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Engaging in talks directly with the Holy See is a World Wide Anglican group called "Traditional Anglican Communion" (TAC). It is led by their Archbishop John Hepworth of Australia.
In 1968 American Episcopalians in Mobile Alabama emerged from a meetings calling themselves the "American Episcopal Church". In 1977, there appeared a "Congress of Concerned Churchmen" in St. Louis , Mo.
The adopted the affirmation called "The Affirmation of St, Louis", affirming that the Catholic Church was "unalterable, and consisted of the Church's Faith and Tradition, the essential doctrines of Christian belief, based on the essential foundations of the Holy Scriptures, the writings of the Early Fathers of the Church, the authority of general councils, and the apostolic ministry of male bishops,priests and deacons." That happened in response to an American woman being ordained an Episcopal Priest! This soon brought the creation of the group called the "Anglican Catholic Church" under their Archbishop Louis Falk.
In 1991 they held a synod in Deerfield Beach, Florida, and declared that the "American Episcopal Church", of which half its members were those of the "Anglican Catholic Church" together became one body known as the "Anglican Church in America".
In 1990 they met in Colorado Springs, Co.; and 12 break-away Anglican Churches under their Archbishop Falk became The Traditional Anglican Communion".
They accepted the Catholic Sacraments, the first seven Euchemical Councils of the Holy Catholic Church, the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed...and hoped for reunification with the Catholic Church as an approved separate Ordre of Catholicism!
The bishops of the new Catholic Communion which they called, the "Traditional Anglican Communion" took orders from the Polish National Catholic Church which also had been going through their own reunification talks with Rome!

In 1994 the bishops of the "Traditional Anglican Communion" visited Rome in hope with unity with the Holy catholic Church of Rome. They wished to maintain their own liturgy and discipline, in a manner similar to the Greek Catholics which celebrate with thir Byzantine Liturgy and are in communion fully with Rome! They wanted to express their own beauty of the Church as it was practiced prior to Henry VIII 's Reformation in England. But, their biggest problem was they they accepted MARRIED PRIESTS and BISHOPS, obviously a no-no with the Holy See.

In 2003 their Archbishop Hepworth stated: "We have no [other] docrinal differences" with the Holy Catholic Chuch of Rome; and promoted their Cannons # 271-273.
Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola spoke out and said please inform Rome that if things could be worked out that they wanted to be part of the Catholic Church also; and be known as the "Uniate Church" within the Roamn See.

"Unity with Peter is a Bibical Imperative" said Hepworth.
Hepworth was a Catholic Priest until 1976 when he "became Anglican"! over marriage. He said he was in communion with disaffected Lutherans throughout Europe.
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If only Hepworth could understand Pope Benedict's expose about the Priesthood:
the Priesthood:
Of The Sacraments, in particular the Holy Priesthood, has been called, "The extension of God's physical touch".
Apostolic succession is something we feel as Catholics we uniquely possess, in contrary to all other faiths. The ordained priest is part of this line from Peter and the eleven others. If you remember watching (from the Sistine Chapel on Penticost this year), Our Holy Father laid his hands on, and ordained 21 Priests. No longer are these priests interested in doing what they think is correct, but rather they have given themselves totally over to Christ. They are Messengers of Christ, when they speak at Mass and Confession, in the first person, "I", it is not the priest speaking. IT IS CHRIST; THE "I AM" ! The following is Ratzinger's words:

"To apprehend the adventure of the nearness of God's word in all its breathtaking beauty and to get involved in it with body and soul belongs to the essence of the priest's vocation. For this reason we should spare no effort in discerning God's words...."
"As a priest I am not allowed to express my private views; I am the ambassador of another, and this alone makes my message important....I have to deliver the message of another, and this means first of all that I must know what it is, I have to have understood it, and I have to make it my own."....."I must pass the words of another in the first person and in a very personal way, and I must commit myself to them in such a way that they become my words entirely. For these words require not a telex operator but a WITNESS .....People put themselves at the disposal of the words and hand themselves over to the words. The essence of each and every priestly formation involves this process of getting to know, understanding, and entering into or immersing oneself in these words....subordination of one's own understanding to Church teaching, a SACRIFICIUM INTELLECTUS [quoting Fr. Kolvenbach]: Sacrifice, as the priest's personally entering into the body of Christ and on our understanding's entering into God's word which has been passed down to us...placing God's glory above everything else...a priest must totally devote himself to the word of God.
"Identifying ouselves with the words of faith and immersing ourselves in these words so that THEY BECOME OUR WORDS BECAUSE WE HAVE BECOME PART OF THEM....intellectual and spiritual dimensions are inseparable from each other...the most exciting news I can imagine at all....Only we are too dulled through every day use to grasp the awesomeness of this statement..."..."habit deadens"...


The priests function, finally, is very simple:
to be a voice for the Word,
He must increase and I must decrease.

