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PRIEST In 1834, John
Henry Newman, while still an Anglican clergyman at Oxford, preached a
sermon on “The Christian Ministry” in which he asked “whether there
is reason for thinking that Christ has, in matter of fact, left
representatives behind him.” Newman answered the question by his
subsequent conversion to Catholicism and by seeking ordination as a
priest. Despite a history of opposition that begins with the authorities
of pagan Rome and continues today in a variety of anticlerical
initiatives, still including some by civil governments, the Catholic
priesthood remains one of the most important institutions in the world.
Another nineteenth-century witness to the central place it plays in the
life of the Church comes from a Frenchman, St. John Marie Vianney. The
holy Curé of Ars underscored the transcendent nature of the priesthood
when he reminded his faithful: “Only in heaven will we know what a
priest is. If we were to know this on earth, we would die, not of grief,
but of love.” Origin and
Nature of the Priesthood • The priesthood derives its theological
meaning from the mission of the incarnate Son. Christ is the one “whom
the Father consecrated and sent into the world” (Jn 10:36) for its
salvation, and consecration and mission describe the reality of the
priest. Within the apostolic succession, the priest appears as a coworker
of the episcopal order, one in whom the function of the bishops’
ministry is exercised in a subordinate degree. However, because the priest
shares in the authority by which Christ himself builds up and sanctifies
and rules his Body, a special sacrament confers the priesthood. Through
Holy Orders priests “by the anointing of the Holy Spirit are signed with
a special character and so are configured to Christ the priest in such a
way that they are able to act in the person of Christ the head”: this is
how the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Ministry and Life of
Priests, Presbyterorum Ordinis, 2, describes the Christian priesthood. Scholars
offer different explanations of how the apostleship of the original Twelve
became adjusted to the local community in the early days of the Church.
Study of the early Christian centuries reveals that priests were ordained
to celebrate the sacraments, to teach as prophets as well as to proclaim
the word and instruct others in sound doctrine, and to govern as
shepherds. But from the beginning of the Church, the priest carried out
these three distinct offices in dependence on the episcopate, which alone
embodies the ongoing apostolic ministry in the Church. From the very
beginning, priests were functioning in the churches the Apostles left
behind. So we are not surprised to learn that the third-century Traditio
Apostolica of Hippolytus already includes the ordination rite for a
priest: “And when a presbyter is ordained the bishop shall lay his hand
upon his head, the presbyters also touching him. And he shall pray over
him according to the forementioned form” (8). There is
significance in the fact that the bishop is joined by the other presbyters
in the ordination. The presbyterium is one throughout the world, even
though a priest is ordained for the service of a particular church within
it. Some authors note that the term “presbyter” literally means
“elder,” and that the New Testament does not specifically use the term
“priest” for a Christian minister but only for Christians as a whole,
as in Revelation 5:10: “And [thou] hast made them a kingdom and priests
to our God.” But this is a semantic difficulty, not a real one. For
“in virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, after the image of Christ,
the supreme and eternal priest, [priests] are consecrated in order to
preach the Gospel and shepherd the faithful as well as to celebrate divine
worship as true priests of the New Testament.” This text from Vatican
II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 28, determines
the place of the priest in the Church. The power to forgive sins also
forms part of the priest’s role of sanctifying the Christian people. Catholic
priests are either members of the diocesan clergy or belong to a religious
institute. The distinction does not affect their priesthood, for both
kinds of priests belong to the one presbyterium of the Church. Rather, the
difference relates to the way a priest lives out his priestly vocation. Diocesan
priests willingly accept the obligation of remaining celibate in order to
participate in the mystery of Christ and his mission; moreover, they
promise obedience to the local bishop, and, although they do not radically
renounce the capacity to possess material goods, they are still expected
to imitate the evangelical poverty of the Apostles. Religious priests, on
the other hand, by their profession of vows, commit themselves to live in
community, which is meant to bear corporate witness to the distinctive
charism of the religious institute. The evangelical counsels of poverty,
chastity, and obedience are embraced under a vow or solemn promise as a
means to imitating the life of Jesus himself. The older monastic orders
require that their members remain in a single place so that the monastery
or convent itself becomes a witness to the life of the Church, whereas the
mendicant friars and most later foundations, including the Jesuits,
require that their members be ready to move wherever the needs of the
Church require priests. There are also priests who follow an eremetical
way of life, in which they devote themselves entirely to works of
intercession and penance for the good of the Church; though separated from
the company of men, the hermit-priest remains fully present to the Church,
especially when he celebrates the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In the latter
years of the twentieth century, the question of whether only males can be
candidates for the sacrament of Holy Orders began to attract wide
attention. Two important statements of the Magisterium, Inter Insigniores
(a declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published
in 1976) and Pope John Paul II’s 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio
Sacerdotalis, have repeated the Church’s reasons for not ordaining
women. The texts also remind us that the Church is here bound by a
decision made by Christ himself and in matters of faith and the sacraments
cannot simply do what she wants. See:
Bishop; Celibacy, Priestly; Consecrated Life; Holy Orders; In Persona
Christi Capitis; Ministry; Priesthood of Christ; Priesthood in the Old
Testament; Women, Ordination of. Suggested
Readings: CCC 1088, 1120, 1539-1541, 1546-1553, 1567, 1591. Vatican
Council II, Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, Presbyterorum
Ordinis; Decree on the Training of Priests, Optatam Totius. John Paul II,
Priestly Ordination, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994). Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, Inter Insigniores (1976). John Henry Newman, “The
Christian Ministry,” Parochial and Plain Sermons. E. Walsh, The
Priesthood in the Writings of the French School: Berulle, De Condren,
Olier. Romanus
Cessario, O.P. Russell
Shaw. Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine. Copyright ©
1997, Our Sunday Visitor.
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