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Priests: Granted the Gift of Celibacy through Humble Prayer

Address to the Bishops of Eastern Canada at the conclusion of their ad limina visits on November 8, 1993

There is an essential link between the nature of the Eucharist and the ordained priesthood; and there is also a profound connection between the ordained priesthood and celibacy.

Dear Brother bishops,

1. With great joy I welcome you—the bishops of New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island: "Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come."1 Our meeting manifests the profound spiritual and visible communion which exists between your particular churches and the Church universal, a communion which springs from our being "grafted" into Christ.2 We must constantly turn to him, the chief Shepherd,3 in order to realize what are the "unsearchable riches"4 with which he has invested us for the building up of the spotless spouse.5 She it is whom he unites to himself by an unbreakable covenant, and whom he unceasingly "nourishes and cherishes".6 Our unfailing trust and confidence rests in him and in the power of his Gospel to save.7

Following upon the ad limina visits of your brother bishops from Quebec and from the West and North, your presence is a reminder of the vastness of your land which extends a man usque ad mare8 and which presents so many challenges for the "new evangelization." With the other bishops I reflected on some aspects of their pastoral care of the Church and I encouraged them to be vigilant guardians of the truth, shepherds who proclaim the full truth of Christ and the Church. Today our thoughts turn to some other aspects of your ministry.

2. As pastors you are called to feed your flocks, refreshing their souls9 with the abundant life won by the Good Shepherd as he freely gave himself up to death on the cross.10 At the center of your sacramental ministry is the Eucharistic sacrifice, offered to nourish the faithful with the Bread which gives life to the world.11 In some cases the shortage or uneven distribution of priests makes it difficult to meet the faithful's need for the Eucharist—the very source centre and culmination of the Church’s life.12 This situation, coupled with a critical decline in the number of Catholics attending Sunday Mass, calls for vigorous pastoral action that is faithful to Church teaching.

Absolutely Necessary for

the Existence of the Church

In meeting this challenge, certain fundamental principles should always guide your pastoral response. The parish is a community of the baptized who express and confirm their identity through the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice.13 This requires the presence of an ordained priest whose first privilege and irreplaceable responsibility is to offer the Eucharist in persona Christi.14 Great care must be taken to ensure that no misunderstanding arises about the nature of the Eucharist and its essential link with the ordained priesthood.

When a community is deprived of the priest who acts publicly in the name of Christ,15 this regrettable situation calls for an emergency response. Sunday celebrations should continue, and the lay persons who lead their brothers and sisters in prayer are exercising in a commendable way the common priesthood of all the faithful, based on the grace of Baptism. It would be a serious mistake, however, to accept this as a normal way of involving religious and lay men and women in the liturgy. Such provisions should be regarded as only temporary, while the community is "in expectation of a priest".16 Your assiduous oversight is required so that all will see "the substitutional character of these celebrations, which should not be regarded as the optimal solution to new difficulties.17

Your Pastoral Letter The Ministry of Priests (18 January 1990) reaffirmed the Church’s tradition when it stated unequivocally that "a Church without priests is unthinkable." On the contrary, the sacramental incompleteness of these celebrations should lead the whole community to pray more fervently that the Lord send labourers into his harvest.18 And I join you in pleading with him that the Church in Canada may experience a fresh springtime of priestly and religious vocations.

3. The forthcoming apostolic visitations of your seminaries will provide the Episcopal Conference of Canada with ample opportunity to reflect on ways of improving the human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation of priests. In the light of the relevant documents of the Holy See and the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores dabo vobis, the updated ratio fundamentalis which you intend to draw up19 will address the challenging task of deepening—both among the faithful and the candidates themselves—an understanding of the ontological bond uniting the priest to Christ, the High Priest and Good Shepherd. In this way the whole community will have a correct awareness and esteem for the priest’s transcendent mission of being "the means and the living instrument for conferring God’s grace" upon his people.20

Celibacy and Configuration to Christ

4. At this time, when some question the desirability of maintaining the discipline of priestly celibacy, bishops must courageously teach the fittingness of linking this "sign of contradict ion" with the ministerial priesthood. On the basis of her experience and reflection, the Church has discerned, with growing clarity through the ages, that priestly celibacy is not just a legal requirement imposed as a condition for ordination. It is profoundly connected with a man’s configuration to Christ, the Good Shepherd and Spouse of the Church. As Pastores dabo vobis states: "Certainly it is a grace which does not dispense, with but counts most definitely on, a conscious and free response on the part of the receiver. This charism of the Spirit also brings with it the grace for the receiver to remain faithful to it for all his life and be able to carry out generously and joyfully its concomitant commitments."21