The Ministry and Life
of Priests

By Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

NOTE: This is a reprint from the August-September 1997 issue of HPR

When the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council set to work on the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, they had already finished major debates on the nature of the episcopacy, and had made important statements on the position of the laity in the Church and on the religious life. 1 It was now time to provide a word of encouragement to priests, who day by day must bear the burden of working in the Lords vineyard. Of course, no merely pious exhortation would be enough: once the bishops had clarified the meaning and theological foundation of their own ministry, the words addressed to the priests, too, would require comparable theological depth. For only in this way could the work of priests be convincingly recognized, and their efforts be encouraged.

But such a message to priests was needed for more reasons than to give proportionate attention to the various states in the Church. When the Council Fathers had worked out the special significance of the bishops office in relation to the ministry of St. Peters successor, they could count on a wide-ranging consensus in the public opinion of both Church and world, especially within the Christian oikoumene. But it was otherwise when it came to the Catholic concept of the priesthood, the meaning of which was no longer self-evident, even in the consciousness of the Church. To be sure, the crisis over that concept, which would quickly come into the open after the Council, and lead to further crises concerning the very existence of the priesthood and the priestly vocation, was at the moment only in its first stages. One of its causes was an altered approach to life, in which the sacred was understood less and less, and the functional elevated to become the only valid category. But there were theological roots as well, which gained unexpected nourishment from the new conditions of society. The very exegesis of the New Testament seemed to establish a non-sacral view of all ecclesial tasks, removing all continuity between the sacral functions of the Old Testament and the new ministries of the infant Church. Still less could any connection be discerned with pagan conceptions of the priesthood. The very novelty of Christianity appeared to consist precisely in the de-sacralization of ministries. The servants of the Christian community were not called hiereis (the Greek equivalent of Latin sacerdotes) but presbyteroi, or elders. Now although the Protestant origins of modern exegesis were essentially operative in this manner of interpreting the New Testament, nothing could change the evidence that appeared to justify the conclusion: on the contrary, the burning question at the time was whether Luther was right after all, and not the Council of Trent.

Two opposing concepts of priestly ministry stoodand still standface to face. On one side, the social-functional view defines priesthood in terms of service; a service performed for the community, through carrying out a function of the Church in its social dimension. On the other side, the sacramental-ontological view, without denying the aspect of service, sees priesthood as rooted in the ministers being itself, and this being, in turn, as determined through a gift bestowed by the Lord through the Church, known as a sacrament. The functional view is also connected with a shift in terminology: expressions like priest and priesthood with their sacral connotations are avoided, and replaced by the neutral, functional words minister and ministry, until now hardly used in Catholic theology.

This difference in understanding the nature of the priesthood corresponds, to a certain extent, with a change of emphasis in the definition of the priests role: the classically Catholic centering of the priesthood on the Eucharist (sacerdossacrificium), as against the typically Protestant priority given to the Word. Now, a view of the priesthood that places primacy on the Word does not have to be anti-sacramental. The Vatican II Decree on Priests proves the contrary. But the question arises, whether the two different concepts must be mutually exclusive, or whether they might not reciprocally enrich each other, and resolve their own discord from within. This, then, was the question faced by the Second Vatican Council: how far could the classical, post-Tridentine image of the priest be broadened that is, how far could it satisfy the demands proposed by the Reformation, by critical exegesis, and by the modern attitude to lifewithout losing its essentials; and, vice versa, how far could the Protestant idea of the minister open itself up to the living tradition of the Church, both of East and West; for (likewise, since the Council of Trent) there has been no essential difference between the Catholic and the Orthodox notions of the priesthood.

1. The Nature of the Priestly Ministry

Vatican II did not enter into these problems that were then just beginning to surface. After the great debates on episcopal collegiality, on ecumenism, on religious freedom, and on the issues of the modern world, neither time nor energy were available for the Council Fathers. Since then, the 1971 and 1990 Synods have studied the subject of the priesthood and expanded on the Councils declarations, while the Popes Holy Thursday Letters to Priests and the Directory of the Congregation of the Clergy have been applying the theme more concretely to everyday priestly life. And if the conciliar decree does not explicitly take up positions in regard to present-day controversies, it provides the foundation for any further elaboration.

What, then, are the answers to the problems we have described? To put it briefly, the Council teaching cannot be reduced to either one of the alternatives. The decrees first definition of the priesthood states that by their consecration priests are ordained for the service of Christ as Teacher, Priest and King; they share in his ministry by virtue of which the Church here on earth is constantly being built up into the People of God, the Body of Christ and Temple of the Holy Spirit (no. 1). In the subsequent paragraphs, mention is made of the priests power to offer sacrifice and forgive sins (no. 2). But this special task of the priest is emphatically inserted into a dynamic, historical vision of the Church, in which all the faithful participate in the mission of the whole body though all have not the same function (cf. Rom. 12:4). To sum up the thinking thus far, we can state that the first chapter of the decree (nos. 2 and 3) heavily underlines the ontological aspect of priestly existence, and thereby emphasizes the power to offer sacrifice. Both elements are again stressed at the beginning of no. 3: Priests, taken from among the people, and ordained on their behalf in the things that pertain to God for the purpose of offering up gifts and sacrifices for sins (cf. Heb. 5,1), live with them as with their brothers. In contrast with the Council of Trent, there is a new emphasis on the lived unity and common path of the whole Church, into which the traditional conception of the priesthood has been inserted.

