Catechism Of the Crisis
74) What is the Catholic priest?
The Catholic priest is the minister on earth of the great eternal priest, Jesus Christ, the only mediator (pontiff: bridge-builder) between God and men. By his sacerdotal ordination, he participates in His powers. He alone is able validly to celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass, to forgive sins, to bless and to consecrate. The priest is therefore not first and foremost the president of an assembly; he possesses faculties the simple faithful do not. For it was to the Apostles alone and not to all the disciples that Christ said: “Do this in memory of me” (Lk. 22:19).
Where is a definition of priesthood to be found?
The Epistle to the Hebrews teaches: “For every high priest taken from among men, is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins” (Heb. 5:1).
What does this definition show?
This definition shows that the priest is taken from among men and thus set apart to be consecrated to God; he is ordained for men, and thus entrusted with a public function: the relations of the faithful with God; he is consecrated as one who offers sacrifice.
So the priest is essentially a mediator?
Yes, the priest is essentially a mediator, an intermediary between God and the faithful. (It is absurd to claim, as Luther did, that all the faithful are priests!)
What is the priest’s most important function?
The priest is above all the man of sacrifice, as the Epistle to the Hebrews says. Now there is only one efficacious sacrifice in the New Testament: that of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the priest as minister may offer in His name by celebrating Mass. The priest is first of all the man of the Mass.
Where is this truth expressed?
In the Ordination rite, the bishop says to the newly ordained priest when he gives him the chalice and the paten: “Receive the power to offer to God the sacrifice and to celebrate Mass for the living and the dead” (Roman Pontifical).
Why so much insistence on the link between priest and sacrifice?
Since Vatican II, the Catholic priesthood has suffered a veritable identity crisis. Many priests no longer know why they were ordained. The crisis can only be overcome by insisting on the essential: the priest is separated from other men and ordained to render to God, by the sacrifice of the Mass, the worship due Him and to communicate to the faithful, by the sacraments, the fruits of this sacrifice, notably the forgiveness of sins.
How can the priest forgive sins?
The power to forgive sins was given by Christ to the Apostles and their successors after His resurrection:
Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. (Jn. 20:21-23)
Who is attacking the Catholic priesthood today?
The Catholic priesthood is unfortunately being attacked within the very bosom of the Church, even by priests! One priest, a Father Pesch, wrote: “Many things that appear evident to us today were unknown to the first Christian communities. There was no pope, nor bishops, nor priests, nor major or minor orders. There was no link between the validity of the Mass or absolution and certain orders.”1
Are these attacks against the Catholic priesthood new?
There is nothing original about these heretical affirmations, for the Protestants said the same thing in the 16th century. The Council of Trent solemnly condemned their errors:
If anyone says that order or sacred ordination is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ the Lord, or that it is some human contrivance, devised by men unskilled in ecclesiastical matters, or that it is only a certain rite for selecting ministers of the word of God and of the sacraments: let him be anathema.2
If anyone says that in the Catholic Church a hierarchy has not been instituted by divine ordinance, which consists of the bishops, priests, and ministers: let him be anathema.3
Is Vatican II at all to blame for the present crisis of the priesthood?
Vatican II contributed to the crisis of the priesthood by its exaggerated insistence upon the “common priesthood of the faithful.”
Is it untrue that by their baptism all Christians participate in the priesthood of Christ?
The expression “participate in the priesthood of Christ” can designate two very different things:
Is this distinction between active participation and passive participation of Christ’s priesthood traditional?
St. Thomas Aquinas explains:
The worship of God consists either in receiving Divine gifts, or in bestowing them on others. And for both these purposes some power is needed; for to bestow something on others, active power is necessary; and in order to receive, we need a passive power....But it is the sacrament of order that pertains to the sacramental agents: for it is by this sacrament that men are deputed to confer sacraments on others: while the sacrament of Baptism pertains to the recipients, since it confers on man the power to receive the other sacraments of the Church; whence it is called the “door of the sacraments.”4
But haven’t the faithful some activity to exercise?
The faithful must actively prepare to unite themselves with Christ’s sacrifice by working at their own self-sacrifice: thus they have an important activity to exercise,5 but it is not the same as the priest’s. They remain passive in relation to the essential act of Divine worship, which is the sacrifice of Christ: their own sacrifice is assumed by Christ’s without having any influence over Him. The ordained priest as minister, however, really and actively offers Christ’s sacrifice.
But don’t the faithful also offer the Divine Victim at Mass?
