Cardinals,
Venerated Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood
I am happy to be able to receive you in special audience, on the
eve of my departure for Africa, where I will go to hand over the
"instrumentum laboris" of the Second Special Assembly of the
Synod for Africa, which will take place here in Rome next
October. I thank the prefect of the congregation, lord cardinal
Cláudio Hummes, for the affable expressions with which he
interpreted the sentiments of all. With him I greet all of you,
superiors, officials and members of the congregation, with a
grateful spirit for all the work you carry out in the service of
such an important sector in the life of the Church.
The topic you have chosen for this plenary assembly -- "The
Missionary Identity of the Priest in the Church, as Intrinsic
Dimension of the Exercise of the 'Tria Munera'" -- allows for
some reflections for the work of these days and for the abundant
fruits that it will certainly bring. If the entire Church is
missionary and if every Christian, by virtue of baptism and
Confirmation, receives quasi ex officio (cf. CCC, 1305) the
mandate to profess the faith publicly, the ministerial
priesthood also from this point of view is distinguished
ontologically, and not only by degree, from baptismal
priesthood, called also common priesthood. Constitutive of the
first, in fact, is the apostolic mandate: "Go into all the world
and preach the Gospel to the whole creation" (Mark 16:15). We
know that this mandate is not a simple charge entrusted to his
collaborators; its roots are deeper and must be sought much
further afield.
The missionary dimension of the priest is born from his
sacramental configuration to Christ the Head: this brings with
it, as a consequence, a cordial and total adherence to that
which the ecclesial tradition has recognized as the "apostolica
vivendi" forma. The latter consists of participation in a "new
life" understood spiritually, in that "new style of life" that
was inaugurated by the Lord Jesus and which was made their own
by the Apostles. By the imposition of the bishop's hands and the
consecrating prayer of the Church, the candidates become new
men, they become "priests." In light of this it seems clear how
the "tria munera" are in the first place a gift, and only as a
consequence an office, participation in a life and because of
this "a potestas." Certainly, the great ecclesial tradition has
justly detached the sacramental efficacy of the concrete
existential situation of the priest, and thus the legitimate
expectations of the faithful are adequately safeguarded.
However, this correct doctrinal precision does not take anything
way from the necessary, more than that, the indispensable,
tension to moral perfection, which should dwell in every
genuinely priestly heart.
Precisely to foster this tension of priests toward spiritual
perfection, on which, above all, the efficacy of their ministry
depends, I have decided to convoke a "Priestly Year," which will
run from next June 19, 2009, to June 19, 2010. Being celebrated,
in fact, is the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Mary
Vianney, the Cure of Ars, true example of pastor at the service
of Christ's flock. It will be your task, congregation, in
accordance with the diocesan ordinaries and the superiors of
religious Institutes, to promote and coordinate the different
spiritual and pastoral initiatives that seem useful to make the
role and the mission of the priest in the Church and in
contemporary society increasingly perceived.
As the topic of the Plenary Assembly shows, the mission of the
priest is carried out "in the Church." Such an ecclesial,
communional, hierarchical and doctrinal dimension is absolutely
indispensable for any genuine mission and, on its own,
guarantees its spiritual efficacy. The four aspects mentioned
must always be recognized as profoundly related: the mission is
"ecclesial" because no one priest proclaims or takes himself,
rather within and through his own humanity, every priest must be
very conscious of taking another, God himself, to the world. God
is the only richness that, in the end, men wish to find in a
priest. The mission is "communial" because it takes place in a
unity and communion that only in a secondary way also has
relevant aspects of social visibility. Moreover, these derive
essentially from that divine intimacy of which the priest is
called to be expert, to be able to lead, with humility and
confidence, the souls entrusted to him to the encounter itself
with the Lord. Finally the "hierarchical" and "doctrinal"
dimensions suggest reaffirming the importance of ecclesiastical
discipline (the term is joined to "disciple") and of doctrinal
formation, and not only theological, initial and permanent.
Awareness of the radical social changes of the last decades
should move the best ecclesial energies to take care of the
formation of candidates to the ministry. In particular, it
should stimulate the constant solicitude of pastors toward their
first collaborators, either by cultivating truly paternal human
relations, or being concerned for their permanent formation,
above all in the doctrinal aspect. In a special way the mission
has its roots in a good formation, carried out in communion with
the uninterrupted ecclesial Tradition, free of ruptures and
temptations to discontinuity. In this connection, it is
important to foster in priests, above all in the young
generations, a correct perception of the texts of the Second
Vatican Council, interpreted in the light of all the doctrinal
baggage of the Church. It also seems urgent to recover that
consciousness that drives priests to be present, identifiable
and recognizable both by the judgment of faith, or by personal
virtues, or also by their dress, in the realms of culture and
charity, ever at the heart of the mission of the Church.
As Church and as priests we proclaim Jesus of Nazareth Lord and
Christ, crucified and resurrected, sovereign of time and
history, in the joyful certainty that this truth coincides with
the profoundest hopes of the human heart. In the mystery of the
Incarnation of the Word, namely, in the fact that God became a
man like us, is both the content as well as the method of the
Christian proclamation. The mission has here its propellant
center: precisely in Jesus Christ. The centrality of Christ
brings with it the correct appreciation of the ministerial
priesthood, without which neither the Eucharist nor,
consequently, the mission and the Church herself would exist. In
this connection it is necessary to watch so that the "new
structures" of pastoral organizations are not thought out for a
time in which the ordained ministry is "undervalued," starting
from an erroneous interpretation of the correct promotion of the
laity, because in such a case the premises would be established
for an ultimate dissolution of the ministerial priesthood and
the eventual presumed "solutions" would coincide dramatically
with the real causes of the current problems linked to the
ministry.
I am sure that in these days the work of the plenary assembly,
under the protection of the Mater Ecclesiae, will be able to
reflect further on these brief notes that I allow myself to
submit to the attention of the cardinals and the archbishops and
bishops, invoking on all the copious abundance of heavenly
gifts, in pledge of which I impart to you and to your loved ones
a special and affectionate apostolic blessing.
[Translation by ZENIT]
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