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As is the annual practice ahead of World Mission Sunday, the Vatican published statistics in October 2023 offering a perspective on the church globally. This highlighted that the world's Catholic population is rising, but the number of priests and religious is declining, while the number of permanent deacons is increasing. Such data are of importance to support the church's pastoral planning. This article on the 2018 survey of Catholic religious institutes in Australia focuses especially on the situation of religious3 in this country and then looks at emerging initiatives in the Australian Church in response to these trends.

Despite their presence in the Church, women are often underrepresented in leadership roles. In particular, young people, especially young women, are becoming increasingly distant from the Church. They are less engaged, and fewer young women are opting for a life of consecration. However, according to Christian teachings, the involvement of all members is vital to the Christian community. This qualitative study relies on semi-structured interviews (N = 20) and explores the engagement of young Catholic women in Lebanon, focusing on two key concepts: vocation and sense of belonging to the Church. It examines how perceptions of vocation are associated with belonging to the Church. Findings indicate that social and ideological shifts, namely the rise in individualism and women’s empowerment and the decline of religious education in families, among others, have contributed to a decline in young women’s sense of vocation and belonging to the Church. The research also proposes a framework explaining the complex relationship between social change and the decline of vocation and belonging among women. The findings have implications for the Church and society, notably the need to bridge the existing gap between society and the Church and provide decision-making opportunities for women in the Church.

Genesis 2:15 has been widely used to support both a vocational dimension of work and an earth-caring attitude that goes beyond the dominion narrative of Genesis 1:28. However, this verse has not been interpreted to ground the connection between theology of work and ecotheology. Based on the concept of Christian materialism proposed by Saint Josemaría Escrivá, we give a new interpretation to this biblical passage in order to ground the human vocation to work by linking it to the need to care for or preserve the earth. Therefore, the transformation of creation that most professional activities carry out is qualified by the duty to do it with “care”, that is, to transform the natural world with due respect for God’s original creative plan. In this way, work can become co-creative, and the transformation of nature that work entails is linked to a divine call to develop it with respect for the inner meaning of all creatures.

The social integration of artificial intelligence (AI) poses fundamental challenges to value-driven domains such as education, where the adoption of new technologies raises not merely technical but also deeply rooted ethical and identity-related questions. While dominant technology acceptance models (e.g., TAM and UTAUT) primarily focus on cognitive-rational factors (e.g., perceived usefulness), they often overlook the cultural and value-based elements that fundamentally shape adaptation processes. Addressing this research gap, the present study examines how two hitherto under-researched factors—religiosity and teacher’s sense of calling—influence teachers’ attitudes toward AI and, ultimately, its adoption. The research is based on a survey of 680 Catholic secondary school teachers in Hungary. To analyse the data, we employed structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to examine the mechanisms of influence among religiosity, sense of calling, and AI attitudes. The results indicate that neither religiosity nor a sense of calling exerts a significant direct effect on AI adoption, and their indirect effects are also marginal. Although statistically significant relationships were found—stronger religiosity reduces a supportive evaluation of AI, while a higher sense of calling increases AI-related concerns—their practical significance is negligible. The study’s main conclusion is that successful AI integration, building on teachers’ pragmatic attitudes, is achieved not by neglecting value-based factors, but by developing critical AI literacy that treats technology as a responsible amplifier of pedagogical work. This finding suggests that value-based extensions of technology acceptance models should be approached with caution, as the role of these factors may be more limited than theoretical considerations imply.

The third section then turns towards constructive engagement by placing Pannenberg and Grenz in dialogue with the Canadian evangelical theologian, John G. Stackhouse, Jr. (born 1960).7 Stackhouse's writings about vocation serve as a foil to help draw out the inherent significance of Pannenberg's and Grenz's ideas surrounding \"election to community\" while reciprocally contributing helpful language concerning the \"permanent human task\" of \"maximizing shalom\" (and the \"temporary Christian task\" of evangelism and discipleship that is framed by this permanent task).8 I argue that Stackhouse's advances bring necessary clarity to what \"election to community\" in Pannenberg and Grenz has always materially intended via their respective usages of the more ambiguous motifs, kingdom and community (instead of shalom). Pannenberg on Election and Community Upon release of Pannenberg's 1977 book, Human Nature, Election, and History, a review in the Christian Century quipped: \"The most prestigious European Lutheran theologian here plays catch-up ball with the Calvinists, who have known for four centuries and more how to believe in divine election without falling into apathy. \"9 Unfortunately, Pannenberg was disappointed by the lack of response to Human Nature, Election, and History in the United States and United Kingdom, especially since the English-speaking world was where the lectures comprising the book's contents were first delivered.10 In 1993, when he incorporated his mature understanding of election into the third and final volume of his System- atische Theologie (English translation, 1998), a similar lack of response resulted and has continued to the present day.11 This conversational gap means Pannenberg's correctives have for too long been shielded from view. '\"17 In this vein, he recognizes a plurality of Old Testament election traditions that were sometimes in competition, whether it be those associated with individuals like Abraham, Jacob, and David-or, more important, the election tradition associated with the historical event of the exodus.18 With regard to the latter, Pannenberg maintained that the book of Deuteronomy, which historically looked back to the exodus event, was the first \"fully elaborated theology of election\" that would \"become basic to all subsequent developments.