Cultural considerations, and the scarcity of priests in certain regions, sometimes give rise to calls for a change in this discipline. To give decisive weight to solutions based on criteria deriving more from certain currents of anthropology, sociology or psychology than from the Church’s living tradition is certainly not the path to follow. We cannot overlook the fact that the Church comes to know the divine will through the interior guidance of the Spirit,22 and that the difficulties involved today in keeping celibacy are not sufficient reason to overturn the Church’s conviction regarding its value and appropriateness, a conviction constantly reaffirmed by the Church’s Magisterium, not least by the Second Vatican Council.23 Like the Church in other countries, the Church in Canada is called to face this situation with faith and courage, trusting "in the Spirit that the gift of celibacy.., will be generously bestowed by the Father, as long as those who share in Christ’s priesthood through the sacrament of Orders, and indeed the whole Church, humbly and earnestly pray for it."24

The scandal given by those members of the clergy and those religious who have failed in this regard has been a source of great suffering for the Church in Canada. I wish you to know that I have personally shared this anguish with you and that it has been the cause of much prayer to the "Father of mercies and God of all comfort"25 for those who have been victims of sexual misconduct, as well as for those who have been guilty of it. Let us abide by Saint Paul’s sound counsel: "Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good."26 Recalling with profound gratitude the fidelity and zeal of so many priests in Canada who, with pure and selfless hearts, have made the total gift of themselves to Christ and his Church, I ask you to convey my encouragement to every priest whose father in God you are.27

Addressing the Rights of Women

5. Among your pastoral concerns, you are also called upon to address the vital question of the role of women, with their rights and duties, in your particular Churches and in Canadian society. The whole People of God needs to recognize and rejoice in the irreplaceable gifts of "feminine genius" that women bring to the life and mission of the Church.28 These rich gifts of femininity originate with the first covenant of creation, which confers on woman "an expression of the ‘image and likeness of God’ that is specifically hers."29 In the new covenant, which seals the redemptive union of Christ and the Church,30 women enjoy a special priority in the "order of love".31

Since "God entrusts the human being to her in a special way",32 woman’s commitment to the home, marriage and family should not be seen as restrictive or demeaning. Rather that commitment reflects, in a profound and specific, though not exclusive way, the love which God himself has for his creation insofar as he cares personally for every one of his sons and daughters.33 In this perspective it constitutes a serious pastoral responsibility, as well as a matter of charity and justice, to foster the authentic advancement of women, which will be achieved only if it is anchored in the truth of creation and of divine Revelation.

6. In the time remaining before the celebration of the 1994 Synod on "Consecrated Life and its Role in the Church and the World", I wish to call on the men and women religious of Canada to prepare for this event by ever more fervent prayer and reflection. Religious life is a gift of the Spirit "to" the Church and "for" the Church. Your extensive system of Catholic schools and hospitals would never have been established and could not continue its mission without the vision, determination and self-sacrifice of thousands of religious. I think especially of the heroic labours of St. Marguerite Bourgeoys, St. Marguerite d’Youville—Canada’s first native born saints—and Bl. Marie Léonie Paradis at whose beatification I presided during my Pastoral Visit to your country.

Yet you are all sadly aware that among certain groups the ideal of the religious life has lost ground in recent years, and we must hope that Canadian religious will use the occasion of the Synod "to reconsider the subject of their own renewal in light of the challenges and the opportunities of the present moment."34 It is especially urgent that they meditate on their common identity and foundational charism. In a spirit of profound humility and trusting in the power of him who "is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think",35 religious should examine to what extent the renewal envisaged by the Second Vatican Council has in fact taken place,36 and borne the expected fruits of holiness and apostolic zeal. As shepherds of the whole community in your dioceses, your own ministry extends to the religious present in your local churches. They need your support and guidance not just in their pastoral activities but also in promoting the observance of the evangelical counsels, whereby they are "consecrated to God in Jesus Christ as his exclusive possession."37

7. Dear brother bishops, it is towards evening of the second millennium, whose days are now far spent.38 I appeal to you, as pastors of the Church in Canada, to begin preparations for the great Jubilee of our Lord’s redemptive incarnation. Above all, strengthen and encourage, in every phase of pastoral life, a new "ardor for holiness"39 among priests, religious and laity. As Shepherds after the Lord’s own heart,40 lead the Catholic faithful to the wellspring of life: "and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."41

Relying upon the intercession of the saints of Canada, and entrusting you and all those in your pastoral care to the loving protection of our Lady, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing.

NOTES

1. Rv I:4

2. Cf. Rom 11:17 ff.

3. Cf. I Pt 5:4

4. Eph 3:8

5. Cf. Rvl9:7

6. Eph 5:29; Cf. Lumen gentium, n. 6

7. Cf. Rom 1:16

8. Cf. Ps 72:8

9. Cf. Ps 23:3

10. Cf. Jn 10:10-11

11. Cf. Jn 6:51

12. Cf. Lumen gentium, n. 11

13. Cf. Christifideles laici, n. 26

14. Cf. Lumen gentium, n. 10; Pastores dabo vobis, n. 48

15. Cf. Presbyterorum ordinis, n. 2

16. Congregation for Divine Worship, Directory for Sunday Celebrations, 2 June 1988, n. 27

17. Ibid., n. 21

18. Cf. Mt 9:38

19. Cf. From Pain to Hope, VII, Recommendation 50