In his President’s Report three years ago, Jack Mahoney considered whether a theologian’s relation to the episcopate should not be more like that of artist to patron than mandarin to minister, and he ended by suggesting that ‘part of the role of our Association is ... to have a sacramental function’ within the local Church, both reflecting on our common faith and aiming to communicate that reflection.

During the past year, a series of in themselves apparently unconnected developments convinced me that it might be helpful as part of our fulfilment of the tasks which Jack indicated, if we were to set aside an hour for their consideration. The developments that I have in mind may be listed under seven headings:

1. 1. First, and most diffusely, I sense a growing thirst, on the part of Catholic laypeople, for continuing theological (and especially biblical) education—the impetus for which comes variously from parental responsibility, from questions of justice and peace, increasingly (I think) from concern for creation and, most generally, from the recognition that, in an ever more barbarous and philistine society, only faith appropriated and purified through prayer and shared reflection can hope to stand.

2. 2. Secondly, there is a disturbing tendency towards polarisation in our perception of the relationship between ‘form’ and ‘content’ in religious education. This is surely an area which cries out for improvement in the quality of dialogue and collaboration between bishops, catechists, and theologians.

3. 3. Thirdly, the ‘Cologne Declaration’ signed in January by 163 theologians from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands, was followed by statements from theologians in France, Belgium, Italy and Brazil.