, using religious books at classrooms attached to churches and monasteries.

The Clerical Career of William Rokele

The Clerical Career of William Rokele

Entering a Clerical Career at the Roman Curia, 1458–1471 ed. by Kirsi Salonen and Jussi Hanska (review)

Reviewed by: Entering a Clerical Career at the Roman Curia, 1458–1471 ed. by Kirsi Salonen and Jussi Hanska Antonella Mazzon Entering a Clerical Career at the Roman Curia, 1458–1471. Edited by Kirsi Salonen and Jussi Hanska. [Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2013. Pp. xii, 295. $134.96. ISBN 978-1-4094-2839-8.) This work presents a complete investigation of the established procedure to be ordained priest and then enjoy special economic benefits during the pontificates of Pius II (1458–64) and Paul II (1464–71). Not basing their research on narrative sources that usually portray the clerical world as ignorant and inept, the authors [End Page 922] focus their attention on papal documents, produced in particular by two institutions of the Church of Rome: the Apostolic Penitentiary and the Apostolic Chamber. Thanks to in-depth analysis of the sources, it is shown that for the clerical career, the Church of Rome wished to choose men who did not have physical defects, who were reliable in terms of moral qualities, who were well educated, and who had been invested in accordance with canon law. Any exception should have been authorized specifically. The Apostolic Penitentiary is one of the offices of the Papal Curia in charge of granting absolutions and dispensations. Starting from the pontificate of Martin V, it expanded its authority more and more. In this period, referring relevant matters to the Apostolic Penitentiary suggest a desire to enhance one’s career inside the Church. Several requests from the same diocese indicate the intention by the bishop to operate in compliance with legislation and to seek papal dispensations for many of his local candidates, even if such a step was not strictly necessary. Due to the need for priests who could celebrate the sacraments, bishops were often forced to ordain men too young for that role. This is the reason why many applications concern men under age twenty-five. Dispensations for physical defects especially concerned problems with eyes and hands. There were also particular requests for “absolution from being ordained to the priesthood with a false title, or with a falsified dimissory letter” (p. 162). The authors provide case studies, as well as comprehensive and varied examples, quotations of related legislation, and thorough analyses of the data collected. Requests for dispensations came from every part of Christendom, but for de promotis et promovendis the requests came mostly from northern Italy, southern Germany, and what are present-day Benelux countries; these regions had many vacant benefices and a crucial need for priests. As the editors note: … [T]wo petitioners out of three were not yet priests and wanted to be promoted to higher orders and therefore needed a dispensation, either because of a defect or in order to be ordained against the normal ordination practice. One third of the petitioners, in their turn, had already been (in some false way) ordained to the priesthood and therefore needed an absolution and dispensation that would allow them to continue in their orders and offices. (p. 114) Although some papal representative such as legates, nuncios, and collectors could grant dispensations and thus reduce the need to turn to the Penitentiary, many religious and pilgrims arrived in Rome during the spring (especially during the Easter period), intent on fixing their “legal and religious” situation. Sometimes these candidates made the journey to Rome because they could count on a special relationship with an official of the Papal Curia, because their bishop was absent from their diocese, or because they resided outside their home diocese for reasons such as academic study. The second part of the book concerns the ordinations in the Apostolic Chamber during the pontificate of Paul II, and the archival series investigated is represented [End Page 923] by Libri formatarum. There are two categories in this source: “the people who were ordained during the six actual ordination days and those who were ordained outside these days (extra tempora jure statuta)” (p. 168). Official ordinations had to take place in a sacred space (usually a church) and had to be celebrated by one of the eight bishops approved by the Apostolic Chamber and in presence of...

Entering a Clerical Career at the Roman Curia, 1458-1471, by Kirsi Salonen and Jussi Hanska

Entering a Clerical Career at the Roman Curia, 1458-1471, by Kirsi Salonen and Jussi Hanska

Entering a clerical career at the Roman curia, 1458–1471. By Kirsi Salonen and Jussi Hanska. (Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West.) Pp. xii+295 incl. 6 figs and 34 tables. Farnham–Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2013. £70. 978 1 4094 2839 8

Entering a clerical career at the Roman curia, 1458–1471. By Kirsi Salonen and Jussi Hanska. (Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West.) Pp. xii+295 incl. 6 figs and 34 tables. Farnham–Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2013. £70. 978 1 4094 2839 8 - Volume 65 Issue 4

Entering a Clerical Career at the Roman Curia, 1458–1471. By Kirsi Salonen and Jussi Hanska. Church, Faith, and Culture in the Medieval West. Surrey, U.K.: Ashgate, 2013. xii + 298 pp. $134.00 cloth.

