Jubilee of Bishops and Jubilee of Priests

 Though they are presented as if they are two distinct celebrations, the Jubilees of Bishops and of Priests due to be marked between 25th June 2025 and the 27th June 2025 form an integrated programme, ending with Mass celebrated on 27th for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If the earlier Jubilee of movements and ecclesial communities reminded us of the role of the charisms in the life of the Church, these two jubilees remind us that, nevertheless, the Church is expressed in a hierarchical structure.

In the programme of the Jubilee, the Bishops will take part in a catechesis with the Holy Father, intended I susggest to manifest the communion of the individual Bishops with the Successor of Peter and their sharing in a care for the universal Church. On the following day, catecheses will be given by Bishops (in language groups) to priests taking part in the Jubilee of Priests, expressing something of the collaboration of a priest with his Bishop in the pastoral care of a parish within a diocese. The Dicastery for the Clergy will also be hosting an event Joyful Priests - I have called you friends, during which there will be testimony of examples of vocational ministry and seminary formation from different parts of the Catholic world.

In a lecture given in 1981, and subsequently published in the journal Communio, Cardinal Lustiger discussed the connection between celibacy and priestly and episcopal ordination. Early in the lecture, he attempted to define "what this episcopal ministry is, priesthood par excellence":

The bishop, exercising in the church the priestly ministry is given to the church-body of Christ as a sign of Christ the head. Thus the whole church can exercise the priestly act of Christ described in the first Epistle of Peter by receiving in the sacramental grace given in the episcopal ministry the assurance that the word which is spoken in her is truly the word that Christ utters in his church, and that faith brought about by the Holy Spirit is truly the common faith of the whole church. Thus guarantees that the holiness given by the Father to his church comes indeed from Christ himself who acts in the sacraments, and so that unity in brotherly love which must always gather the members of the church in mercy and pardon is truly that which is accomplished and operated by Christ himself in his body. Through the priestly ordination of the bishop, the church is assured that she receives herself from Christ, priest, prophet and king. A formula recently quoted by John Paul II condenses the significance of the sacrament of orders - through his priestly ministerial act, the bishop (the priest) acts in persona Christi before the body of Christ, for example, the church.

Cardinal Lustiger continues to suggest that priests "exert jointly and in collegiality the episcopal ministry" as collaborators with the bishop who is the primary priest of his particular church.

In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter to inaugurate a Year for Priests, celebrated to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of St John Vianney. The year began on the Feast of the Sacred Heart that year, the feast being one marked as a day of prayer for the sanctification of priests.

Saint John Mary Vianney taught his parishioners primarily by the witness of his life. It was from his example that they learned to pray, halting frequently before the tabernacle for a visit to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.“One need not say much to pray well” – the Curé explained to them – “We know that Jesus is there in the tabernacle: let us open our hearts to him, let us rejoice in his sacred presence. That is the best prayer”. And he would urge them: “Come to communion, my brothers and sisters, come to Jesus. Come to live from him in order to live with him… “Of course you are not worthy of him, but you need him!”. This way of educating the faithful to the Eucharistic presence and to communion proved most effective when they saw him celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Those present said that “it was not possible to find a finer example of worship… He gazed upon the Host with immense love”. “All good works, taken together, do not equal the sacrifice of the Mass” – he would say – “since they are human works, while the Holy Mass is the work of God”. He was convinced that the fervour of a priest’s life depended entirely upon the Mass: “The reason why a priest is lax is that he does not pay attention to the Mass! My God, how we ought to pity a priest who celebrates as if he were engaged in something routine!”. He was accustomed, when celebrating, also to offer his own life in sacrifice: “What a good thing it is for a priest each morning to offer himself to God in sacrifice!”.