Our Lord is offered in the name of His Mystical Body; by offering themselves with Him and for the same intentions, the faithful participate in the offering He makes of Himself; in this sense it may be said that they also offer the Divine Victim. But in the proper sense of the word, only the priest, as Christ’s minister, offers the sacrifice; he alone is the efficient (instrumental) cause. Pope Pius XII recalled these truths in the Encyclical Mediator Dei in 1947.
May it be said that the faithful exercise a certain kind of priesthood?
In the strict sense, it is false that the faithful exercise a priesthood (the word exercise bespeaks an action, and the faithful benefit only passively from Christ’s priesthood). Nonetheless, it is sometimes permissible to speak figuratively. We say, for example, that a brave man is “a lion,” or that a Christian who leads an ascetic life is “a real monk”; it is a manner of speaking that is not false provided that it is understood for what it is: simply a manner of speaking, a metaphor, an image, and not an exact definition. The same is true of what is sometimes called “the priesthood of the faithful.” Since every Christian is called to worship God and to make sacrifices (which must be inserted into that of Christ), we may say that, seen from this angle, he acts as a priest.
Hasn’t the “priesthood of the faithful” some foundation in Sacred Scripture?
The “priesthood of the faithful” has as foundation in Sacred Scripture a few texts which are precisely metaphors. Thus, St. Peter compares the Christians to living stones of a temple and to a “royal priesthood”: these are expressive images, but images nonetheless as the context shows.6
How did Vatican II exaggerate the “common priesthood of the faithful”?
Vatican II placed an exaggerated insistence upon the “common priesthood of the faithful” in the very outline of its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. Before speaking of the hierarchy and of priesthood in the proper sense, the conciliar constitution treats of “the people of God” and its universal priesthood (Chapter 2). Only afterwards (Chapter 3), speaking of particular vocations and functions within the Church, does it treat of ministerial priesthood as a special form of the universal priesthood of which the laity (Chapter 4) would also be a particular form!
What does the order of presentation in
Lumen Gentium
signify?
The “order” in Lumen Gentium is in reality a big disorder since priesthood strictly so-called is put on the same plane as priesthood metaphorically so-called, as if they were two species of the same genus. It clearly serves to muddle everything.
Has Vatican II’s exaggerated insistence on the “common priesthood of the faithful” any consequences?
Vatican II’s exaggerated insistence on “the common priesthood of the faithful” was relayed far and wide by preaching and teaching, but also by the new Mass (1969), the new Code of Canon Law (1983), and the new Catechism (1993). Hence it has had tremendous consequences.
How did the new Mass insist upon the “common priesthood of the faithful”?
One of the guiding ideas of the new Mass was precisely to show that the liturgy is an action of the whole People of God, and not just of the clergy. The “active participation” of the faithful had to be promoted. But this expression is ambiguous, as has been seen (the faithful ought to actively dispose themselves to be united to Christ’s sacrifice, of which only the priest is the minister). In fact, instead of fostering the spiritual and supernatural participation of the faithful, the new liturgy insists on their outward participation, and entrusts them with functions formerly reserved to sacred ministers (the readings, etc.). The priest is more the delegate and leader of the assembly than the minister of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Does the new Catechism also promote this error?
The new Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) adopts the ideas of Vatican II. It also states: “In the celebration of the sacraments it is thus the whole assembly that is leitourgos, each according to his function” (§1144). Now, the word leitourgos is a Greek word, and in the Byzantine liturgy, it only used in reference to bishops, priests, and deacons, and never the assembly.
Does the new Code of Canon Law also exaggerate the “common priesthood of the faithful”?
The new Code of Canon Law (1983) was presented by John Paul II as “a great effort to translate this same doctrine, that is, the conciliar ecclesiology, into canonical language,” especially “the doctrine, moreover, according to which all the members of the People of God, in the way suited to each of them, participate in the threefold office of Christ: priestly, prophetic and kingly.”7
In the new Code, how is this emphasis on “the common priesthood of the faithful” translated in practice?
The outline of the new Code (as also the outline of the Constitution Lumen Gentium) is very instructive. The traditional Code (1917), after a first book presenting the general norms, treated of persons in its second book. It was divided into three parts: Clerics, Religious, and the Laity. The new Code also devotes its first book to general norms, but it entitles its second book “The People of God.” It treats first of all of the faithful in general, then of the hierarchy, and finally of religious.
Does this change of outline really mark a change of doctrine?
The change of order in the new Code is explained by Canon 204 (which is the first canon of Book II):
The Christian faithful are those who, inasmuch as they have been incorporated in Christ through baptism, have been constituted as the people of God. For this reason, made sharers in their own way in Christ’s priestly, prophetic, and royal function, they are called to exercise the mission which God has entrusted to the Church to fulfill in the world, in accord with the condition proper to each.
What does the definition
given in Canon 204 show?
