Truth and the Mission of the Catholic Priest
By Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Rome
January 14, 2025
The essence or “real idea” (John Henry Newman) of the Sacrament of Orders is expressed in the words of the Risen Lord to his apostles:
“‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you… Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (Jn 20: 21-23).
In the room of the Last Supper, after washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus had already told them, with Peter at their head: “Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send, receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.”(Jn 13:20)
In other words but with the same meaning of the sacramental priesthood representing Jesus Christ, the head of his body, the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Holy Church Jesus says to the seventy disciples-two who are linked to the circle of the Twelve in participating in his messianic consecration and mission:
“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” (Lk 10:16)
In the historical development of the Church’s faith awareness there is no increase in number of the articles of faith over time but rather a deeper understanding of their meaning (analogia fidei) – which always remains organically connected (nexus mysteriorum) to the totality of the revelation of the one and triune God (Thomas Aquinas, S.th. II-II q.1 a.7).
Vatican II summarizes this: “Christ, whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world (Jn 10:36), has, through his apostles, made their successors, the bishops, partakers of his consecration and his mission. […] Priests, although they do not possess the highest degree of the priesthood, and although they are dependent on the bishops in the exercise of their power, nevertheless they are united with the bishops in sacerdotal dignity. By the power of the sacrament of orders, in the image of Christ the eternal High Priest (cf. Heb 5:1-10; 7:24; 9:11-28), they are consecrated to preach the gospel and shepherd the faithful and to celebrate divine worship, so that they are true priests of the New Testament” (LG 28).
Thanks to the Incarnation and the eschatological sending of the Holy Spirit, the Church of the triune God is the universal sacrament of the world’s salvation. This alone makes it possible to comprehend the Christological origin, apostolic descent and profound spiritual efficacy of the ministry of priests as teachers of the Divine word, pastors of he souls and distributors of the sacramental graces.
The Church was not founded by Christ in order to pursue her own worldly interests but rather for the sake of the unique interest that God has in each one of his creatures. For we profess of the eternal Son of the Father: propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de cælis et incarnatus est.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). The Catholic priest is “one approved by him [God], a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth”(2 Tim 2; 15; cf.1 Tim 6:11).
What then is “the word of truth” or “sound teaching” that he is to proclaim as “a herald and an apostle and a teacher” (2 Tim 1:11ff.) without being ashamed or fearing the world (Rm 1,16)?
It is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mc 1,1).The gospel is the message of the event that brought for us the final turn for the better, the message of “God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim 1, 8-10). And this “word of truth” is to be found in “the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15). Paul writes to the Romans: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith’” (Rom 1:16f.).
The bishops and presbyters are servants of Jesus Christ and must take care of the Church like a devoted father takes care of his household (cf. 1 Tim 3:5.15).
Just as Paul was appointed as a witness to Christ, “a herald and an apostle […], a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth” (1 Tim 2:7), so, too, his pupils and collaborators in apostolic ministry and then also, as they continue the apostles’ mission and authority, the bishops and presbyters should profess that “there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all – this was attested at the right time” (1 Tim 2: 5f.).
Servants of the New Covenant in the Holy Spirit
The Apostle boasts that God has made him and his co-workers competent to be “ministers of a new covenant” (2 Cor 3:6). He exercises the “ministry of the Spirit”, which leads to life, not the ministry of the letter, which kills. How “much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory” than the “ministry of condemnation” in the Old Covenant (cf. 2 Cor 3:9).
So priests should become aware of the glory of their ministry so that they can cope with the sufferings, insults and privations that they will inevitably encounter in their sacred vocation. The apostles and their successors are empowered in the Holy Spirit to be “ministers of a new covenant” (2 Cor 3:6) because “the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19) has been entrusted to them to proclaim. It belongs to the New Covenant to make present Jesus’ sacrificial self-giving “with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Hb 9:12). Precisely in the ministry of those called to be apostles it must become clear that they are disciples of the betrayed, condemned and crucified Lord. This distinguishes the office of priest from secular positions of power with their high social prestige in the eyes of man. But from their religious superiors, their bishops and from the Pope as pastor of the universal Church priests need spiritual strengthening in their faith (cf. Lk 22:32).