This deep personal identification with the Sacrifice of the Cross led him – by a sole inward movement – from the altar to the confessional. Priests ought never to be resigned to empty confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this sacrament. In France, at the time of the Curé of Ars, confession was no more easy or frequent than in our own day, since the upheaval caused by the revolution had long inhibited the practice of religion. Yet he sought in every way, by his preaching and his powers of persuasion, to help his parishioners to rediscover the meaning and beauty of the sacrament of Penance, presenting it as an inherent demand of the Eucharistic presence. He thus created a “virtuous” circle. By spending long hours in church before the tabernacle, he inspired the faithful to imitate him by coming to visit Jesus with the knowledge that their parish priest would be there, ready to listen and offer forgiveness. Later, the growing numbers of penitents from all over France would keep him in the confessional for up to sixteen hours a day. It was said that Ars had become “a great hospital of souls”. His first biographer relates that “the grace he obtained [for the conversion of sinners] was so powerful that it would pursue them, not leaving them a moment of peace!”. The saintly Curé reflected something of the same idea when he said: “It is not the sinner who returns to God to beg his forgiveness, but God himself who runs after the sinner and makes him return to him”. “This good Saviour is so filled with love that he seeks us everywhere”.

[It is interesting to compare St John Vianney's observations about the Sacrament of Penance to the late Pope Francis' contemporary emphasis on the mercy of God.]

Appreciating Paul VI: part 6

Some things are the same now as they were at the time of the Second Vatican Council. In this case, I think of the reasons being advanced in favour of modifying the Church's discipline with regard to priestly celibacy. John O'Malley (What happened at Vatican II) gives less coverage to the content of the discussion at the time of the Council than does Ralph Wiltgen (The Rhine flows into the Tiber pp.96-99, in the context of debate on the restoration of the permanent diaconate, and pp.262-267, in the context of the debate on the schema relating to the ministry of priests). The arguments being proffered in favour of ending the discipline were much the same then as now: responding to the shortage of priests, the difficulties being experienced by priests in keeping their promise. According to Wiltgen, the acceptance of the idea of married men being ordained to the permanent diaconate was one factor in creating a media storm in favour of changing the Church's discipline. In the end Pope Paul VI removed the question from the competence of the Council just two days before the schema on the ministry of priests was to be discussed, indicating that the discipline was to be maintained and its practise encouraged.

If Wiltgen is correct, there really was very little sense among the Fathers of the Council themselves that the Church's discipline on priestly celibacy should be changed. It was something very much "taken as read". I have for some years been struck by something similar with regard to the new ecclesial movements. Despite the lay character of the charisms of many of these movements, they by and large also have sections of their membership who, wishing to live the charism more deeply, undertake to live the evangelical counsels (Focolare and Communion and Liberation are the most obvious, but by no means the only, examples). One wonders whether Pope Paul VI's intuition in favour of priestly celibacy was not in fact a better reading of the "signs of the times" than that of the advocates of its mitigation.

At the beginning of his Encyclical Letter on Priestly Celibacy, Paul VI wrote that he wished:

...to fulfill the promise We made to the Council Fathers. We told them that it was Our intention to give new luster and strength to priestly celibacy in the world of today. Since saying this We have, over a considerable period of time earnestly implored the enlightenment and assistance of the Holy Spirit and have examined before God opinions and petitions which have come to Us from all over the world, notably from many pastors of God's Church.

As well as a wide ranging discussion of reasons for and against the discipline of priestly celibacy, Pope Paul confirmed the discipline, with a qualification applicable to ministers of other Christian Churches and communities who are received into the Catholic Church: (Sacerdotalis coelibatus nn.14, 42):

We consider that the present law of celibacy should today continue to be linked to the ecclesiastical ministry. This law should support the minister in his exclusive, definitive and total choice of the unique and supreme love of Christ; it should uphold him in the entire dedication of himself to the public worship of God and to the service of the Church; it should distinguish his state of life both among the faithful and in the world at large......