All the more, then, is our attention drawn to the beginning of the second chapter, where the concrete duties of the priest are described: It is the first task of priests, as co-workers of the bishops, to preach the Gospel of God to all (no. 4). This seems to affirm clearly the primacy of the word, or the ministry of preaching. The question then arises, what is the relationship between these two statements: a priest is ordained . . . for the purpose of offering up gifts and sacrifices; and his first task (primum . . . officium) is to preach the Gospel (Evangelium . . . evangelizandi)?

1.1 The Christological Foundation

To find a solution to this problem, we should first ask ourselves, What does it mean to evangelize? What really happens when someone does this? And just what is this Gospel? The Council could certainly have referred to the Gospels to establish the primacy of preaching. I have in mind here a short but significant episode from the beginning of Mark. Everyone was seeking out our Lord for his miraculous powers, but he goes off to a remote place to pray (Mark 1:35-39); when he is pressed by Simon and those who were with him, our Lord says, Let us go on to the nearby villages, so that I may preach there also, for this is what I have come out to do (1:3 . Jesus says that the purpose of his coming is to preach the Kingdom of God. Therefore this should also be the defining priority of all his ministers: they come out to proclaim the Kingdom, and that means, to make the living, powerful and ever-present God take first place in our lives. Now, for the correct understanding of this priority, two further insights can be gained from this brief pericope. First, this evangelization is to go hand in hand with a withdrawal into the solitude of personal prayersuch interior recollection appears, in fact, to be a necessary pre-condition for the preaching. Second, the preaching is connected with the casting out of devils (1:39): it is a matter not just of speech, but of effective action. And the preaching takes shape in no bright, happy world, but in a world tyrannized by demons, into which it intervenes, to liberate.

But we must take a further step, beyond the brief but meaningful passage of Mark, and take a look over the entire Gospel, for a correct understanding of Jesus own priority. He preaches the Kingdom of God, and he does so especially with parables, but also with signs, in which the living presence of the Kingdom draws near to men. Word and sign are inseparable. Whenever the signs are seen merely as wonders, but without meaning, Jesus ceases to perform them. But no more does he allow his evangelizing to be taken for a merely intellectual affair, a matter for discussion alone. His words demand decision; they bring reality. In this sense, his word is incarnate: the mutual relation of word and sign expresses a sacramental structure. 2

But we must go a step further. Jesus does not convey a knowledge that is independent from his own person, as any teacher or storyteller would do. He is something different from, and more than, a Rabbi. As his preaching unfolds, it becomes ever clearer that his parables refer to himself, that the Kingdom and his person belong together, that the Kingdom comes in his person. The decision that he demands is a decision about how one stands toward him, as with Peter, who said, You are the Christ (Mark 8:29). Ultimately, the message of his preaching about the Kingdom of God turns out to be quite clearly Jesus own Paschal mystery, his destiny of death and resurrection. We see this, for example, in the parable of the murderous vine-dressers (Mark 12:1-11). Word and reality are here intertwined in a new way: the parable arouses the anger of his adversaries, who do everything the parable says. They kill the son. This means that the parables would be void of meaning, were it not for the living person of the incarnate Son who has come out [exelthon] for this (Mark 1:3 , who was sent from the Father (Mark 12:6). The parables would be empty without a confirmation of his word by the Cross and the Resurrection. We now understand that Jesus preaching can be called sacramental in a deeper sense than we could have seen before. His word contains in itself the reality of the Incarnation and the theme of the Cross and the Resurrection. It is deed/word in this very profound sense, instructing the Church in the mutual dependence of preaching and the Eucharist, and in the mutual dependence, as well, of preaching and an authentic, living witness.

We take yet another step forward with the Paschal vision St. John presents us in his Gospel. Peter had said that Jesus is the Christ. John now adds that Jesus Christ is the Logos. He himself is the eternal Word of the Father, who is with God and who is God (John 1:1). In him, this Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). In Christian preaching, one is not dealing with words, but with the Word. When we speak of the ministry of the word of God, the inter-Trinitarian relation is also understood. 3 Yet at the same time, this ministry participates in the function of the Incarnation. 4 It has rightly been pointed out that the fundamental difference between the preaching of Jesus and the lessons of the Rabbis consists precisely in the fact that the I of Jesusthat is, he himselfis at the center of his message. 5 But we must also remember that Jesus himself understood that what especially characterized his speaking, was that he was not speaking in his own name (cf. John 5:43 & 7:16). His I is totally open to the Thou of the Father; it does not remain in itself, but takes us inside the very life of the Trinity. This means that the Christian preacher will not speak about himself, but will become Christs own voice, by making way for the Logos, and leading, through communion with the Man Jesus, to communion with the living God.

This brings us back to the Vatican II Decree on the Priesthood. It emphasizes a common characteristic found in all forms of preaching. The priest should never teach his own wisdom. What always matters is the word of God that impels towards truth and holiness (no. 4). With St. Paul as a model, the ministry of the word demands that the priest divest himself profoundly of his own self: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Gal. 2:20).

