ADDRESS OF HIS
HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE CLERGY
ON THE OCCASION OF THEIR PLENARY ASSEMBLY
Consistory
Hall
Monday, 16 March 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.
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