Priests – who frequently meet with hostility, come up against a wall of silence and find themselves derided as being out of touch with the world – are in need of comfort not paternalism and public reprimand. The bishops in particular, on whom “the fullness of the sacrament of Orders [plenitudo sacramenti ordinis] is conferred” (LG 21), should be an example and pattern to the priests for their spiritual and moral life. Part of this is to offer them reassurance concerning the dogmatic foundations. For if it were not true that the Catholic priesthood originates from Christ and is passed on through its own special sacrament, then, although it could act in its own name, it would not be able to mediate supernatural life in the power of the Holy Spirit. As successors to the apostles, the bishops, together with the priests and deacons, are appointed by God in the Sacrament of Orders “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph 4:12).
Vatican II sums this up concisely: “Wherefore the priesthood […] is conferred by that special sacrament; through it priests, by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are signed with a special character and are conformed to Christ the Priest in such a way that they can act in the person of Christ the Head” (PO 2).
The one sacrament in its three degrees of ordination
Priests are, together with their bishop, who is the visible head of the presbyterium, in the words of Vatican II: “…true priests of the New Testament. Partakers of the function of Christ the sole Mediator (1 Tim 2:5), on their level of ministry, they announce the divine word to all. They exercise their sacred function especially in the eucharistic worship or the celebration of the Mass, by which, acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming his Mystery, they unite the prayers of the faithful with the sacrifice of their Head and renew and apply in the sacrifice of the Mass until the coming of the Lord(cf. 1 Cor 11:26) the only sacrifice of the New Testament, namely, that of Christ offering himself once for all a spotless Victim to the Father (cf. Hb 9:11-28). For the sick and the sinners among the faithful, they exercise the ministry of alleviation and reconciliation, and they present the needs and the prayers of the faithful to God the Father (cf. Hb 5:1-4). Exercising within the limits of their authority the function of Christ as Shepherd and Head, they gather together God’s family as a brotherhood all of one mind and lead them in the Spirit, through Christ, to God the Father. In the midst of the flock they adore him in spirit and in truth (cf. Jn 4:24). Finally, they strive in word and doctrine (cf. 1 Tim 5:17), believing what they have read and meditated upon in the law of God, teaching what they have believed, and putting in practice in their own lives what they have taught” (LG 28).
We can see clearly how by the second half of the first century, the apostolic functions of teaching, governing and sanctifying had already been transferred to the leaders of the communities, the episkopoi, presbyteroi and diakonoi. The official title “presbyter” at first denotes more the rank of leaders whereas episkopos is used more for the task of the person in charge of welfare. In the biblical context, the latter becomes a synonym for a shepherd/pastor. But the term apostle, too, displays a connection with the names for office holder of the post-apostolic period. The “episcopacy” taken away from Judas Iscariot is transferred to the subsequently chosen Apostle Matthias (Acts 1:20-26). And the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord entrusted the universal care of his lambs and sheep (cf. Jn 21:15-19), addresses himself as a fellow presbyter (1 Pet 5:1) to the shepherds of God’s flock, which was entrusted to them, too, by Christ. The faithful are called upon to consider “Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession” (Heb 3:1), “the great shepherd of the sheep” (Heb 13:20).
There is a recognisable Christological, apostolic and ecclesial connection underlying the development the technical terms to denote the office and determining the direction this takes. It is both senseless and confusing to translate “presbyter” with “elder” because it is not a question of the advantage of age but rather one of the precedence of the responsibility accorded to the office. Presbyters can quite easily be younger than their parishioners.
The college of presbyters has a head, who in the course of linguistic developments in the 2nd century came to be referred to almost exclusively as a bishop, as compared to the presbyters, who now belonged to the second degree. The bishop ranks above the others, not on account of holding a position of greater power in the political sense or as within the organisation of a club, but because within the apostolic succession, in which all office-holders participate, he represents the principle of its Christological-vertical and apostolic-horizontal origins. So all presbyters are pastors or shepherd, but their bishop is the head shepherd pastor. “Thus the divinely established ecclesiastical ministry is exercised on different levels” (LG 28). The emerging terminology is more akin to Canon Law inasmuch as the one apostolic office is exercised “by those who from antiquity have been called bishops, priests [presbyters] and deacons” (ibid.). It must be added that bishop and presbyter are combined in the term priest-sacerdos on account of their inner closeness to Christ, the Head of the Church, whom they represent when presiding at the Eucharist, from which the Church lives.
Even after the emergence of the threefold office of bishop, presbyter and deacon and despite the different degrees of ordination and powers, what remains crucial is the direct personal relationship of every single office-holder to Christ. The presbyter is not the bishop’s delegate. The priest preaches, governs and sanctifies his parish in the authority and power of Christ, the true Head of the Church, while at the same time recognising the visible head of the Church in the bishop, too. The “fullness of the sacrament of Orders” (LG 21) is conferred on the bishops, so that they sanctify and govern the faithful in the person of the Head of the Church. But on their own level the presbyters also participate in the office of mediator and priest of Christ, which they exercise most supremely in the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice. So in spite of their hierarchical dependence on the bishop they are along with him “true priests of the New Testament” (LG 28), who teach, govern and sanctify in the person of Christ, the Head of the Church.
