Ministerial priesthood in the documents of the Council of Trent
to the Second Vatican Council
To understand the sacrament of Holy Orders within the context of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), it is necessary to grasp the position held by the reformers regard to the eight existing beliefs:
1. The Orders are not a sacrament, but rather a certain ritual with the objective of choosing and creating the ministers of the word and of the sacraments.
2. The Orders are not a single sacrament, nor is there a gradualism for the order of priesthood.
3. There is no ecclesiastic hierarchy, but rather all Christians are equally priests. The consent of the community is necessary for exercising this ministry. Those who become priests may return to be lay people.
4. In the New Alliance there is no visible and exterior priesthood, nor spiritual power to consecrate the flesh and blood of the Lord or to offer the sacrifice, or to free from sin in front of God, but rather only a mandate and the ministry to preach the Gospel.
5. Unction not only is not requested for conferring orders, but also is considered damaging and contemptible, like all other ceremonies. It is not through ordination that the Holy Spirit is conferred.
6. Bishops have not been instituted by divine right, nor is their order above that of priests, nor have they the right to ordain.
Around mid July 1563, the Council fathers obtained consent for the eight rules for the sacrament of Holy Orders, which were:
1. There is a visible, exterior and particular priesthood in the New Alliance, which implies the power to consecrate the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, and also the power to absolve sins.
2. In addition to priesthood there are also other orders, both major and minor, through which access to priesthood is gained.
3. Ordination is a real sacrament instituted by Christ.
4. Through ordination the Holy Spirit in conferred and character is impressed.
5. Unction and ordination’s other customary ceremonies must not be scorned nor are they damaging.
6. A hierarchy exists within the Catholic Church, created by divine order and consists in bishops, priests and ministers.
7. Bishops are superior to priests; they have the power to administer confirmation and the Holy Orders. Validity does not depend on consent from the community.
8. Bishops nominated by the Pope’s authority are legitimate and authentic bishops.
Summarising, one can state that the Council of Trent proposed, as a matter of faith, the existence of the ecclesiastic ministry created by Jesus Christ, and that, as theological doctrine, bound priesthood to the Eucharist, proving on this basis that priests are in priesthood successors of the Apostles, although they are different from bishops.
The reformers’ obstinate impugnation of Ordination’s sacramental characteristics obliged Catholic Theologians to address both favourable and contrary arguments for such sacramental characteristics, making use of the sources of faith for this, meaning the Scriptures and tradition.
The reformers asked that the foundations that should be accepted so that Ordination might be considered a sacrament were the fact that it should be established with an external ritual, with the bestowal of grace and by divine mandate. Bellarmino deduced this in his presentation, when he stated that the external ritual existed through the imposing of the hands. Not all catholic theologians however agreed with this reasoning: Vázquez for example, although accepting Bellarmino’s general thesis, believed that compared to the diaconate and the episcopate, it was not supported by the Biblical passages adopted by Bellarmino.
As far as the second issue was concerned, the bestowal of grace, Bellarmino maintained that in 1 Tm, 4,14 e 2 Tm, 1,6, there is a testimony of the fact that ministers have received a grace that accredited them and conferred them with this ministeriality in front of the community, without however considering this grace an extraordinary event.
As an argument for the third issue, meaning the divine characteristics of the sacrament, Bellarmino maintained that Acts 13,2; 20,28 and Eph 4,11, state the fact that both the Holy Spirit and Glorified Christ, confer to the ecclesiastic leaders their mandates. Chemnitz objected by saying that there was no mandate to ordain ministers nor a particular ritual for this, just as Christ had said during the Last Supper: "Do this in memory of me", for the very reason that an external ritual as such did not exist. To this Bellarmino replied that, although Christ did not command an external ritual as such, it is not after all the exterior gesture that confers grace, but rather the will of Christ who commands that His presence be perpetuated in this manner.
The decree Priestorum ordinis, on the ministry and lives of priests, was approved on December 7th 1965, but to understand it one must situate it within the context of Lumen gentium, approved on November 21st 1964.
This constitution represented a revolution in the ecclesiological conception, because it moved from the concept of the mystical body to that of God’s people, instantly operating a revision of the concept of priesthood, this because it included the rediscovery of the common priesthood of believers, as well as acknowledging the charismatic dimension of the entire Church. This in turn implied the extension of the missio Christi to the whole Church, and the affirmation of the ministerium on the potestas.
Trent had established the doctrine of the ordained ministry compared to the idea of "priesthood", determining harmony between the visible sacrifice of the Eucharist and visible priesthood conferred through the sacrament of Holy Orders. Lumen gentium instead returned to the Biblical source of priesthood common to all God’s People. It did this using the idea of priesthood as a fundamental Catholic category, applicable to all those belonging to God’s People, who thanks to the sacraments of Christian initiation participate in the unique priesthood of Christ; and although they differ essentially and not only by rank, they are however one ordained to the other (See LG II, 10). Consequently, the terminology was reformulated and for this reason one speaks of "ordained ministry", or "priestly ministry".
