Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

Priesthood and transformation

The impending closure of numerous parishes across the Edmonton Archdiocese has finally given impetus to something which should have occurred long ago - a widespread desire to find new priests to serve our archdiocesan community. The goal is certainly a worthy one. We do need more priests.

But we also need to examine why we want these priests. If the reason we desire more priests is to freeze our parish structure in its current form then we ought to develop a wider vision. Or, if the reason we want more priests is so that the priests will do everything in our parishes and lay people can remain as or return to being passive Sunday churchgoers then again we need a wider vision.

It is in parishes that the rubber meets the road. If the Catholic faith is alive in an area, that will be evident first of all in its parishes. But that should not lead us to idolize our parishes. In any society, especially in one in rapid transition such as Alberta is, parish boundaries will change from time to time. In the Edmonton Archdiocese, this is true not only in areas of rural depopulation, but also in Edmonton itself. The parish should be the hub of Catholic life, not the god that we worship.

Pope John Paul has prophesied a new advent, a new springtime of faith. He describes that advent in terms of the "new evangelization" - a re-proclaiming of the Gospel in traditionally Christian countries which are falling away from the faith. This new evangelization aims not only at packing the pews for Sunday Mass but, more basically, at the total transformation of society with Gospel values.

This vision is not a harkening back to some romanticized good ol' days - it is a realization of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. The council taught that the laity, "working in harmony, should renew the temporal order and make it increasingly more perfect: such is God's design for the world." But if that work is to be God's work and not some mere human ideology, it must be grounded in word and sacrament.

Vital to the transformation of society, then, is a renewed priesthood. The work of Vatican II - the new evangelization - cannot take place without fervent preaching and the celebration of the sacraments. Five of those sacraments cannot be celebrated without a priest. In short, we cannot carry out God's work of transforming society without a sufficient number of priests.

"We," in this context, does not mean the bishops and priests. The council was clear in stating that it is the role of the Catholic laity to be the leaven which transforms society from within. Priests are priests - they take the humble works of the laity and unite them with Christ's one redemptive sacrifice through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. The laity, filled with the Holy Spirit, bring that Spirit into places where he could not go without the feet and hands of baptized and confirmed lay people.

The Catholic Church is not a priest-centred church. It is a Christ-centred Church. But the action of the Church cannot take place without an ample number of priests.

In this context, the key point is not whether enough priests exist to keep every parish open for all eternity. The crucial point is whether we have enough priests for the Church to carry out its mission in this part of the world. It appears we don't and that's why we ought to be vigourous in seeking out the men who will enable the Church to do the work of Jesus Christ.

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