SPIRITUAL PERFECTION IN THE DIOCESAN
PRIESTHOOD
It is an incontestable theological truth that a diocesan priest
must possess a high degree of Christian perfection in order to do
his work as God wills it should be done. This is the basic guiding
principle for the spirituality of the secular priesthood. Un­
fortunately, however, the teachings about the need for and the
place of spiritual perfection in the vocation and the life of the
diocesan priest have all too frequently been obscured by reason
of debates about the applicability of the term “state of perfec­
tion” to the secular priesthood itself.
St. Thomas Aquinas taught that a man is in a state of perfec­
tion, in the strict sense of the term, only when he has obligated
himself perpetually and in a solemn and public manner to the life
of perfection.1* Holding to this definition, he taught that only
bishops and religious were properly in this state? The Angelic
Doctor insisted very strongly that secular priests are not in a
state of perfection.’ Unlike religious, he said, secular priests are
not bound by vow to the work of acquiring perfection through
the following of the evangelical counsels. Moreover, he held that
the secular priest is not bound entirely with absolute permanence
and solemnity to the spiritual care of the people after the manner
of the bishop. Thus he established his conclusion that the dio­
cesan priest could not be considered as living in a state of
perfection.
Distinguishing very sedulously between the status and the
ordo, St. Thomas taught that the Eucharistic ministry demanded
a higher degree of holiness in the priest and the deacon than the
religious state required of a religious not in Holy Orders.4 Yet
he refused to see in this obligation the type of servitus that char­
acterized a status perfectionis.
In view of his own description of a status perfectionis, the
Angelic Doctor’s conclusions with reference to diocesan priests
can hardly be considered as being of the same excellence as his
other teachings. If any solemn, perpetual, and publicly expressed
servitus of perfection should be designated as a state of per1 Cf. Sum. Ikebl., Π-Π, q. 184, a. 4, 5, 6.
1 Cf. ibid., a. 5, 6.

456

« Cf. ibid., a. 6.
* Cf. ibid., a. 8.

SPIRITUAL PERFECTION

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feetion, it is hard to see how this designation can accurately be
refused to the condition of a man who enters a brotherhood or
society essentially and necessarily devoted to the spiritual wel­
fare of a local Church through the solemn and public process of
sacerdotal ordination. Yet, this is precisely the case of the dio­
cesan priest. By his ordination, he publicly and solemnly enters
the presbyterium of his own bishop and thus begins a life-long
activity of perfecting the faithful of his local Church as a member
of the priestly society over which his bishop presides.5 The fact
that the diocesan priest must act under the direction of the bishop
and the further point that the activity of the individual secular
priest does not, like that of his bishop, deal with all the concerns
of the entire local Church have no direct reference to the description of a state of perfection in the Summa. Thus they would seem
to constitute no valid reasons why this designation should, on his
principles at least, have been denied to the diocesan priesthood.
The Thomistic school, as a whole, followed the teaching of
St. Thomas on this point with absolute fidelity. Interestingly
enough, no Thomist showed greater enthusiasm and higher con­
troversial skill in developing the thesis that secular priests are
not in a state of perfection than the doughty Francis Sylvius,
himself a secular priest of Douai.* Nevertheless, by reason of the
latitude given to the term “state of perfection,” there were some
authors who did not choose to adopt the Thomistic attitude and
terminology. Thus Francis Suarez said that priests “merito dici
possunt aliquo modo, inchoative saltem, in statu perfectionis.”7
’In denying that prelates other than bishops and that pastors were tn a
state of perfection, St. Thomas made much of the fact that these men could
resign their charges or be relieved of their cura animarum without having
recourse to the Holy Father himself. Thus, he reasoned, they are not permaneatly and perfectly consecrated to the care of souls. He does not take account of the fact that the presbyterium as an organization remains always
devoted to its task of aiding the bishop and that the individual diocesan priest
remains a member of this organization, even though the individual assignment
from his bishop may be changed from time to time. It is by virtue of his
membership in his own presbyterium that the individual secular priest, in
whatever work he may be called upon to do, may be said to be actually always
laboring for the care of souls in the local Church.
*Cf. his Commentaries on the articles mentioned above, in the Opera omnia
(Antwerp, 1698), III, 899 ff.
' De virtute et statu religionis, lib. 1, cap. 17.