In virtue of the fundamental norm of the government of the Catholic Church, to which We alluded above, while on the one hand, the law requiring a freely chosen and perpetual celibacy of those who are admitted to Holy Orders remains unchanged, on the other hand, a study may be allowed of the particular circumstances of married sacred ministers of Churches or other Christian communities separated from the Catholic communion, and of the possibility of admitting to priestly functions those who desire to adhere to the fullness of this communion and to continue to exercise the sacred ministry. The circumstances must be such, however, as not to prejudice the existing discipline regarding celibacy.

Despite all the contestation then and since, Pope Paul's encyclical represents the discipline of the Western Church; and, if one really looks at the sense of the Church's life rather than the efforts of the news media and activists, there has been no real sign of the discipline changing.

The Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, providing for the establishing of personal ordinariates for those being received into the Catholic Church from the Anglican Church, explicitly cites Sacerdotalis coelibatus (VI.1-2):

Those who ministered as Anglican deacons, priests, or bishops, and who fulfil the requisites established by canon law and are not impeded by irregularities or other impediments may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders in the Catholic Church.In the case of married ministers, the norms established in the Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI Sacerdotalis coelibatus, n. 42 and in the Statement In June are to be observed. Unmarried ministers must submit to the norm of clerical celibacy of CIC can. 277, §1.

The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit only celibate men to the order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as a derogation from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.

So far as I am aware, it is only under the first of these provisions that married men have been ordained to the priesthood, both in the Ordinariates and in cases of individual conversions (corrections in the comments box, please, if I am wrong). But I have wondered about the implementation of that provision more than once. My own personal anecdote in this connection refers to a meeting I was involved in several years ago, a meeting attended by myself and three priests. As it turned out, the only unmarried person at the meeting was me, my priest colleagues all being former Anglican clergy (this was before the days of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham). In some areas of the Church's life in England, the number of married priests is such that one can genuinely consider there to be, at the level of practical experience, a mixture of married and celibate clergy. There is clearly a balance to be struck between the consideration of the situations of individual cases, for which Paul VI's provision exists, and the impact more widely for the witness to the discipline of celibacy (and perhaps also, in a limited way, for a sense of justice towards those already in the Catholic Church who might feel that former Anglican clergy have access to a path to the ordained priesthood without the demand of celibacy that is not available to them). There is, I think, some value to be gained in sharing more widely how that balance is considered in decisions relating to the ordination of former Anglican clergy.

[As a somewhat personal reflection, I would find any change to the Church's discipline with regard to priestly celibacy a counter-witness to the ecclesial value of the evangelical counsels, counsels which are not "the" exclusive way of living the Christian life, but nevertheless do form a part of the whole that is ecclesial existence. They provide a "form" for all vocations, even those that do not involve embracing them in the fullest sense, and an ending of priestly celibacy would undermine witness to that "form".]

Film Review: Calvary

Zero and I saw this film recently, and herewith my thoughts on it.

SIGNIS (the World Catholic Association for Communication) reviewed the film favourably -  Calvary - and it will be worthwhile to read their review before your continue reading my post.

An aspect of the film that the SIGNIS review does not address is that of the sense in which it is a humorous film. The online review from the Independent, for example, has a heading that refers to the film as a "dark religious comedy"; other reviews have likened its humour to the "dark humour" of an earlier film by the same director, The Guard, a film that I have not seen. Zero and I saw the film in a cinema with somewhere around 50 people. My estimate is that just a quarter of those, at most, laughed at some point during the film; and I was not convinced that the points at which they laughed reflected any credit on them for laughing.

Much of the humour lay in portrayals of a priest being confronted, deliberately and facetiously, with the wrongdoing of the person in front of him. So, for example, in the scene with the portrait described in the Independent review, the film maker seems to have delighted in actually showing the "local squire" (to use the terms of the review) relieving himself over the painting as the camera shot at the same time showed the priest. Whilst there is in this section of the film a deeper reflection to be made about the nature of wealth (see below), nevertheless its portrayal in a manner that represents deliberate affront to the priest typifies the calibre of the humour in the film.