The distinguishing of the degrees of orders in passing on apostolic authority arose from the need for the various ministries in the Church. This has resulted in a system of the many co-workers, who are joined together in the bishop as the principle of the unity of the servants of the Church and the multiplicity of God’s co-workers, forming a communio of the presbytery and clergy of a diocese. This is why it is the bishop alone who confers orders through prayer and imposition of hands (Thomas Aquinas, S.th. Suppl. q.37 a.5). The bishop possesses the completio potestatis over the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ (S. th. suppl. q. 38 a. 1). In the unity of its origins in the apostolate, the Sacrament of Orders is not, despite the multiple degrees of ordination, something pieced together like parts of a whole. There is only one Sacrament of Orders that is participated in, albeit with graduated degrees of powers imparted. It is a distinctio totius potestativi in such a way that the fullness of power is given in one person, namely the bishop, who passes it on to different degrees in the ordination of priests and deacons and in the minor orders.
The fullness of the Sacrament of Orders is realised in the priesthood (according to the orders of bishops and priests), and in the other degrees of ordination within the limits of the powers conferred. Hence there is only one single Sacrament of Orders but a multiplicity of bearers of it in the different degrees of ordination (Thomas Aquinas, S.th. suppl. q.37 a.1 ad 2). The question of the dogmatic difference between bishop and presbyter and consequently of the sacramentality of episcopal consecration – which remains unclarified in most scholastic authors – is not going to be dealt with here. An answer is in any case only possible by examining more closely how their authority is directed towards the sacramental Body of Christ and the ecclesial Body of Christ. Vatican II decided the question dogmatically by stating that that the fullness of the Sacrament of Orders is transmitted “of its very nature” through episcopal consecration (LG 21). The bishop’s power to ordain and the chief pastor’s power of jurisdiction must not be torn apart. In episcopal ordination Christ bestows the authority to preach, to sanctify and to govern. This is not contradicted by the fact that bishops only exercise their offices of sanctifying, teaching and governing with the consent of the Roman Pontiff (LG 22; Nota praevia explicativa 2). But the relationship of the Pope to the bishops is not like that, for instance, of the Superior General of the Society of Jesus to his provincial superiors or of the Holy See as a subject of international law to the apostolic nuncios. That is why the Pope can only appoint bishops or remove them from office as a punishment according to a regulated procedure. Their equality in episcopal orders precludes all arbitrariness, the latter being nothing but harmful to the Church. For the Pope is not the Lord of the Church and the boss of the bishops, but rather “a permanent and visible source and foundation” of the unity of the universal Church and the whole episcopate in order to serve the truth of the gospel and the Church’s teaching” (LG 18).
The unity of the common priesthood and the sacramental priesthood in Christ
The relationship between clergy and laity is also not determined by the principle of one ruling over the other, but rather by their unity in the service of the Church for the salvation of the world. Their shared mission is rooted in Baptism, through which we become members of the one Body of Christ, the Church. This shared but also different participation in the priesthood of Christ is where the communion and mission of the Church are carried out: in the priesthood of all the baptized and in that of those ordained in the Sacrament of Orders as pastors of the People of God, that is, the bishops, priests and deacons.
It was the secret of the success of Reformation preaching that through the “rediscovery” of the universal priesthood the laity felt liberated from religious spoon-feeding by the “hierarchy” of Pope and bishops and from having to make financial contributions towards the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which the priest alone – for money – appeared to be able to procure the forgiveness of sins for the living and the dead. Now they no longer had to rely on the sacraments and the good will of their ministers. People felt they had personal and direct access to God in faith alone. By flattering the self-esteem and the urge for independence of the “laity”, i.e. the powerful princes and the burghers in the towns, by telling them that by virtue of the universal priesthood they had direct access to God and no longer required priests as their teachers and shepherds, the Reformers created an anti-hierarchical fervour and fostered alienation from sacramental thinking. This resulted in people wanting to set jealous boundaries between the baptized laity and the priests who allegedly threatened their maturity and freedom of conscience.
The whole pathos of freedom from authority and emancipation from every kind of immaturity that was propagated by Enlightenment philosophy combines with the Reformation’s “discovery” of the universal priesthood into a “paradigm shift” and becomes the principle of God’s revelation in the passing of history. “World history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom – a progress whose necessity we have to investigate”.[1] The Catholic Church, which Hegel identified with medieval feudal society, is Christianity at the stage of exteriority in the necessary progression of the dialectical unfolding of its idea as spirit and freedom. The priest, the saints, the visible rites and ceremonies in Catholicism are – in Hegel’s opinion – the expression of the exteriorization of religion and of a mindless performance of cult that binds the spirit to sensual things and subjugates its freedom. “The element of mediation between God and man was thus apprehended and held as something external. Thus through the perversion of the principle of Freedom, absolute Slavery became the established law.”[2]
Irrespective of such idealistically extravagant speculations about the self-realisation of the absolute spirit as it passes through world history, which renders any search for the unity of all Christians in the one Church redundant, a realistic view from the perspective of salvation history must open up a new appreciation of the sacramentality of the Church, her priesthood and her liturgy.
The important thing is for the Church, as the “same, identical historical subject” of belief in revelation, to mediate salvation in signs that are perceptible to the senses. Added to this are human beings as ministers and recipients of sacramental grace. All this results from man’s nature as body and soul and as a social being, but above all from the Incarnation, which gives invisible grace the visible form of its presence. It follows from God’s Incarnation that his humanity is the instrument for the mediation of divine salvation, and that this is done through human beings and in a human manner. “Rightly, then, the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of the man is signified by signs perceptible to the senses, and is effected in a way which corresponds with each of these signs; in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members” (SC 7).
In the Catholic Church, priests and laity are not opposites in closed groups as in an estates-based society. Notwithstanding sociological alienations of the Church’s constitution over the course of history, the ecclesiological correct formulation must run: “In the Church there is a diversity of ministry but a oneness of mission. Christ conferred on the Apostles and their successors the duty of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling in his name and power. But the laity likewise share in the priestly, prophetic, and royal office of Christ and therefore have their own share in the mission of the whole people of God in the Church and in the world” (AA 2).
Although these ideas of the laity’s being dependent on the arbitrary behaviour of the priests were in circulation in the 15th century, they were in fact the result of both a lack of knowledge of the faith on the part of the laity and negligent or incompetent teachers. The fact that the whole of the missionary People of God have been endowed with a priestly dignity and mission as well in the Old Testament (Ex 19, 6) as well in the New Testament (1 Pet 2:5.9) is not inconsistent with the ministry of the bishops-presbyters together with the Apostle as shepherds of the faithful in the name of Christ, “the chief shepherd” (1 Pet 5:4) and “the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Pet 2:25). The ministry of the presbyters as shepherds is clearly derived from Christ, who governs, teaches and sanctifies his Church through them. Incidentally, there is no talk here of a “common” or “universal” priesthood and certainly not of a contrast between this and a presumptive “special” priesthood. When the Church’s holy and royal priesthood is spoken of, this refers to a characteristic of the holiness of God’s people (cf. Ex 19:6) as a temple of God “to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:5; cf. Rev 1:6; 20:6) and is a statement of the Church’s priestly mission to “proclaim the mighty acts” of God (1 Pet 2:9) to the people.
Priests and laity joined together in the sacrifice of Christ and the Church
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5:1f.).This gives us the Christological and Christian definition of sacrifice: the essence of the sacrifice is love as the surrender of one’s whole being and life to God, from whom we have received everything (sacrifice of thanksgiving) and from whom we hope everything (sacrifice of supplication). Perfect love of God makes the sacrifice of love of neighbour possible.
God the Creator of the world, “who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” (Eph 1:3), has no need of propitiation with gifts of the world, which is anyway his creation. In the Eucharist the bishop or presbyter, together with all the faithful, offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving in which the reconciliation with God granted us once and for all in Jesus Christ is now made present in the liturgical sign and the surrender of our hearts. This thanksgiving is not a matter of external applause for someone else’s successful achievement. Rather, it is an entering into, indeed a uniting with the thanksgiving that Jesus is in his person for the receipt of his divine nature and the inclusion of all mankind in his human nature through faith and baptism. Thus Christ is one with the Church as her Head and Body. The criticism of cult expressed both in the Old Testament and by Jesus is not incompatible with the sacramental memorial of Jesus’ Passion that he commanded the disciples at the Last Supper to perform. “The oblation of the Church, therefore, which the Lord gave instructions to be offered throughout all the world, is accounted with God a pure sacrifice, and is acceptable to Him; not that He stands in need of a sacrifice from us, but that he who offers is himself glorified in what he does offer, if his gift be accepted” (Irenaeus of Lyon, Haer IV, 18,1).
Since the bishop as shepherd and teacher, but also when presiding at the liturgy, acts in the person of Christ, the High Priest of the New Covenant, he is also referred to as a high priest: “For if Jesus Christ,our Lord and God, is Himself the chief-priest of God the Father, and has first offered Himself a sacrifice to the Father, and has commanded this to be done in commemoration of Himself, certainly that priesttruly discharges the office of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did; and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, when he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ Himself to have offered” (Cyprian of Carthage, Ep 62, 14).
In the oldest extant complete ordination ritual, which has been handed down to us by Hippolytus (ca. 200), the bishop is called a high priest because he offers the gifts of the Church as thanksgiving to the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit (TA 3): this term hiereus/sacerdos later comes to comprise both degrees of ordination, both the episcopate and the presbyteriate, and links them closely together. The fact that all the faithful are called “priests of God and of Christ” (Rev 20:6) in no way passes into oblivion.
In his City of God Augustine, too, describes the subject universally familiar to subsequent ecclesial and theological tradition in order to justify the common priesthood of all the faithful and the ministerial priesthood of bishops and presbyters: “and this [being priests of God] refers not to the bishops alone, and presbyters, who are now specially called priests in the Church (qui proprie iam vocantur in ecclesia sacerdos); but as we call all believers Christians on account of the mystical chrism, so we call all priestsbecause they are members of the one Priest (sic omnes sacerdotes, quoniam membra sunt unius sacerdotis). Of them the Apostle Peter says, “ a holy people, a royal priesthood’” (Civ XX, 10).
This inner connection established by Augustine between the priesthood of all believers and the priestly-sanctifying ministry of bishops and priests by virtue of their sharing in the one priesthood of Christ is again taken up by Vatican II in Lumen Gentium “Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated: each of them in its own special way is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ. The ministerial priest, by the sacred power he enjoys, teaches and rules the priestly people; acting in the person of Christ, he makes present the Eucharistic sacrifice, and offers it to God in the name of all the people. But the faithful, in virtue of their royal priesthood, join in the offering of the Eucharist. They likewise exercise that priesthood in receiving the sacraments, in prayer and thanksgiving, in the witness of a holy life, and by self-denial and active charity.” (LG 10).
As Thomas Aquinas, one of the most reliable witnesses to Catholic tradition, says: “As to the priests of the New Law, they may be called mediators of God and men, inasmuch as they are the ministers of the true Mediator by administering, in His stead, the saving sacraments to men” (S.th. III q.26 a.1 ad 1). “Moreover, they fulfil the office of mediator, non quidem principaliter et perfective, sed ministerialiter et dispositive” (Thomas Aquinas, S. th. III q.26 a.2). This also holds true when speaking of Christ as the sole Head of the Church and the bishops as head of their local churches and the Pope as visible head of the whole Church. “Now the interior influx of grace is from no one save Christ, whose manhood, through its union with the Godhead, has the power of justifying; but the influence over the members of the Church, as regards their exterior guidance, can belong to others. […]First, inasmuch as Christ is the Head of all who pertain to the Church in every place and time and state; but all other men are called heads with reference to certain special places, as bishops of their Churches. Or with reference to a determined time as the Pope is the head of the whole Church, viz. during the time of his Pontificate” (S. th. III q.8 a.6). The bishops are pastors because they visibly exercise the pastoral office of Christ whereas as only Christ calls himself the door, for it is only through him that we can really enter the house of God (cf. Augustine, Tract. in Io. 46). Certain titles and verbal images for Christ can also be applied analogously to his servants (shepherd, teacher, priest, mediator); others apply univocally and exclusively to him (Word made flesh, Bread of Life, Light of the World, Redeemer).
Summary: After rising from the dead and before being seated at the right hand of the Father to exercise his rule in the new Kingdom of God, Jesus charges the eleven disciples with a universal mission because now all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the time.” (Mt 28:18-20)
This says everything about the legitimacy of the Church and of the apostolic office of the apostles and their successors, who come to be called bishops and presbyters (= priests). They exercise their ministry for the building up of the Church and the growth of the Body of Christ by being teachers and pastors to the faithful, those sanctified in Christ and the Holy Spirit (cf. Eph 4:11).
Cardinal Gerhard Müller
[1]Georg W.F. Hegel, Philosophie der Weltgeschichte I, 63 (PhB 171a).
[2]Georg W.F. Hegel, Philosophie der Weltgeschichte IV, 822 (PhB 171d).
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