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Cardinal Manning taught that the priesthood is “the state of
perfection instituted by our Divine Lord to be the light of the
world, and the salt of the earth.”8
In the dispute on this point, two unfortunate tendencies arose.
One was the lamentable and erroneous effort on the part of some
secular priests to minimize the worth of the religious life alto­
gether. It is a fact, of course, that the religious life is indubitably
a state of perfection, and that the condition of those who devote
their lives to the acquisition of perfection through the publicly
vowed following of the evangelical counsels is, in itself, better
than the condition of those who do not. Thus, from the point of
view of the canonical state of perfection, it is perfectly certain
that the religious state is more perfect than that of the non­
religious, and that the religious priest is in a more perfect state
than the secular priest. To deny or to misrepresent this is to be
guilty of a serious theological error.
Nevertheless, it is also a fact that in order to do the work of the
diocesan priesthood as God wills it should be done a man must
possess a high degree of Christian spiritual perfection. Moreover,
by the very constitution of the Catholic Church, the secular
priesthood is a necessary element in Our Lord’s society. Accord­
ing to St. Ignatius of Antioch, there is no such thing as a local
Church without a bishop and a presbyterium, a society of priests
directly under his rule.9 The presbyterium, normally at least,
could not be a religious order or congregation, since the religious
brotherhood is organized primarily to achieve the spiritual per­
fection of its own members, while the presbyterium is formed to
labor for the sanctification and the salvation of souls in the local
Church. Unfortunately, there have been some religious writers so
intent upon their task of showing the superiority of the religious
life that they have seriously misrepresented the nature and the
function of the diocesan priesthood.
The new Apostolic Constitution, Promda Mater Ecdesia, issued
by the Holy Father on Feb. 11,1947, has done a tremendously im­
portant service to the students, of sacred theology by offering an
official and clear-cut description of a canonical state of perfection.
The new Constitution makes it clear that, according to the law of
1 The Eternal Priesthood (Baltimore; John Murphy Company, nodate), p. 45.

•Cf. Ad Trallianos, III, 1.

SPIRITUAL PERFECTION

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the Codex, “in no case, not even by way of exception, is a canonical
state of perfection admitted except where the profession of that
state of perfection has been made in a Religio approved by the
Church.”10 The Holy Father has thus settled any controversy
about the use of a name, and has definitely imposed the thesis
that only religious in the strict sense of the term could be con­
sidered as being completely in a canonical state of perfection, as
this state of perfection is strictly defined in the Provida Mater Ec­
desia. The declaration of the new Apostolic Constitution has, of
course, no reference to the broader description of the state of
perfection contained in the Summa theologica.11
The Prooida Mater Ecclesia speaks of the persons in a state of
perfection as those who “devoting their entire life to Christ the
Lord, follow Him freely by the difficult way of the counsels.”1*
It speaks of public vows (both solemn and simple) as “necessary
for a complete canonical state of perfection.”13 Although the
Secular Institutes, newly associated with the Religiones have not
the completeness of these latter as states of perfections, they
constitute nevertheless “a new canonical state in the strict sense
of the term, consecrated unice et ex integro to the acquisition of
perfection.”14
Thus, according to the Holy Father, it appears that the Insti­
tutum saeculare, and of course by way of consequence, the Religio,
within which alone the canonical profession of the state of per­
fection is to be found, must necessarily be an organization geared
unice et ex integro to the acquisition of spiritual perfection on the
part of the members of such societies. The diocesan priest is
definitely not in a status perfectionis adguirendae because the
Rdigio, within which alone the complete canonical state of per­
fection is to be found is clearly described by the Provida Mater
Ecdesia as something quite distinct from the presbyterium.
Like the religious, the diocesan priest is essentially a member
u L’Ossenatore Romano (LXXXVII, 61), p. 1.
"The Constitution contributes to the development of theology by making
it clear that the Religio and the Secular Institute, despite their orientations
towards apostolic work, remain societies devoted unice et ex integro to the ac­
quisition of spiritual perfection by their own members. There was a marked
tendency to neglect, and even to deny, this truth prior to the issuance of the
Prorida. Mater Ecclesia.