Like the Constitution Lumen Gentium, the new Code begins by affirming that all Christians are priests, albeit in divers ways. The ministerial priesthood (proper to priests) would only be a special modality of the universal priesthood. Likewise, all Christians are presented as participating in the power of government (“royal function”), and the role of the hierarchy is only presented afterwards as a “service” rendered to the community.
Is this new way of presenting things really opposed to Tradition?
It suffices to compare it with the teaching of St. Pius X:
It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of persons, the Pastors and the flock, those who occupy a rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful. So distinct are these categories that with the pastoral body only rests the necessary right and authority for promoting the end of the society and directing all its members towards that end; the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors.8
What are the consequences of this exaggerated insistence upon “the priesthood of the faithful”?
The exaggerated insistence upon “the priesthood of the faithful” obviously promotes a penury of priests. What young man would embrace such a demanding vocation had he not a glimpse its greatness?
75) Can the ministers of Protestant communities be likened to priests?
The “ministers of worship” of Protestant communities are not priests, but laymen. This holds true for Anglicans, too. These ministers of worship hence do not have the power to change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, nor to forgive sins.
Why do you say that Protestant ministers are not priests?
The sacerdotal powers were conferred by the Apostles to their successors and so on to the bishops and priests of today. This is what is called the Apostolic succession. Once this succession is broken, as happened with the Protestants, these powers are lost.
How was the Apostolic succession interrupted amongst Protestants?
The Apostolic succession was interrupted amongst Protestants because they ceased to believe in it (denying that orders was a sacrament instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ) and so ceased intending to transmit it. In fact, they abandoned the liturgical rites by which it was conferred.
Was the Apostolic succession also interrupted by the Anglicans?
Some Anglicans today believe in the priesthood and claim that it has been preserved. However, the ritual adopted by Anglicanism during the 1550’s considerably modified the rites of ordination to the point that they no longer expressed the specific grace they were supposed to confer. Such ordinations were thus invalid, and Rome denounced them as such at the time.
Didn’t the Anglicans correct their ordination rite?
Even supposing that these modifications were adequate, they nonetheless occurred too late, after the extinction of the hierarchy. Nemo dat quod non habet, as the adage says (no one can give what he does not have), and by that time the Anglicans were without the priesthood.
Is the Anglicans’ lack of priesthood absolutely sure?
The nullity of Anglican ordinations having been contested during the 19th century, Pope Leo XIII commanded an inquiry, which also concluded their invalidity. On September 13, 1896, he published the letter Apostolicae Curae, which definitively settled the question.9
Are these truths under attack nowadays?
The reigning ecumenical climate in place since Vatican II has led to scandalous attacks on these elementary truths. In the spring of 1977, 124 clergymen of the Diocese of Rottenburg wrote a letter to their Protestant “colleagues” (men and women) of the Evangelical Church of Wurtemberg in which they recognized them as “‘ecclesiastics’ having the same powers and the same responsibility.” It is clear that these “theologians” no longer had the Catholic conception of priesthood.
What conception of priesthood did these clergymen of Rottenburg have?
The Rottenburg signatories declared:
[The Church] abandoned a theory of sacrifice that might give the impression that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross had to be offered anew or renewed for the sake of our reconciliation with God....At bottom, we think that today we have an intelligent practice of the Supper based upon Scripture, which could have existed before the Reformers.
What does this declaration manifest?
We see the link uniting the priesthood to the holy sacrifice of the Mass: whoever abandons the sacrifice for the sake of the Protestant Supper can no longer have a correct idea of the priesthood, nor see any difference between Catholic “presidents” and Protestant pastors.
Were the Rottenburg signatories sanctioned by the hierarchy?
The “theologians” of Rottenburg proclaimed the heresies indicated above. The bishop merely remarked that they had minimized Catholic doctrine, but took no corrective measures.10
Who else has attacked these truths?
The scandal is even greater when these truths are attacked by the Pope himself, but this is what Pope John Paul II did several times by exercising liturgical functions in the company of Protestant ministers clothed with priestly or episcopal garb. Memorably, on May 29, 1982, he gave a blessing at the same time as “Monsignor” Runcie, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, wearing his pontifical insignia. As for Cardinal Ratzinger, on February 3, 1998, at Hamburg, he presided at “ecumenical vespers” together with a Protestant “bishop” wearing a stole.
76) Can a woman be ordained priest?
Only a baptized man can validly receive priestly ordination. This is clear from Holy Scripture, Tradition, and the Church’s magisterium. Because the Church has no power over the essential conditions of the sacraments, it cannot authorize the ordination of women. Such an action would be invalid.
How do we know that only men can be validly ordained priest?