I would like to recall now an episode from the early days of Opus Dei, which illustrates the point. A young woman had the opportunity to listen for the first time to a talk given by Fr. Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei. She was very curious to hear a famous preacher. But after participating in a Mass he celebrated, she no longer wanted to listen to a human orator. She recounted later that from that moment on, her only interest was to discover the word and will of God.

The ministry of the word requires that the priest share in the kenosis of Christ, in his increasing and decreasing. The fact that the priest does not speak about himself, but bears the message of another, certainly does not mean that he is not personally involved, but precisely the opposite: it is a giving-away-of-the-self in Christ that takes up the path of his Easter mystery, and leads to a true finding-of-the-self, and communion with him who is the Word of God in person. This Paschal structure of the not-self that turns out to be the true self after all, shows, in the last analysis, that the ministry of the Word reaches beyond all functions to penetrate the priests very being, and presupposes that the priesthood is a sacrament.

1.2 Development in Tradition (St. Augustine)

Since we have now reached the central point of our discussion, I would like to illustrate it with two series of images taken from the works of St. Augustine. These images, which are taken from his biblical commentaries, have also had an important influence on the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church.

First of all, the priest is described as servus Dei or servus Christi. 6 This expression, the servant of Christ, which is taken from the ecclesiastical language of his time, has a background in the Christological hymn of the Letter to the Philippians (2:5-11): Christ, the Son who is equal to God, took on the condition of a servant, and became a slave for us. Here we must leave to one side Augustines profound theology on freedom and service as developed in the passage. What is pertinent to our theme is that servant is a relational concept. One is a servant only in relation to another. If the priest is defined as a servant of Jesus Christ, this means that his existence is essentially determined as relational. The essence of his ministry consists in his having been ordained for the service of the Lord, and this reaches into his very own being. He is a servant of Christ in order to be from him, through him, and with him, a servant of men. His being in relation to Christ is not opposed to his being ordained for the service of the community (of the Church); rather, it is the foundation that alone gives depth to that service. Being related to Christ means to be taken up into his existence as servant, and staying with him, at the service of the body, that is, the Church. Precisely because the priest belongs to Christ, he belongs, in a thoroughly radical sense, to men. Otherwise, he would be unable to dedicate himself profoundly and absolutely to them. This means, in turn, that the ontological concept of the priesthood, which affects the priests being, is not opposed to his important function as a minister to the community. In fact, the ontological aspect creates a service too radical to be conceived in any merely profane terms.

This image of servant is linked with the image of the indelible character, which has become part of the patrimony of the Churchs faith. In the language of late antiquity, the word character designated the permanent mark of ownership that was impressed upon an object, an animal, or even a person. The property was assigned irrevocably and called to its owner (clamat ad dominum). One could say that character signifies a belonging impressed on the very being of an object. To this extent, then, character expresses that being in relation, and being in reference to another, as we have mentioned. And such belonging is not simply at ones own disposal, to acquire or use as one pleases. The initiative comes from the owner, from Christ. This makes the sacramental nature obvious: I cannot simply declare that I belong to our Lord. He must first appropriate me as his own. Only then can I enter into the state of belonging, which I can accept, and try to live, as my own. The word character describes the ontological nature of the service to Christ that lies in the priesthood, while illustrating what is meant by sacramentality. Only from this perspective can we understand why St. Augustine describes the characterboth functionally and ontologicallyas the right of giving (ius dandi), the necessary precondition for valid administration of the sacraments. 7 To belong to our Lord, who has become a servant, is to belong to those who are his. This means that now the servant can, under the sacred sign, give what he could never give on his own. In fact, he can give the Holy Spirit, absolve from sins, make present the sacrifice of Christ, and Christ himself in his sacred Body and Blood, which are all rights reserved to God, which no man can acquire by himself or by delegation from any community. So if character is an expression of community service, it shows, on the one hand, that it is ultimately always our Lord who is acting, and on the other hand, that he nevertheless acts in the visible Church by means of men. Character thus guarantees the validity of a sacrament, even in the case of an unworthy servant, but at the same time stands in judgment on the servant, and obliges him to live the sacrament.

We can briefly touch on a second series of images St. Augustine used in his attempts to explain the nature of priestly service to himself and his faithful. They arose from his meditation on John the Baptist, whom he saw as prefiguring the priesthood. 8 Augustine points out that in the New Testament John is described, with an expression taken from Isaiah, as a voice, whereas Christ, in St. Johns Gospel, is called the Word. The relationship between voice (vox) and word (verbum) helps to clarify the relationship between Christ and the priest. A word exists in the heart before it is grasped by someone elses sense of hearing. Through the conveyance of the voice, it enters into anothers perception, and is then present in the other persons heart, without being lost by the one who speaks the word. The audible sound that is, the voicewhich bears the word from one person to another (or to others), passes away, but the word remains. The priests function, finally, is very simple: to be a voice for the Word: He must increase and I must decrease. The only purpose of the voice is to transmit the word, and then disappear. Here we see both the sublimity and the humility of the priesthood. Like John the Baptist, the priest is only a precursor, a servant and minister of the Word. The focus is not on himself but on the Other. Yet he is vox, voice, with all his being. It is his mission to become a voice for the word. It is precisely in this radical relatedness to another that he takes part in the grandeur of the Baptists mission, in the mission of the Logos himself. It is also in this context that Augustine calls the priest the friend of the bridegroom (John 3:29) who does not take the bride, but shares, as a friend, in the joy of the wedding: the Lord has made the servant into a friend (John 15:15), who now belongs to his household, and remains in his house, no longer as a servant, but as a free man (Gal. 4:7; 4:21-5:1). 9