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of an individual society or household within the larger unity of
the Catholic Church. The fellowship or brotherhood to which the
diocesan priest belongs is the presbyterium of his own diocese, the
company of priests organized under the paternal rule of the dio­
cesan bishop to co-operate with the bishop and to serve as his
instrument in his apostolic care of the local Church over which he
presides. The presbyterium, then, by its very nature, is not an
organization consecrated unice et ex integro to the acquisition of
spiritual perfection by its own members. It is a real society
dedicated to the Church’s essential purpose, that of working for
the sanctification and the salvation of Christ’s flock.
The difference between the Religio or the true and complete
canonical status perfectionis adquirendae and the diocesan presby­
terium can be explained by this statement about the orientations
of the diocesan ministry and the religious life.
The diocesan ministry is a work which a man is privileged and called
upon to accept in order to continue and to apply the sacerdotal labors
of our Lord among His people. The religious life, even in clerical
communities, is geared to produce, as' its immediate effect, an increase
in personal holiness among those who have the vocation to enter itis

By the divine constitution of the Catholic Church, the presby­
terium is, of course, organized in such a way as to demand a high
degree of Christian perfection from its members. At the same
time both the essential work of the presbyterium and the divine
and ecclesiastical laws that govern it are of a nature to inculcate
and to increase the life of charity within the diocesan priesthood.
Thus the presbyterium is truly a school and a nursery of perfec­
tion, though it can lay no claim to the designation of a canonical
status perfectionis adquirendae ultimately because this society is
not organized and consecrated unice et ex integro to the acquisition
of spiritual perfection by its members. The ruler of a Religio, the
man to whom religious priests promise their sacerdotal obedience
on the day of ordination, is a prelate charged with the primary
responsibility of seeing that his subjects grow in holiness through
their fidelity to their vows. The head of the presbyterium, on the
other hand, is the ruler of a diocese, a bishop whose primary
obligation has to do with the care of his people. To this end the
11 Fenton, The Calling of a Diocesan Priest (Westminster, Maryland: The
Newman Bookshop, 1944), p. 12.
.

SPIRITUAL PERFECTION

461

works of the bishop and of his presbyterium must be directed,
mice et ex integro.
The essential work of the diocesan priesthood consists in the
performance of those functions enumerated in the admonition pre­
fixed to the rite of sacerdotal ordination in the Pontificale Ro­
manum.
“Sacerdotem etenim oportet offerre, benedicere,
praeesse, praedicare, et baptizare.” Every one of these activij
ties not only demands holiness on the part of the man who per>
forms it, but incites to personal spiritual perfection and offers
I
instruction and spiritual aid for growing in the divine life of
charity. The man who offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
worthily day by day will necessarily derive from the Mass abund­
ant treasures of divine grace and will certainly achieve the holiÏ
ness requisite for the proper performance of all his sacerdotal
J
duties. The man who strives to bring his own life into harmony
I
with the blessings he calls down upon his people through his
I
priestly prayers will find that a life so ordered is one of high
spiritual perfection. The priest presides over his people in their
corporate worship of God. This presidency offers to the man who
undertakes it from proper motives the opportunity of living ever
more perfectly within himself the life of grace of which the Chris­
tian ecclesia is the corporate exponent. In preaching the word of
God to the people of the local Church, the member of the presby­
terium sets forth the truth from which all perfection in the spir­
itual life originates. A priest preaches worthily only when he has
made every requisite effort to understand the doctrine he is
i
privileged to teach, and thus the process of preaching is both an
!
incentive to Christian perfection and an enlightenment of the
J
intelligence in the direction of holiness. The administration of
baptism and of the other sacraments of the New Law likewise
tends to bring the priest to love God with an affection ever more
aident and perfect.
Besides the offering of the Holy Sacrifice, the prayers, the
meditations, the teaching of God’s message and the administra­
tion of the sacraments, there are other agencies which the law of
God and of the Church place at the disposition of the priest for
the acquisition of that perfection demanded by his position in
the diocesan presbyterium. The first of these is the absolute
obedience to the bishop, as the head and the father of the pres-