It is an undeniable fact, established by Holy Scripture, that Christ called only men to be His apostles. The Church cannot alter this choice.
Cannot the fact that Christ chose only men be explained by respect for the conventions of the time?
Jesus Christ, who is God and who founded a Church destined to last until the end of the world, could not let Himself be subject to the conventions of an age. In fact, He always showed Himself to be perfectly free in regard to social conventions, and did not hesitate to contravene them on several occasions (concerning the Sabbath, the forgiveness of sins, the attitude towards public sinners, etc.). Had he wished to establish women apostles, nothing would have stopped Him. The single fact that the most Blessed Virgin Mary was never considered to be a “priest” suffices to prove that there cannot be priestesses in the Church founded by Jesus Christ.
Does Holy Scripture explicitly forbid the establishment of “women priests.”
St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
...as also I teach in all the churches of the saints. Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted them to speak, but to be subject, as also the law saith. But if they would learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church. Or did the word of God come out from you? Or came it only unto you? If any seem to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him know the things that I write to you, that they are the commandments of the Lord. (I Cor. 14:33-37)
Women, then, are not authorized to speak nor to officiate during religious ceremonies. St. Paul expressly justifies his exhortation by the general practice of the Church (“in all the churches of the saints”), by the law of the Old Testament (“as also the law saith”), by propriety (“it is a shame for a woman”), and above all by the commandment of the Lord.
What does the Church’s Tradition have to say on the matter?
There is a unanimous consensus in Church Tradition on this subject. Tertullian (d. c. 220) wrote:
It is forbidden to women to speak in church. They do not have the right to preach, to baptize, to offer sacrifice, to seek a masculine office and even less the priestly service.11
Has there really never been ordination of women in the Church?
When, during the fourth century, women were actually ordained in the sect of the Collyridians, St. Epiphanius (d. 403) reacted vigorously:
In an illicit and blasphemous ceremony they ordain women and by them offer a sacrifice in the name of Mary. This means that this whole affair is blasphemous and impious; it is an alteration of the message of the Holy Ghost; in fact, the whole affair is diabolical and the work of the impure spirit....12
Nowhere has a woman fulfilled the office of priest.13
Indeed, there have never been priestesses in the Catholic Church.
If not priestesses, were there deaconesses in the Church?
Deaconesses, which existed for a certain time, did not fulfill the liturgical functions of a deacon; they were employed solely to perform the anointing with oil of women before baptism and to care for sick women. According to the Apostolic Constitutions:
A deaconess does not bless, nor perform anything belonging to the office of presbyters or deacons, but only is to keep the doors, and to minister to the presbyters in the baptizing of women, on account of decency.14
1 Zur Zeit, journal of the German Redemptorists, July-August 1980, p.91.
2 The Council of Trent, Session XXIII, Canon 3 (DS 1773; Dz. 963).
3 Ibid., Canon 6 (DS 1776; Dz. 966).
4 Summa Theologica, III, Q.63, Arts. 2 & 6 (English Dominican Fathers’ version, online at newadvent.org/summa).
5 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1).
6 “Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ....But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (I Pet. 2:5, 9). Similarly, St. John twice states in the Apocalypse that Jesus Christ has made us “a kingdom and priests to God” (Apoc. 1:6 and 5:10).
7 John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges (January 25, 1983), promulgating the new Code of Canon Law. The Pope adds: “It could indeed be said that from this there is derived that character of complementarity which the Code presents in relation to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, with particular reference to the two constitutions, the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium and the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes. Hence it follows that what constitutes the substantial ‘novelty’ of the Second Vatican Council, in line with the legislative tradition of the Church, especially in regard to ecclesiology, constitutes likewise the ‘novelty’ of the new Code.”
8 St. Pius X, Encyclical Vehementer Nos (February 11, 1906), §8 (on line at the Vatican’s Web site).
9 Dz. 1963-66. At the time, some Anglican bishops tried to have themselves re-ordained by schismatic (but real) bishops in order to “recuperate” an Apostolic succession, which, by the very fact they sought to regain it, they recognized as having been lost. The general rule nonetheless remains that enounced by Leo XIII, and so we should consider every Anglican ordination a priori invalid without formal proof that it is otherwise in a particular case.
10 See Rudolf Kraemer-Badoni, Revolution in der Kirche: Lefebvre und Rom (Munich: Herbig, 1980), p.91.
11 Tertullian, De Virginibus Velandis, 9, 1.
12 St. Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses, 78, 13, PG 42, 736.
13 Ibid., 79, 2, PG 42, 744.
14 Apostolic Constitutions, VIII, xxviii, 6; RJ 1236 [online at www.newadvent.org/fathers/].
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