Many positive signs

BY MGR PAUL NADAL

While surrounded by many tensions, difficulties and insecurities in the ministerial priesthood, there are many positive signs that tell us today that the priestly service is needed more than ever in society today.

People are more aware of the human dignity and consequently more open to religious values, more open to the Gospel and the priestly ministry.

Despite many contradictions, society is increasingly witnessing a powerful thirst for justice. There is a more lively sense that the whole of humanity must care for creation and respect nature. There is strong evidence of an increased love for the Scriptures, Bible Study, faith-sharing and Christian fellowship in small Christian communities.

Perhaps the strongest evidence for this need for God—and the priest—was Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain last September.

Many Catholics, including Cardinal Vincent Nicols of Westminster (and myself, too), held their breath before the start of the papal visit.

After the visit it was said that the it had been not only a resounding success, but also “a call to something else more profound—to the beauty of holiness, the splendour of truth, and to witness to Christ with joy and happiness,” Cardinal Nichols recalled. “The pope was telling us that what is properly called love is about self-sacrifice. That is part of true self-fulfilment.”

British society, considered by many to be aggressively secularist, showed signs of an insipient malaise and at the same time a huge need for God and the Gospel message of Jesus Christ for love, justice, peace, truth and freedom.

The understanding of the Church as “the sacrament of the unity of mankind” and the ministerial priesthood as one of leadership and service must lead the whole Church, that is all the baptised being involved in ministry. Diakonia, or service, is the Church’s very essence.

When, however, we speak of the ministerial dimension of the Church, there can be the danger of reducing all ministry to one expression of service, without distinction between role and responsibility.

It is the teaching and tradition of the Catholic Church that there is a clear distinction between the ministry of the baptised, who share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, and the ministry of the ordained priest. The Eucharist is central to the Church’s identity and mission and it is only the priest who presides at the Eucharist.

What is called for then is a partnership, between the baptised faithful and the ordained priesthood.

Pope John Paul II said: “To insist on the pastoral and sacramental ministry of priests in no way lessens the value and responsibilities and activity which the laity have…an essential part of priestly ministry consists in encouraging and motivating, in coordinating and supporting the responsible activity of the faithful in the various areas of their baptismal vocations.”

This is the final instalment in Mgr Nadal’s six-part series on the priesthood.