Some twenty years now since Nouwen's death, it is instructive to see him in a new light: a postconciliar prophet of a reformed presbyteral model. Nouwen is, in other words, an exemplar of a priesthood that is contemporary, nonclerical, enabling, and effective. His is a ministerial priesthood in keeping with the ecclesial vision of Pope Francis.

The authors explore the genesis and evolution of Nouwen’s multilayered understanding of priestly ministry, and in the process we have discovered how this most self-revealing of twentieth-century spiritual writers created a redeeming notion of priesthood that could serve as a creative and hopeful trajectory for reform and revitalization in a time of identity turmoil.