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Consecrated Hearts - On Priesthood |
 "Faithfulness
of Christ, Faithfulness of Priests"
Holy Father Benedict
XVI
Proclaims Year for Priests
With St. Jean Marie Vianney as Patron
June 19, 2009 - June 19, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI is proclaiming a Year for
Priests on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of
St. John Marie Vianney, the Curé of Ars.
The Pope announced this March 16, 2009 during an audience
granted to participants in the plenary assembly of the
Congregation for the Clergy, a Vatican communiqué reported.
The theme for the priestly year is "Faithfulness of Christ,
Faithfulness of Priests." The Pope is scheduled to open the year
with a celebration of vespers June 19, the solemnity of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the presence of the relic of the Curé
of Ars, to be brought to Rome by Bishop Guy Bagnard of
Belley-Ars, the press release stated.
The closing ceremony will take place exactly one year later,
with a World Meeting of Priests in St. Peter's Square.
During this year, a directory for confessors and spiritual
directors will be published, along with a compilation of texts
by the Pope on the core issues of the life and mission of
priests in the modern times. As well, Benedict XVI will
officially proclaim St. Jean Marie Vianney as "patron saint of
all the priests of the world."
The congregation will aim in this year to promote initiatives
that will "highlight the role and mission of the clergy in the
Church and in modern society."
Another goal will be to address "the need to intensify the
permanent formation of priests, associating it with that of
seminarians."
PLENARY INDULGENCE FOR THE YEAR FOR PRIESTS>>>
Decree from the Apostolic Penitentiary
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE CLERGY
ON THE OCCASION OF THEIR PLENARY ASSEMBLY
March 16, 2009
Your Eminences,
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the
Priesthood,
I am glad to be able to welcome you at a special
Audience on the eve of my departure for Africa,
where I am going to present the Instrumentum Laboris
of the Second Special Assembly of the Synod for
Africa that will be held here in Rome next October.
I thank Cardinal Cláudio Hummes for the kind words
with which he has interpreted the sentiments you
share and I thank you for the beautiful letter you
wrote to me. With him, I greet you all, Superiors,
Officials and Members of the Congregation, with
gratitude for all the work you do at the service of
such an important sector of the Church's life.
The theme you have chosen for this Plenary Assembly
"The missionary identity of the priest in the Church
as an intrinsic dimension of the exercise of the
tria munera" suggests some reflections on the work
of these days and the abundant fruit that it will
certainly yield. If the whole Church is missionary
and if every Christian, by virtue of Baptism and
Confirmation quasi ex officio (cf. Catechism of the
Catholic Church, n. 1305), receives the mandate to
profess the faith publicly, the ministerial
priesthood, also from this viewpoint, is
ontologically distinct, and not only by rank, from
the baptismal priesthood that is also known as the
"common priesthood". In fact, the apostolic mandate
"Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the
whole of creation" (Mk 16: 15) is constitutive of
the ministerial priesthood. This mandate is not, as
we know, a mere duty entrusted to collaborators; its
roots are deeper and must be sought further back in
time.
The missionary dimension of the priesthood is born
from the priest's sacramental configuration to
Christ. As a consequence it brings with it a
heartfelt and total adherence to what the ecclesial
tradition has identified as apostolica vivendi
forma. This consists in participation in a "new
life", spiritually speaking, in that "new way of
life" which the Lord Jesus inaugurated and which the
Apostles made their own. Through the imposition of
the Bishop's hands and the consecratory prayer of
the Church, the candidates become new men, they
become "presbyters". In this light it is clear that
the tria munera are first a gift and only
consequently an office, first a participation in a
life, and hence a potestas. Of course, the great
ecclesial tradition has rightly separated
sacramental efficacy from the concrete existential
situation of the individual priest and so the
legitimate expectations of the faithful are
appropriately safeguarded. However, this correct
doctrinal explanation takes nothing from the
necessary, indeed indispensable, aspiration to moral
perfection that must dwell in every authentically
priestly heart.