The fundamental difference between common priesthood and ministerial priesthood seems founded on the fact that ministerial priesthood, due to its charismatic characteristics, is specified as service for the edification of the community with authority that comes from Christ Himself and that, in no manner is it common priesthood’s derivation or delegation. On the contrary, the common priesthood of the faithful is not a metaphor, nor a derivation of hierarchic ministerial priesthood: it is not an analogatum princeps of believers’ common priesthood, because it originates in baptism and its model is the unique priesthood of Christ the priest, the prophet and the king.
On the other hand, no. 28 in Chapter III of LG is set within the framework of historical and exegetic studies by the NT, and that of the doctrine of the ancient Church. Hence there is a recapitulation of the ancient ecclesiology of communion and a recovery of the missionary perspective as a fundamental element for understanding the reasons for ordained ministry, the starting point for which is not the priesthood, but rather the episcopate. This is the perspective of numbers 19 and 20 of the LG III, in which the bishops are presented to us as successors of the Apostles, who in turn are the continuators of the mission Jesus entrusted to them. The category of "priesthood" as the element indicating the identity of the ordained ministry accentuates precisely Christ’s unique mediation, especially in the celebration of sacraments. Therefore, the category of "mission" removes that of priesthood becoming the category of intellection of the ordained ministry.
In dealing with the subject of priesthood, Trent started from a strictly sacramental-sacrificial perspective, meaning, from the Eucharist to ordination, while the Second Vatican Council today re-examines the Council in a broader, ecclesiological and missionary context, redefining the vision from the Church’s mission to ordination.
Lumen Gentium wished to adopt as a starting point, not just the hierarchic institution, but rather the reality of God’s People, understood as the heart of the Church’s ministry. Hence, the Church becomes aware of the fact that she is in the ministry of God: an entire people, called upon and sent out at the service of the kingdom. Therefore, the ministry is set within the community and can only be understood in relation to all God’s people. Hence, within the Church there is unity of mission and plurality of ministries (See AA 2).
Let us now move on to the document itself, dedicated to the lives and ministry of the priests. Priestorum ordinis will therefore be characterised by this ecclesiological turning point, as will its vision of the episcopate as the origin of priestly mission. In this manner and according to this logic, it places the figure of the minister within the perspective of the mission (PO 2), applying the model of the three munera (PO 4-6), recuperating the subject of the priest, and also emphasising the collective aspect of the priest’s ministry. It will assume the idea of pastoral mercy as the unifying principle of priestly life (PO 14) and will gather the common Christian vocation for sanctity, clarified in the case of ordained ministry through the fulfilment of this vocation, in exercising the pastoral ministry.
The passage from a sacred and Christological vision to an ecclesial and missionary one, could be concretised in an affirmation stating that a ecclesial ministry is not simply a human activity, nor the exercising of a mere function, and that in the case of the priest. Its place within the vast context of the ecclesial mission, vivifies and illuminates both the ministry and the life of the priest. These are the words of PO 2, assumng its derivation from the Episcopal order and the previous participation in the sacraments of Christian initiation. However, "priests, by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are signed with a special character and are conformed to Christ the Priest in such a way that they can act in the person of Christ the Head.
The structural and unifying axis is that of sacramental representation formulated in four dimensions:
1st The priest, co-worker in the Episcopal order, receives his specific ministry from a particular sacrament (the Holy Orders)
2nd He conveys to Another, whom he represents
3rd And simultaneously makes Him present and
4th His ministry is inscribed within the communion of the Church, specifying that this representation is not exercised in reason of "being", or by the person of the minister, but rather by "ecclesial function". Following the priestly functions are listed, beginning with evangelisation.
The ministry of priests will be exercised on three fronts: that of the Word, that of the sacraments, in particular the Eucharist, and that of being a Pastor, all in multiple relationships: with Christ, with the Bishop, with the priests, with lay people and all humankind. One could summarise the nucleus of the decree as follows: The priest, due to sacramental ordination received, participates in Christ’s priesthood and, through the Apostolic mission entrusted to him, is invested with the triple power that permits him to cooperate with the bishop in edifying the Church.
Together with a number of the Decree’s commentators, one could state that in the theological figure of the priest one encounters for the first time the following characteristics:
According to the document’s interpretive trends following a purely ecclesionomist point of view, that does not consider an ordained minister necessary for representing Christ, the Head and Shepherd, but believes that it is sufficient to have the community’s proxy and its common priesthood, as well as the Christomonist trends that wished to help an identity crisis, there is a desire to emphasise the sacred and Christocentric characteristics, thereby refusing an ecclesial understanding of the ministry. To overcome this ambivalence and achieve adequate integration, we propose to redefine in their unity, the two dialectic poles, Christological and ecclesiological, ontological and functional, emphasising that these two dimensions must be maintained united and in their dual representation.