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byterium, made incumbent upon the diocesan priest by the divine
law itself.
With respect to obedience in the Church, there are unfortu­
nately many lamentable errors current in our own day. Some
among the cruder sort of anti-clerical writers seem to imagine
that no obedience whatsoever is due to Church authority on the
part of those who have , taken no religious vows or who do not
belong to a diocesan presbyterium. As a matter of fact, of course,
the divinely constituted rulers of the Church, the Holy Father
and the residential bishops, and all of those who hold authority in
their name, have the God-given power to give commands to the
faithful, and to exact obedience to their orders. Every Christian
lay as well as clerical, secular as well as religious, is bound to give
obedience to Church law and to the commands of his legitimate
ecclesiastical superiors. The case of the diocesan priest (and, for
that matter, of the religious), differs, in the matter of obedience,
from that of the layman in the Church only by reason of the fact
that the diocesan priest and the religious have voluntarily entered
distinct supernatural families or brotherhoods within the Church.
They owe the obedience of children to the fathers of these super­
natural households within the ecclesia. The diocesan priest owes
a true and filial obedience to the bishop who is the father and the
head of the presbyterium, the brotherhood or organization of his
own diocesan priests. The religious owes his filial obedience, by
virtue of a special and explicit vow, to his abbot or superior who
becomes his true spiritual father when he enters the monastery or
community.
The diocesan priest finds in this filial and perfect obedience to
his bishop a tremendous means for sanctification. In submitting
himself freely and reverently to the rule of his spiritual father,
the member of the presbyterium truly follows the evangelical
counsel of obedience. The purpose of this obedience, like the
purpose of all the other evangelical counsels, is, in the last
analysis, the plenitude of spiritual perfection, the perfection of
divine charity.16 The diocesan priest is consecrated to the task of
using this charity, within the fellowship of his own presbyterium,
and under the direction of his own bishop, for the spiritual welfare
of the local Church.
“ Cf. Sum. theal., ΙΙ-Π, q. 184, a. 3.

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The eminent Claretian writer, Fr. Antoine Peinador, has seri­
ously misrepresented the nature and the purpose of the obedience
demanded of and given by diocesan priests to their bishops when
he taught that the Church wills to have this obedience “imitate"
that which religious tender their own superiors.
Obedience in seculars [diocesan priests] cannot be called as com­
plete and perfect as that of the religious. Undoubtedly the Church asks
from clerics an obedience which imitates the perfection of the obedience
of religious.17

The fact of the matter is that the obedience of the presbyterium
and of its members to the bishop of the local Church is not an
imitation of anything. It is a factor intrinsic in the divine con­
stitution of the Catholic Church. The fully developed local
Church needs not only a bishop but a presbyterium, a brotherhood
of priests organized under the bishop’s leadership to aid him in
the accomplishment of the local Church’s purpose. The presby­
terium could obviously never work as God wills that it should
unless the brotherhood as a whole and each member of the
priestly fraternity be joined to the bishop in bonds of the most
perfect and complete filial obedience.
The obedience which the secular priest in any modern diocese
is expected to give to his bishop is exactly the same as the
obedience which St. Ignatius of Antioch demanded that the
presbyters of his own time should give to the heads of their
local Churches.18 The true aud visible Church of Jesus Christ
could not operate in the world as God formed it to operate unless
the head of each local Church had subject to him a collegium of
priests individually and corporately consecrated to the task of the
local Church itself. Thus it is utterly untheological to imagine
that the obedience which the Church demands that secular priests
extend to their bishops is an imitation of or an approach to the
obedience incumbent upon religious.
It is impossible to understand the nature of and the need for
this obedience in the presbyterium unless we realize the necessity
of the diocesan priesthood in the Catholic Church. Fr. Peinador
17 Sacerdotium saeculare et status religiosus (Rome: Typographic polyglotte
'Cuore di Maria,” 1940), p. 60η.