Entering a Clerical Career at the Roman Curia, 1458–1471. By Kirsi Salonen and Jussi Hanska. Church, Faith, and Culture in the Medieval West. Surrey, U.K.: Ashgate, 2013. xii + 298 pp. $134.00 cloth. - Volume 83 Issue 3

Wybór Ambrożego Aureliusza na biskupa Mediolanu: cud, czy celowe działanie Walentyniana I?

Aurelius Ambrosius is a characteristic example of an official of the imperial administration who made a clerical career in the early days of Christianization of the Empire. His life was full of unexpected events. Born into a Christian family, he still put off the moment of baptism – a common custom, yet not recommended by the Church. His stable career path changed radically when Ambrosius was elevated to the rank of Bishop of Milan.

Mark Chaves American Religion: Contemporary Trends (review)

American Religion: Contemporary Trends Peter Heinegg This handy summary of the best available data on patterns of religious thought and behavior in the United States from roughly 1972 to 2008 is little short of indispensable for anyone who wants to understand or comment sensibly on the most pious country in the First World. Chaves is a triple‐threat professor of Sociology, Religion, and Divinity at Duke, and he has mined vast amounts of material from the University of Chicago's GSS (General Social Survey), which has examined the lives of American adults at least every other year since 1972. His broadest finding sounds rather unsexy: Over that stretch of time, we as a nation have kept up our unusually high degree of attachment to, and involvement in, religion. But within that fairly steady flow run all sorts of interesting currents, some which bid fair to make dramatic waves. First of all, the country is getting more religiously diverse (like society as a whole). Believers are more accepting of outsiders, including non‐believers. From 1998 to 2006–7, the percentage of predominantly white congregations with at least some black members went from 27 to 36. For Hispanics, the percentage rose from 24 to 32 and for Asians from 17 to 20—the first of many slowly‐but‐surely trends that Chaves calls attention to. Protestants are on their way to being a religious minority for the first time in our history; and interdenominational marriages are increasing even faster than inter‐racial ones. Seventy‐five percent of all Americans now agree that religions other than their own also “offer a true path to God,” and people with no religion (though often they are not atheists) are the fastest growing individual group. Many others now describe themselves as “spiritual, but not religious” (from 11 to 18% among young people over the last 10 years measured), even if it is hard to say exactly what that means. Americans still believe in heaven (86%) and hell (73%) about as much as they did in the 1970s; but belief in the literal inerrancy of the Bible has taken a hit, presumably because of more college education. Believers still believe, but they are “less tolerant of intense religiosity of any sort” (the fundamentalist carryings‐on parodied in Bill Maher's Religulous?). Percentages of traditional faith are either steady or slightly declining, with the single exception of belief in life after death. (Most stunningly, the percentage of Jews who say they believe in the afterlife has soared over the 36‐year period from 20 to 63. Go figure.) Forty percent of Americans declare that they go to church services every week, but the real number is closer to 25, which is roughly where it is been for some time. Yet there is been a marked drop in involvement with other church activities (down about a third since the 1990s). More Protestant congregations are breaking free from their denomination (one of five churchgoers is now an “independent,” a spurt of over 25% in less than 10 years). Congregations are using the Internet a lot more; services are more informal and jazzed up, with drums, jumping and shouting, overhead projectors, raising of hands, applause, and cries of “Amen!”; congregants are older (aging more quickly than the population as a whole), richer, better educated, and attending ever‐larger churches (not just megachurches)—the latter a process known as “increasing concentration.” Along with the mounting suspicion of other professionals such as lawyers, politicians, business executives, and bankers, the perceived desirability of a clerical career has plummeted. From 1966 to 2008, the number of college freshmen headed to the ministry dropped from 10 to 4 per 1000. Interest has plunged most markedly among students who take (and do well on) the Graduate Record Examinations (GREs)—down to zero among winners of Rhodes scholarships—and the performance of seminarians on that test has slipped, although women consistently outscore their male counterparts. The clergy, especially Catholics and liberal Protestants, are also aging faster than the American population as a whole. Women are entering seminaries at a much higher rate; currently they make up around 31% of the whole (as compared with 5% in 1972), which...