2. Christology and Ecclesiology: The Ecclesial Character of the Priesthood

Up to this point, we have been speaking about the Christological character of the priesthood, which always has a Trinitarian character as well, because the Son, by nature, comes from the Father and returns to him. He communicates himself in the Holy Spirit, who is love and giving personified. But the conciliar decree rightly goes a step further in emphasizing the ecclesial character of the priesthood, which is inseparable from its Christological-Trinitarian foundation. The Incarnation of the Word signifies that God does not simply wish to come, by way of the Spirit, directly to the spirit of man, but rather, that he seeks man by means of the material world, and wants to move man precisely as a social and historical being. God chooses to come to us through other human beings. God has come to us in such a way that we find our way to one another through him, and starting from him. The Incarnation thus brings with it a faith that is both communal and historical. The way through the body signifies that the reality of time and human sociability become factors in mans relationship to God, which in turn are based on the antecedent relationship of God to men. Consequently, Christology and ecclesiology are inseparable: Gods action creates the people of God, and it is through Christ that the people of God becomes the body of Christ, according to St. Pauls profound interpretation, in the Letter to the Galatians, of the promise made to Abraham. As Paul knew from the Old Testament, this promise is made to the seed of Abraham, that is, not to many, but to a single one. The action of God therefore tends to make us, the many, become not simply one thing, but One, in bodily communion with Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:16 ff., 2 .

Now it is from this profoundly ecclesiological aspect of Christology that the Council derives the world-historical dynamic of the Christ-event, to whose service priests are ordained. The ultimate goal, for all of us, is to become happy. But happiness is only to be found in togetherness, and togetherness is only to be found in the infinitude of love. Happiness is found only in the opening of self to the divine; that is, in divinization. In this sense the Council says, with Augustine, that the goal of history is for humanity to become love, and that means adoration, living worship, the very City of God (civitas Dei); thus the deepest longing of creation will be realized: that God may be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28; Presbyterorum ordinis no. 2, ll. 44-45; St. Augustine, De civitate Dei 10, 6). Only in this broad perspective can we really understand what worship is, or what the sacraments are.

Now this vision, which directs our attention on a large scale, and to ultimate questions, can also lead us back to very concrete matters. As we have seen, Christian faith is never purely spiritual and interior, and can never be a purely subjective or private-personal relationship to Christ and his word. Rather, it is a concrete, ecclesial reality. For this reason the Council, perhaps forcing the matter a bit, underlines the bond priests have with their bishop. They represent him, act in his name, and receive their mission from him. The great Christological obedience, which reverses Adams disobedience, is concretized in ecclesial obedience, which, for the priest, means obedience to his own bishop. Certainly the Council could have insisted more strongly that there must first be a common obedience of all to the Word of God and his example, as presented in the living tradition of the Church. This common bond of obedience is also common freedom: it offers protection against arbitrariness, and guarantees the authentically Christological character of ecclesial obedience. Ecclesial obedience is not positivistic; it is not simply paid to a merely formal authority, but rather to someone who obeys on his own part, too, and personifies the obedient Christ. And yet such obedience does not, of course, depend on the virtue and holiness of the office-holder, precisely because it refers to the objectivity of faith, a gift from our Lord that transcends all subjectivity. In this sense, obedience to ones bishop always transcends the local Church: it is a catholic obedience. The bishop is obeyed because he represents the universal Church in this specific place. And such obedience also points beyond the current moment, since it is directed to the totality of the history of the faith. It is based on all that has grown to maturity in the communio sanctorum, and thus opens itself up to the future, in which God will be all in all, and we will all be one. From this point of view, the demand of obedience makes a very serious demand on the one who holds authority. This does not mean, again, that obedience is conditional. It is very concrete. I do not obey a Jesus that I or some others have constructed out of Sacred Scripture; in that case, I would only be obeying my own favorite notions: by adoring the image of Jesus I have invented, I would be adoring myself. No! To obey Christ means to obey his body, to obey him in his body.

Ever since the Letter to the Philippians, Jesus obedience, understood as victory over the disobedience of Adam, has been at the center of the history of salvation. In the priests life, this obedience should be incarnated in obedience to the Churchs authority, and concretely, that means to the bishop. Only then is there a real rejection of the idolatry of self. Only then will the Adam within us be overcome, and the new humanity formed. Today, when emancipation is considered as the essence of redemption, and freedom is presented as the right for me to do everything I want to do, and nothing I dont want to do, the very concept of obedience has, so to speak, been anathematized. It has been eliminated not only from our vocabulary, but also from our thinking. But this erroneous notion of freedom makes unity and love impossible. It makes man a slave. A rightly understood obedience must be rehabilitated, and assume once more its true value at the center of Christian and priestly spirituality.

3. Spiritual Applications

Christology, when approached from a pneumatological and Trinitarian standpoint and thus taken in an ecclesial sense, naturally leads to spirituality, to the way faith is lived in practice. Since the Constitution on the Church had already provided the dogmatic basis, the Councils decree on priestly life and ministry could attend directly to this aspect, and give very concrete instruction on priestly spirituality. I would like to develop one aspect of this. In no. 14 the decree deals with the difficult problem faced by the priest who often finds himself torn between a great number of very different tasks. How can he preserve the interior unity of his life? Given the diminishing number of priests, this problem threatens to become the principal crisis in priestly life. A pastor today, with three or four parishes at his charge, will have to be constantly on the move. Missionaries are very familiar with this situation, but it is beginning to become something like a norm even in countries which have been Christian for centuries. The priest has to try to guarantee the celebration of the sacraments in the communities. He is harried by administrative tasks. He is challenged by issues of every kind, together with the personal problems of so many individuals for whom he often cannot find the time. Pulled in all directions by these activities, the priest feels empty and less and less able to find time for the recollection which could provide him with fresh energy and inspiration. Scattered on the outside and empty on the inside, the priest can lose the joy of his vocation and end up regarding it as a burden too heavy to endure. The only solution is to flee.

The Council offers three ways to overcome this situation. They are based on intimate communion with Christ, whose food was to do the will of the Father (John 4:34). The first one serves as a foundation: the priest needs to develop a living awareness of his ontological union with Christ, which is then expressed in his activity: Everything I do, I do in communion with him. Precisely in doing it, I am with him. No matter how multiple, or even contradictory my activities may seem to others, they still constitute a single vocation: it is all being together with Christ, acting as an instrument in communion with him.

A second indication follows from the first. Priestly asceticism should not be placed alongside pastoral action as if it were an additional burden, just one more assignment added to an already overwhelming day. It is precisely in action that I learn to overcome myself, to lose and give my life. In disappointments and failure I learn renunciation, acceptance of suffering and detachment from self. With the joy of success I learn gratitude. In the celebration of the sacraments, I inwardly benefit. In fact, there is no external work I perform in which I do not speak with Christ, and with the triune God through Christ. Thus I pray with others and for others. This askesis of service, or my ministry itself as the true asceticism of my life, is without any doubt a very important idea, but it requires constant, conscious exercise, an interior ordering of priestly action that comes from being a priest.

But there is still a third indispensable element. Even if I strive to approach service as asceticism and see sacramental action as a personal encounter with Christ, there have to be some moments when I can take time out, and catch my breath from activity, to ensure this interior orientation. The conciliar decree says that priests will achieve this only by penetrating deeply, with their own lives, into the mystery of Christ. In this connection, it is very moving to read what St. Charles Borromeo says, based on his own experience: If he wishes to attain a truly priestly life, a priest must employ the appropriate means, that is: fasting, prayer, and the avoidance both of bad company and of harmful and dangerous familiarity. If a tiny spark of Gods love already burns within you, do not expose it to the wind, for it may get blown out. . . . Stay quiet with God.. . . Are you in charge of the souls of the parish? If so, do not neglect your own soul, do not give yourself to others so completely that you have nothing left for yourself. You have to be mindful of your people without becoming forgetful of yourself. . . . When you administer the sacraments, meditate on what you are doing. When you celebrate Mass, meditate on the sacrifice you are offering. When you pray the office, meditate on the words you are saying and the Lord to whom you are speaking. When you take care of your people, meditate on whose blood has washed them clean. . . . 10 The verb meditate, repeated four times, shows the importance, for this great pastor of souls, of the deepening of our inner life as a basis for action. And we know very well how much Charles Borromeo gave himself to his people. He died at 46, worn out by his dedication to his ministry. This man who was truly consumed for Christ, and through him, for his fellow men, teaches us that such dedication is impossible without the regimenand refugeof an authentic, faithful interiority. This is a lesson we must learn, over and over again.

In recent decades, having interior life has been widely mistrusted as escapism, as an excessive search for privacy. Yet ministry without spirituality, without interior life, leads to empty activism. Not a few priests, who set out on their mission with great idealism, fail in the end because of a mistrust for spirituality. To have time for God, to face him personally and intimately, is a pastoral priority of equal or even greater importance than all the other priorities. It is not an added duty, but the souls very breath, without which we would be out of breaththe spiritual breath, or breathing (spiritus) of the Holy Spirit within us. Although there are other important and appropriate ways to recuperate spiritually, the fundamental way to recover from activity and to learn to love it again, is the interior search for the face of God, which always restores our joy in God. One of the greatest, and most humble, parish priests of our century, Fr. Didimo Mantiero (1912-1992) from Bassano del Grappa [Italy], wrote in his spiritual diary: Converts have always been made through the prayer and sacrifice of unknown faithful. Christ won souls, not by the force of his marvelous words, but by the power of his constant prayer. He preached by day, but at night he prayed. 11 Souls, that is, living men and women, cannot be drawn to God simply by convincing arguments or discussions. They have to be won through prayerby God, and for God. Christian interior life is also the most important pastoral activity. In our pastoral plans this point ought to be given much greater importance. We must learn, again and again, that we need less discussionand more prayer.

A Look Ahead: The Unity of Old and New Testaments in Christ

In conclusion, I would like to turn once more to the problem I sketched out in the introduction. What does the New Testament tell us about the priesthood of the Church? Does such a thing really exist? Or were the Reformers right when they accused the Church of betraying the newness of Christianity, of nullifying the change Christ brought, by turning the elder (presbyter) back into a priest (sacerdos)? Shouldnt the Church have remained strictly faithful to the function of the elder without any sacralization or sacramentalization? We cannot get the correct answer merely by studying the terms priest (=presbyter) and hiereus (=sacerdos), terms originally different but later united. One has to go deeper, since the whole question of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments is at stake. Does the New Testament constitute what is essentially a break with the past or, rather, a fulfillment in which the old continues, but is completely transformed and, really, restored in the new? Is grace opposed to the law, or is there an inner connection between the two?

Historically, it should be pointed out first of all, that in the year 70 A.D. the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed, and with it disappeared the whole sector of sacrifice and priesthood that had been, in certain respects, at the heart of the law. Judaism sought to preserve what had been lost by applying the prescription of the holiness of the Temple to the life of the Jewish people in general. 12 And it anchored the lost heritage of the Temple in its spirituality, through the prayerful hope of re-establishing worship in Jerusalem. The synagogue, which is above all a gathering place for prayer, for preaching and hearing the word, is but a fragment, living in expectation of something much bigger. A strict Reformation interpretation of Christian ministry and worship reduces Christianity to the image of the synagogue, that is, to meeting, word and prayer. The historicist reading of the uniqueness of Christs sacrifice banishes sacrifice and cult to the past, and excludes from the present both priesthood and sacrifice. Meanwhile, it is being increasingly observed, even by those within Churches that began at the Reformation, that this reading misses the grandeur and depth of the New Testament event. And it could even imply that the Old Testament was not, in fact, fulfilled.

In Christs resurrection, however, the Temple is reconstructed by Gods own power (John 2:19). Christ, the living Temple, is himself the new sacrifice, which continues today in the body of Christ, the Church. Coming from this sacrifice, and oriented toward it, we have the true, priestly ministry of the new worship, in which all the figures have been fulfilled.

We must therefore reject the view that the Churchs worship and priesthood entails a clean break with the history of pre-Christian salvation, a view that consequently denies any continuity from the priesthood of Old Testament to the priesthood of the New. For in this view, the New Testament would not be a fulfillment of the Old Covenant but would stand in opposition to it. This would effectively destroy the internal unity of the history of salvation. By means of the sacrifice of Christ and its acceptance in the Resurrection, the entire heritage of worship and priesthood of the Old Covenant is handed over to the Church. The fullness of the Christian Yes counters any attempt to reduce the Church to the synagogue. This is the only way to understand fully, and in depth, the ministry of the Apostolic succession. In this way we should not feel ashamed, or make any excuses for affirming, that, Yes, the priesthood of the Church continues and renews the priesthood of the Old Testament, which finds its true fulfillment precisely in this radical and transforming newness.

This position is important even for relations between Christianity and other world religions. Although Christianity is a new beginningthe greatest and most radically new reality that has come from Godit does not negate the efforts of other religions, in their Advent-like gestures toward the meaning of mans existence; however much distorted and deformed, their search is not in vain.

This concept of the priesthood in no way implies a devaluation of the common priesthood of the baptized. Once again, it is Augustine who has beautifully expressed this by calling all the faithful servants of God, while he calls priests servants of the servants, thus designating the faithful as their masters. 13 The priesthood of the New Testament means following in the footsteps of our Lord, who washes the feet of his disciples: his greatness cannot subsist except in humility. Greatness and self-abasement have been intertwined, ever since Christwho is the greatestbecame the least; ever since the one who is first, took the last place. To be a priest means to enter into this communion of self-abasement, in order to share in the universal glory of the redemption.

NOTES

1 Lecture given on October 24, 1995, during the International Symposium organized by the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of Presbyterorum Ordinis.

2 This idea of mutual relationship has been developed in my little book, Evangelium-Katechese-Katechismus (Munich, 1995) 35-43.

3 F. Genn, Trinitt und Amt nach Augustinus, (Einsiedeln, 1986) 181.

4 Ibid., 183.

5 Cf. Robert Aron, Jesus of Nazareth: the Hidden Years (trans. fr. French; London, 1962) 170-1; J. Neusner, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 1993) 30.

6 Cf. Genn, op .cit., (in note 3 above) 101-123; on the general use of the expression Servus Dei at the time of St. Augustine, see Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Oxford, 1967) 132-7.