11 Cf. Ad Ephesios, IV, 1.

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has given utterance to a view, unfortunately all-too-prevalent
among certain writers who seem to believe that the dignity of
the religious life can be explained only by instituting a rather
invidious and unscientific comparison between it and the dio­
cesan priesthood, that the diocesan or secular priesthood as now
constituted is not a necessary part of the divine organization of
the Catholic Church. The question is so important that an ex­
amination of Fr. Peinador’s argument in behalf of his own po­
sition should be helpful.
Secular priests are not absolutely necessary. This does not mean that
the Church can do without bishops, pastors, etc., but it means that
those who are required for giving the faithful their spiritual nourish­
ment could all be religious. As a matter of fact, what is there to prevent
the same situation which now prevails and which has prevailed in
definite portions of the Christian flock (for there are vicariates pre­
fectures, and the like in which the sole spiritual ministration is given
by religious) from existing for the universal Church? Therefore secular
priests, as seculars, are not necessary in the Church.18

The principles contained in the Provida Mater Ecclesia make it
quite easy to recognize the error in Fr. Peinador’s teaching. The
individual Religio, according to the Apostolic «Constitution, is a
society organized unice et ex integro for the attainment of spiritual
perfection on the part of the members of that society. The bish­
op, according to perfectly certain theological teaching, acts as
the perfector of the diocese. He is not in a position to devote him­
self unice et ex integro to the advancement of his own perfection.
Now it is also perfectly certain that the fully formed local Church
(as distinct from the vicariate or the prefecture apostolic which
is a local Church in the process of formation), demands a society
or organization of priests subject to the diocesan bishop and
formed to be his instrument in caring for the local Church. Thus
the immediate purpose of the presbyterium in the fully formed
local Church must be, according to the actual constitution of the
Church itself, the salvation and the sanctification of the people.
A society consecrated unice et ex integro to the attainment of
spiritual perfection by its own members could not serve properly
as the presbyterium of a fully formed local Church.
For this reason it is quite apparent that the presbyterium as a
“ Pânador, op. cit., p. 62.

SPIRITUAL PERFECTION

465

society distinct specifically from a Religio is not in any way a
disadvantage or a lesser good within the Catholic Church. The
secular or diocesan priest as such is distinctly necessary within
the society of the disciples. Neither the presbyterium nor its in­
dividual members can correctly be described as “imitations” of
or as approaches to any Religio whatsoever. The spirituality of
the diocesan priest is thus the apostolic spirituality of the bishop
and of his presbyterium, rather than that of the Religiones or any
imitations thereof.
This, of course, has a tremendously important repercussion in
the practical training of a seminarian who is preparing for a call
to the diocesan priesthood. Like that of the bishop, the state of
the diocesan priest is essentially and necessarily one of perfectionis
adquisitae rather than of perfectionis adquirendae. In other words,
the seminarian is not properly prepared to accept a call to the
diocesan priesthood unless he has acquired and has shown evi­
dence of the high degree of spiritual perfection he will need for the
performance of his sacerdotal duties in the presbyterium. He must
have the love of charity for God in the ardent and fervent degree
that will enable him to devote all of his energy and talent to the
spiritual well-being of the local Church under the direction of his
bishop. He must be prepared, not only to administer the divine
sacraments to the people, but also to give those same people ac­
curate instruction in the Church’s divinely revealed truth, and
real edification through the perfection of his own living example.
The laws of the Western Church make incumbent upon the
diocesan priest the following of another evangelical counsel, that
of perfect chastity in the life of celibacy. This, like the other
evangelical counsels, is geared to produce a more fervent life of
charity in the man who follows it. However, in this instance as
in the case of obedience to the bishop, the perfection resulting in
the member of the presbyterium is something meant to be utilized
m the service of Christ through the apostolic activity of the
presbyterium.
Thus, in all truth, the motive and the direction of the spiritual
perfection in the diocesan priesthood can best be expressed in the
burning words of Our Lord’s sacerdotal prayer: “And for them
do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.’’10
“Join 17:19.