I can see that a film maker might not have a high regard for the priesthood and the Catholic Church and that the situation of both in Ireland provides a particular context for that. It makes sense that such a film maker might portray in his work that lack of regard. That is one thing. The really fundamental question I have with regard to Calvary, though, is: can this lack of regard be justly represented in the form of humour just described? Is it really legitimate for the film maker to expect people in cinemas to laugh at it? Does it in fact represent an affront, not to the priest as priest, but to the priest as a human person like any other, and therefore also an affront to the cinema goer who is expected to find it funny?

A particular scene that has prompted my sense of objection in this regard is that where, as the priest visits an accident victim in hospital to administer the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick (referred to in the film as the "last rites"), he is confronted by the atheistic doctor. My own experience of the medical profession is that they are very respectful of the role of chaplains in hospitals; and, as Zero pointed out, what is portrayed in this scene certainly would not happen in Ireland, let alone any other country. This scene struck me as being particularly gratuitous.

If you have seen the film yourself, you will realise at this point that I rather lost the plot - perhaps literally! Within the plot line of the film, all these affronts to the parish priest are intended to create the possibility in the mind of the cinema goer that just about every other resident of the parish is a possibility for the would be assassin. I was too busy thinking about the issues above to notice the plot.

There is some comparison between Calvary and George Bernanos' Diary of a Country Priest. The visit of the parish priest to the house of the local "squire", and its dialogue, has its parallel's in the Cure's visit to the Comtesse in Bernanos' novel. But I thought that the Bernanos was far superior in its human and religious insight. The visits of the priest to his bishop, too, has a very loose parallel to the encounters between the Cure and his mentor. And the whisky and beer of the priests drinking session parallel the wine of the Cure. Perhaps both film and book portray the encounter between good and evil in the concrete, everyday life of a priest -  the film however exaggerating the latter to the point of the grotesque. The comparison really is very limited.

The film has a definitely Irish character. The willingness of the parish priest to intervene in the marital (and love) affairs of his flock reflects a controlling aspect of Catholic culture in Ireland. There are references to the sinful nature of the economic exploitation of the "tiger economy" and the excessive wealth and economic collapse that followed it. This motif recurs in the film. The parish priest also displays a somewhat acerbic pacifism in a scene in which he opposes a young man's expressed wish to join the army. The way in which an innocent meeting with a young visitor on a country lane is so readily interpreted as abusive - and the sadness and anguish of the parish priest's facial expression as he realises this implication - manifests something of the experience of priests in the wake of abuse scandals.

The SIGNIS review considers the film to be one of the most sympathetic portrayals of the priesthood in recent cinema. In some ways this is true - the parish priest is the "hero" of the film. But what of the assistant priest? He is portrayed as being a little loose with the seal of the confessional; as being decidedly obsequious and mercenary at the possibility of a donation to the parish, in (stereo)typical Irish fashion; and his most memorable facial expression seems to be a sneer. Perhaps he is the foil to the parish priest's "hero" - but his character does not leave a good impression.

At the denouement, the parish priest is shot dead on the beach. The graphic portrayal of blood and brains emerging from the back of his head - shown twice, from two different directions - and splaying across the sand represented, for me at least, a final affront (to the priest? or to the cinema goer?). And since affront appears to be of the essence of the style of humour in the film, is the cinema goer not meant to see in it the darkest of dark humour? If the scene is not understood in this way, it becomes supremely gratuitous in its violence. It is an ending that left a sense of shock in the cinema, with people not knowing quite how to react.

A final thought, that is left unresolved in the closing sequence of the film. In this sequence, all the characters who the parish priest has encountered - and some of whom he was due to meet after his appointment on the beach - are shown one after the other. Have they all been abandoned by the parish priest in his death, or have all their cares been borne by him "to the end" in a sacrificial death?