"Nowhere in the new Testament is an explicit connection made between the ministry of the church and presiding at the eucharist. ... There are no biblical grounds anywhere for a sacral and mystical foundation to the ministry in the eucharist. ... the leaders of the community ipso facto presided at the eucharist." [Quote p 30]
"There is no mention in the New Testament of an essential distinction between 'laity' and 'ministers'. The particular character of the ministry is set against the background of many different non-ministerial services in the church. In this sense the ministry is not a status but a function. ... the essential apostolic structure of the community and therefore of the ministry of its leaders has nothing to do with the 'hierarchical' structure of the church (on the basis of later Roman models in the Roman empire and even later of feudal structures) ... " [Quote p 31]
Quotes Canon 6 of the Council of Chalcedon:"No one may be 'ordained' priest or deacon in an absolute manner ... unless a local community is clearly assigned to him whether in the city or in the country ... place where a martyr is venerated or in a monastery." [Quote p 38]
"According to the New Testament Christ and the Christian community alone were priestly; the leaders were at the service of Christ and the priestly people of God but are themselves never said to be priestly. ... in the ancient church the whole of the believing community concelebrated albeit under the leadership of the one who leads the community. ... presiding at the eucharist was simply the liturgical dimension of the many-sided ministerial pattern of presiding in the Christian community. The one who is recognised by the church as the leader of the community also presides at the eucharist." [Quote pp 48-9]
Schillebeeckx deals with the appearance of the celibacy rule which he explains in the following manner. Looking backward to the Jewish concept of priest Christian celebrants saw a need for ritual purity when celebrating the eucharist. So they refrained from sex the night before celebrating. When daily Mass became a general practice the no-sex requirement bound them seven nights a week and made total celibacy a general requirement. (Richard comments: this doesn't seem to me like a forceful enough argument by itself. Ought we to look also at the Gregorian and other reforms that were going on at the same time to pick up on the element of self-sacrifice that celibacy entails ?)"whereas formerly it had been said that a minister needed to be ordained to preside over the church community (=corpus verum) the terminology now became that of presiding over the corpus mysticum ie to celebrate the eucharist ... ordination became the bestowal of a special power to be able to perform the consecration of the eucharist." [Quote p 57]
"... priestly mediation which makes the person who has been consecrated an alter Christus rests on a character that the priest without any merit on his part nevertheless has in his personal possession by virtue of the holy power of the one who consecrates him ..." [Quote p 65]
Schillebeeckx considering the different understandings of priesthood in the first and second Christian millennia concludes that the theology of priesthhod cannot be an unchangeable datum .[Quote p 65]
Schillebeeckx quotes a 1971 synod of RC bishops who dealt with seven questions: