An Apologetical Explanation of the

Office of Priest

What is the role of a priest?

[Jesus] took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  (Lk 22:19)

[Jesus] breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  (Jn 20:22-23)

A priest is a man ordained through the Sacrament of Holy Orders to preside at the Eucharist and celebrate the Sacraments for the faithful.  He is the image of Christ, endowed particularly with the power to forgive sins in the Sacrament of Penance and to consecrate the Eucharist in the Mass.  “Let [priests] be imbued with that truly Catholic spirit… to help the needs of the whole Church, prepared in spirit to preach the Gospel everywhere”  (OT 20).

All baptized persons belong to the common priesthood of the faithful, but some are called to serve the Church in the ministerial priesthood, collectively called the presbyterate.  Through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, priests are empowered to serve the common priesthood by celebrating the Eucharist, conferring the Sacraments, and preaching the Gospel.  “The spiritual gift which priests receive at their ordination prepared them not for a sort of limited and narrow mission but for the widest possible and universal mission of salvation ‘even to the ends of the earth'”  (PO 10; Acts 1:8; cf. OT 20).  (Cf. CCC 1120, 1547, 1554, 1592)

Christ instituted the priesthood when he celebrated the Last Support with his Apostles, offered his Body and Blood in the form of bread and win, and invited them to “do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19).  He gave the Apostles the power to forgive sins after his Resurrection: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven” (Jn 20:22-23).

Because the bishops alone have received the fullness of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, each priest depends upon his bishop for the proper exercise of this priestly power.  The priests of the Church are co-workers of the bishops, assigned to carry out certain tasks of their apostolic ministry, often within an individual parish community.  Principal among these tasks is the celebration of the Mass, which the priest offers in the Person of Christ and as the bishop’s representative.  (Cf. CCC 877, 1564)

Holy Orders is reserved to men according to the example of Christ, who selected only men as his Apostles.  Celibacy for priests is the currently the norm in the Western Church.  As this is not a matter of faith and morals but rather of Church discipline, exceptions can be made, for example, in the case of a married Protestant minister who converts and is ordained as a Catholic priest.  Additionally, married men can receive Holy Orders in the Eastern Churches.  (Cf. CCC 1577, 1578-1579, 1599)

The Catechism addresses this question in paragraphs 1552 and 1565.

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