7 Genn, op. cit., 34, 63ff.; on the ancient concept of character (corresponding to the Greek stigma, sphragis) cf. H. Schlier, Die Brief an die Galater (Gttingen, 1962) 284, for additional bibliography.

8 Sermo 293, 1-3 (Patrologia Latina [ed. Migne] vol. 38, 1327ff.)



9 Genn, op. cit., 139 ff.

10 Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis (Milan, 1599) 1177ff.; Reading of the Liturgy of the Hours for November 4.

11 L. Grygiel, La Dieci di Don Didimo Mantiero (Ed. San Paolo, 1995) 54.

12 Cf. Neusner, op.cit., (in note 5 above) e.g. 114ff.

13 Genn, op.cit., 117ff.


His Eminence, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, was professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Regensburg before he was appointed Archbishop of Munich, Germany in the early 1980s. After serving just a few years in the city of Munich, he was appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican, a position which he has held with distinction ever since. This lecture was given by him in October 1995 and was translated into English by Edward G. Maristany and Gerald Malsbary.

NOTE: He is now our Holy Father!
Articles

* Pastoral Issues in Cohabitation
by Michael Orsi
* The Liberating Truth of Catholic Teaching on Sexual Morality
by William E. May
* Cardinal Ratzinger on Liturgical Music
by Michael J. Miller
* Ratzinger on the Modern Mind
by James V. Schall
* Ratzinger on Europe
by James V. Schall
* God Has No Daughters: Masculine Imagery in the Liturgy
by Leon J. Podles
* The Morality of Refusing Medical Treatments
by John Balluff
* The Ministry and Life of Priests,
by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
* On the Uniqueness of Catholicism and the Diversity of Religions,
by James V. Schall
* Liturgy and the Musician: Collision or Synthesis?,
by Basil Cole
* Orthodox Catholics Sometimes Hurt the Cause, by Michael Orsi
* Faith and Works: A Biblical Language of Salvation, by David Paul Deavel


The spouse of the Priest is the Church. [The Priest's children are his parishoners.]
(The Church is also the house of "the Body of Christ". The parishoners are the living stones which make-up the structure of the Church.* )
But also, as Joseph Ratzinger wrote, the Holy Priesthood requires a sacrifice of its Priests, in similitude of the Ultimate sacrifice of Christ. According to Joseph Ratzinger, Celebacy is a sacrifice because it is the most natural thing for a man to want to marry and produce offspring in his image. In denying himself progeny, the priest is laying out ahead of himself the ultimate sacrifice outside of martydom. And in a way is placing his life in death's valley in the sense that he, as a priest, will not produce any future "issue" in his steed. It is not for everyman. And he must be totally committed to this, and fully understand and comprehend its consequences, for there is no room to deny it after he is ordained.
The Church is always referred to as "she", and "Mother" !
The Church is symbolic of Mary in her purity; who brought forth in her womb "the body of Christ".
This is one obvious reason it would be a farce for women to be ordained.
Women do not marry Women [OR SHOULD NOT ANYWAY !].

We also believe in monogamy, only those priests who were
married prior to entering into the Holy orders of priesthood have human spouses...[because obviously, marriages cannot be simply "dissolved"]. Yet, such priests, who have human spouses, you will never find rightfully consecrating the "Host" !



Andrew Rabel of Australia wrote this report for "Inside the Vatican" July 2005 issue.

Robert, I Quote you:
"Some RC liturgy is appalling, irrespective of the rite!"*

Please explain! For I know the "Liturgy" is all so beautiful; but sometimes those who exercise its celebration may not respect the "Liturgy" and the wealth of its standards....
------------------------------------------
*and just prior to that you say: "I do enjoy the orthodox (but not the rabid!) postings on this website."

By whom, may I ask [as Chris removes, by his keen and careful eye and kind sense of respect; as well as censors anything which might be considered "rabid" in any manner of terminology] is this perpetrated???

Signed by Jesuit Father Karl Josef Becker, we focus on No. 8 of the dogmatic constitution "Lumen Gentium," which affirms that "the one Church of Christ subsists in [subsistit in] the Catholic Church, which is governed by the Successor of Peter and by Bishops in communion with him." Of what the decree "Unitatis Redintegratio" affirms on ecumenism, Father Becker draws two conclusions:
First is that "the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church and it remains in her forever in its fullness. Before, during and after the Council, the doctrine of the Catholic Church has been, is and will be this."
Second, the theologian clarifies that "in the other Christian communities there are ecclesial elements of truth and sanctification that are proper to the Catholic Church and drive toward unity with her."
One defends, with the Second Vatican Council, the permanence of all the salvific elements instituted by Christ, only to be found in the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Benedict XVI declared on Aug. 15 in Cologne, Germany: "The Catholic Church is committed to tolerance, respect, friendship and peace among all peoples, cultures and religions."
Archbishop Lajolo added: "This in no way means that she renounces her own identity or the freedom to express her convictions, indeed it supposes them and consolidates them."

Thank you....