Opening Up is a landmark book that questions settled certainties for the modern church. The collected essays aim to establish a new space for reflection and conversation on a range of issues in which debate has become stilled or frozen into sterile exchanges between familiar positions. Opening Up seeks to look honestly at both the teaching of the church and at the reality of Catholic lives in parishes, networks, personal relationships and spiritual lives. The specific issues covered include the freedom to dissent, women in the Church, gay relationships, pregnancy and contraception, responses to poverty and development, HIV/AIDS, ministry and priesthood, liturgical renewal, and religious life. Contributors are: James Alison, Julie Clague, Jim Cotter, Valerie Flessati, Jane Fraser, Jon Fuller, Conor Gearty, Jeannine Gramick, Alan Griffiths, Eva Heymann, Mark Jordan, Robert Kaggwa, Kevin Kelly, James Keenan, Bruce Kent, John Allan Loftus, Enda McDonagh, Wilfrid McGreal, Aidan O'Neill, Diarmuid O'Murchu, Timothy Radcliffe, Ann Smith and Jon Sobrino.