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’

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The Christians of the local Church are the beneficiaries, directly
and immediately, of the perfection within their own presbyterium.
The truth in which they are sanctified is the truth of Christ.
In order to speak accurately about the perfection of the dio­
cesan priesthood, however, we must not forget that when we say
that the diocesan priest is in a status perfectionis adguisitae in
contradistinction to the religious who is in a status perfectionis
adguirendae, we do not hold or infer that the perfection of the
secular is superior to that of the religious. As far as the canonical
state of perfection is concerned, quite the opposite is the case.
The person in the state of perfection by reason of vows made
within a religious order is, from a canonical point of view, in a
state superior to that of the person who has not made such vows.
The status perfectionis adguirendae of the religious is a definite
canonical reality. The person in this status belongs to an organ­
ization which is constructed and geared unice et ex integro to the
acquisition of spiritual perfection on the part of its own members.
On the contrary, when we say that the diocesan priest is in a
status perfectionis adguisitae, we merely take cognizance of the
manifest and tremendously important fact that the member of
the presbyterium is devoted to a work which demands a high de­
gree of spiritual perfection on the part of the man who is called
upon to perform it. That, after all, is the one basic fact about
the spirituality of the diocesan priesthood.
Before the publication of the Provida Mater Ecclesia, with its
clear-cut description of the canonical status perfectionis ad­
guirendae, much of the discussion about the spirituality of the
diocesan priesthood bogged down on what was, in the last analy­
sis, a none-too-important question of words. The definition of the
status perfectionis in general, as this was to be found on the pages
of the Summa theologica, might well have been considered broad
enough to apply to the secular or the diocesan priesthood, even
though, for one reason or another, the Angelic Doctor himself was
quite insistent that the secular priests should not be considered
as being in a status perfectionis.
Now' that the magnificent clarity of the Provida Mater Ecdesia
is at the disposal of the theologian, there is little excuse for any
attempt to allocate the diocesan priesthood within the status
perfectionis adguirendae. The document has shown, once and for

SPIRITUAL PERFECTION

467

all time, that this title should be reserved exclusively for Reli­
giones and for the more recent Secular Institutes.

On the other hand, however, the appearance of the Provida
Mater Ecdesia should obviate for all time the danger of errors
which characterize the diocesan priesthood as something of an
imitation of the religious life. By virtue of its more perfect de­
scription of the Religio and of the status perfectionis adguirendae,
the new Apostolic Constitution has made it perfectly clear that
the Religio is not and, by the very nature of the Church can not
be, an organization upon which the presbyterium is modeled, or
a thing which should or could replace the secular or diocesan
Presbyterium.

The theologians interested in the spirituality of the diocesan
priesthood can be extremely grateful for the appearance of the
Provida Mater Ecclesia. A study of this document should put an
end to the unfortunate discussions which were primarily con­
cerned with the applicability of a term to the secular priesthood
as such, and which were prone to overlook the more important
matter of the content and the direction of the spirituality of the
Presbyterium. In the light of this masterly Constitution, we can
see clearly the implications of the fact that the diocesan priest­
hood is not a status perfectionis adguirendae, a brotherhood de­
voted essentially and intrinsically to the attainment of perfection
by its members. The presbyterium is a priestly fraternity that
demands perfection in its own members, and at the same time
offers them the means for advancing in the love of God, in order
that, through the sanctification of these diocesan priests, the
people of God may have eternal life.
As the head of the local Church, the bishop is the perfector of
his people by the will of God. As the head of the presbyterium,
he is the divinely appointed perfector of his own diocesan priests.
The fullness of charity the secular priest needs for the proper
performance of his own duties in the Church will be his only
in the measure of his filial loyalty to the head of his sacerdotal
brotherhood.
Joseph Clifford Fenton

The Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.