organisation, in which the priest, as Christ, re-enacted the one sacrifice of Christ and who acted supernaturally as a mediator between God and man (Jay, 1992: 113). This consisted in an ordained person’s exclusive right to sacrifice based upon the notion of apostolic succession involving the male sacrificing priesthood. The sacrifice of the Mass was not only expiatory and propitiatory, but the basis and driving-force by which Christians came to understand their social world. After the Second Vatican