This essay explores Karl Barth’s understanding of daily work in Church Dogmatics in light of his understanding of Christian vocation. Because Barth is responding to post-Reformation developments in the understanding of work, this essay begins with a typological survey of Christian understandings of vocation and how the language of vocation gets reduced to work in the modern period. I next examine how Barth’s theology recovers important themes of earlier views of vocation, while it also offers critiques of capitalist and state socialist views of work and workers. The essay concludes with a brief contrast between Barth’s own work habits and his celebration of Mozart’s work, a contrast that offers a window through which one might view “good work” in our day.

This study investigates the transformations of the Hungarian Catholic clergy during the 20th century in its social relations, self-perception, and attitudes, with a particular focus on the Diocese of Pécs. It concentrates on events that caused collective shock, such as the advance of the front and the Soviet occupation during World War II; the confiscation of church property; the enforced migration processes; and the impact of the Communist regime’s ecclesiastical and social policies. The analysis emphasizes the role- and context-dependent patterns discernible in the documents produced by the clergy concerning these events, particularly in the parish Historia Domus. The study models the impact of these violent reconfigurations on clergy dispositions within the framework of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, specifically the notions of “cleft” and “plural habitus”, highlighting the significance of behavior patterns in praxis transmitted through generations of clergy. It interprets the discrepancy between the altered context of action and the long-established, “interiorized” habitus, considering the phenomenon of asynchronicity, and identifies general and context-specific characteristics through a method of historical comparison. Overall, the study offers a perspective that perceives the historically evolved specificities of the norm as intrinsically linked to the local context.

This essay argues that contemporary conceptions of “calling” do not properly reckon with the concept’s biblical and historical foundations. In popular culture, where celebrities and social media influencers wield power, religious language is often extracted from faith traditions without regard for the tradition’s identity or communal nature. Calling, in this manner, has become a cultural catch-phrase devoid of vocational meaning. For many young, American Christians, including those taught by the authors, calling primarily bears a psychosocial meaning: calling signifies personal or economic fulfillment. Even students who are zealous for their faith tend to read the concept of “calling” within cultural norms rather than the biblical narratives or the Christian tradition’s theological insights. The authors present the biblical examples of Moses and Saul (or Paul) to critique contemporary cultural assumptions about calling. They argue that calling is and ought to be a process that is thoroughly dialogical (with God and community), embraces challenges rather than seeking personal stability, and foregrounds the simple act of following Christ’s call and example in daily life.

This article argues for a rediscovery of a theology of work in South Africa that is based on the Protestant notion of calling and vocation. Such a view has the primary intention of emphasising obedience and faithfulness to God rather than self-fulfilment or achievement as the intentions of work. Such an approach can empower and equip the church and individual Christians for effective and faithful living in all spheres of life - both private and public. The article shows that the influences of theological dualism, an unbalanced view of the clergy as primary agents of ministry and mission, and a structures-centred view of ministry and mission detracted from the importance of the church's ministry in numerous spheres of society. A consequence of this was the introduction of a subtle dualism between faith and work. In response to this, the article considers how the church could become an agent of mission and transformation in the world of work. The conclusion of this article is that the South African church could benefit from revisiting and rediscovering a theology of work that is based on the Protestant emphasis of calling and vocation in the public sphere. Contribution While this article engages the traditional protestant theological notions of calling and vocation, it argues that reconsidering these notions in relation to the contemporary world of work can renew a theology of work and ministry for South African churches to serve their members in achieving God's will in society.

Though popular films like The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), The Nun's Story (1959), and The Sound of Music (1965) have routinely been criticized for circulating polarized stereotypes about nuns, convent memoirs indicate that some women felt the stirrings of a religious vocation from watching these movies. This article arose out of interest in whether other women heard God's call through nun films, and is based on a survey of 86 sisters from 28 different communities who had entered the convent between 1947 and 2007, and were prepared to discuss what they saw in these popular films, how they responded to their stereotypes, and what religious meaning they found there.