Precisely to encourage priests in this striving for
spiritual perfection on which, above all, the
effectiveness of their ministry depends, I have
decided to establish a special "Year for Priests"
that will begin on 19 June and last until 19 June
2010. In fact, it is the 150th anniversary of the
death of the Holy Curé d'Ars, John Mary Vianney, a
true example of a pastor at the service of Christ's
flock. It will be the task of your Congregation, in
agreement with the diocesan Ordinaries and with the
superiors of religious institutes to promote and to
coordinate the various spiritual and pastoral
initiatives that seem useful for making the
importance of the priest's role and mission in the
Church and in contemporary society ever more clearly
perceived.
The priest's mission, as the theme of the Plenary
Assembly emphasizes, is carried out "in the Church".
This ecclesial communal, hierarchical and doctrinal
dimension is absolutely indispensable to every
authentic mission and, alone guarantees its
spiritual effectiveness. The four aspects mentioned
must always be recognized as intimately connected:
the mission is "ecclesial" because no one proclaims
himself in the first person, but within and through
his own humanity every priest must be well aware
that he is bringing to the world Another, God
himself. God is the only treasure which ultimately
people desire to find in a priest. The mission is "communional"
because it is carried out in a unity and communion
that only secondly has also important aspects of
social visibility. Moreover, these derive
essentially from that divine intimacy in which the
priest is called to be expert, so that he may be
able to lead the souls entrusted to him humbly and
trustingly to the same encounter with the Lord.
Lastly, the "hierarchical" and "doctrinal"
dimensions suggest reaffirming the importance of the
ecclesiastical discipline (the term has a connection
with "disciple") and doctrinal training and not only
theological, initial and continuing formation.
Awareness of the radical social changes that have
occurred in recent decades must motivate the best
ecclesial forces to supervise the formation of
candidates for the ministry. In particular, it must
foster the constant concern of Pastors for their
principal collaborators, both by cultivating truly
fatherly human relations and by taking an interest
in their continuing formation, especially from the
doctrinal and spiritual viewpoints. The mission is
rooted in a special way in a good formation,
developed in communion with uninterrupted ecclesial
Tradition, without breaks or temptations of
irregularity. In this sense, it is important to
encourage in priests, especially in the young
generations, a correct reception of the texts of the
Second Ecumenical Vatican Council, interpreted in
the light of the Church's entire fund of doctrine.
It seems urgent to recover that awareness that has
always been at the heart of the Church's mission,
which impels priests to be present, identifiable and
recognizable both for their judgement of faith, for
their personal virtues as well as for the habit, in
the contexts of culture and of charity.
As Church and as priests, we proclaim Jesus of
Nazareth Lord and Christ, Crucified and Risen,
Sovereign of time and of history, in the glad
certainty that this truth coincides with the deepest
expectations of the human heart. In the mystery of
the Incarnation of the Word, that is, of the fact
that God became man like us, lies both the content
and the method of Christian proclamation. The true
dynamic centre of the mission is here: in Jesus
Christ, precisely. The centrality of Christ brings
with it the correct appreciation of the ministerial
priesthood, without which there would be neither the
Eucharist, nor even the mission nor the Church
herself. In this regard it is necessary to be alert
to ensure that the "new structures" or pastoral
organizations are not planned on the basis of an
erroneous interpretation of the proper promotion of
the laity for a time in which one would have "to do
without" the ordained ministry, because in that case
the presuppositions for a further dilution of the
ministerial priesthood would be laid and possible
presumed "solutions" might come dramatically to
coincide with the real causes of contemporary
problems linked to the ministry.
I am certain that in these days the work of the
Plenary Assembly, under the protection of the Mater
Ecclesiae, will be able to examine these brief ideas
that I permit myself to submit to the attention of
the Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops, while I
invoke upon you all an abundance of heavenly gifts,
as a pledge of which I impart a special,
affectionate Apostolic Blessing to you and to all
your loved ones.
© Copyright 2009 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
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