THE MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD
The diocesan priest is a man with a definite objective to realize.
That objective is the local Church, perfect in faith and in charity,
to be constructed in the place where the presbyterium works for
Christ under the direction of its episcopal father and ruler. Thus
the Catholic company within which the bishop places the indi­
vidual diocesan priest is, with all of its limitations and imperfections,
the material out of which God wills that he should labor to construct
the perfect household of God, the kind of local Church Our Lord
desires in this world.
The sum of all the activity the diocesan priest must expend upon
and for his people in order to carry out the commission God has
given him by placing him in the presbyterium constitutes his
sacerdotal ministry. The Catholic Church instructs us about the
kinds of work that enter into the ministry of the presbyterium
when, in the ceremony of sacerdotal ordination, the bishop states
that the priest “must offer [the sacrifice of the Mass], bless, preside,
preach, and baptize.”1 All of these activities on the part of the
diocesan priest must contribute towards the edification or construc­
tion of the local Church, perfect in faith and in charity.
If, however, we consider the immediate concrete purposes to
which the diocesan priest should apply the various acts of his
ministry, we find that these can be classified under four headings.
(1) The diocesan priest has a distinctive doctrinal ministry, since
he is charged with the responsibility of instructing his people in the
true faith of Jesus Christ. (2) The presbyterium of a local Church
has a definite missionary function, since it is commissioned to
“edify” a local Church well enough instructed in the faith and ardent
enough in charity for those outside the Church to desire sincerely
that these persons should receive fellowship with Our Lord in His
ecclesia. (3) The unitive commission of the diocesan priesthood
comes from the obligation laid upon the presbyterium to build
the company of the faithful into family, joined within itself and to
Our Lord in the bonds of mutual charity. (4) Finally the diocesan
priesthood must work at its perfective function of bringing each
member of the local Church to the fulness of the life of divine grace.
1 The Roman Pontifical.

196

The full theological meaning and dignity of the diocesan priesthood’s ministry can best be seen when we consider the activities
of the presbyterium in terms of these four functions.
THE REALITY OF THE SACERDOTAL OBJECTIVE

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When we say that the diocesan priest is charged with the responsibility of perfecting or edifying the local Church, we do not

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mean to imply that the Catholic Church, in any place or at any
time in this world, can be lacking in essential perfection. The basic
and fundamental perfection of the Catholic Church comes from the
fact that Our Lord Jesus Christ actually dwells within that society
as its teacher and its ruler. Thus the Church is completely and
perfectly God’s kingdom on earth always. The apostolic work of
the bishop and his presbyterium is in no way directed towards an
increase in the essential perfection of the company of Our Lord’s
disciples.
What the bishop and the presbyterium seek to accomplish in the
pursuance of their immediate objective is the ever more complete
and perfect incorporation of the members of the local Church into
Christ, their head. It is possible to have the individual member of
the Catholic Church advance in the life of spiritual perfection. It is
also possible to have the members as a body progress in the corpor­
ate life of charity God demands from them. The efforts of the
diocesan priesthood are to be expended in this direction, and in no
other.
■
Furthermore we must remember that in working to make his
people ardent supporters of the missionary labors of the Catholic
Church, the diocesan priest is in no way attempting to make the
Church more Catholic or universal. The Church itself gains nothing
in its essential Catholicity or in its essential holiness from the
addition of new converts. The gain or benefit comes to the man
who enters the communion of the ecclesia and thus becomes a par­
taker of the fellowship of Christ Our Lord. Hence it is entirely
misleading to speak of the Catholic Church of our day as in some
measure incomplete or lacking in Catholicity by reason of the fact
that the majority of men in many races remain outside the fold.
The perfect Church of Jesus Christ is able to work for God more
effectively when new members are added to its company and when
the members already in the communion advance in corporate and

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individual perfection of faith and of charity. Nevertheless it remains
true that the Church itself derives its perfection in holiness from
the indwelling of Jesus Christ, and it is, as it always has been, the
one and only Catholic society of the disciples.
Still less accurate is the teaching of those men who would place
the perfection of the Church in some mythical “Catholic centre” or
in the totality of Christianity in all ages and localities. These writers
would have us believe that the Church, as it exists here and now
in an individual Catholic diocese, lacks something of the inherent
perfection of the Christian society. They contrast “popular Catholi­
cism” with what they regard as the true Catholicism of their
“centre” and hold that this actually existent Catholic society has
deviated from the truth in approximately the same manner as the
various heretical and schismatic sects. Their position is theologically
absurd because, within the Catholic Church wherever it exists, Our
Lord Himself lives and dwells.
THE DOCTRINAL MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIEST

God wills that the local Church, like the Church Catholic as a
whole, should be well established in the faith of Jesus Christ Our
Lord. The local Church, as a social unit, should have an adequate
grasp of the divine truths that constitute the message of the
Catholic Church. The members of this local Church should be well
enough instructed in these truths “to be ready always to satisfy
every one that asketh you a reason of that hope that is in you.”1
They should be able to discern teaching hostile to their own divine
revealed truth, and they should be prepared to shut that hostile
and erroneous teachings out of their hearts and lives. Furthermore,
in their triumphant and enthusiastic orthodoxy, they should be in a
position to utilize the doctrines of faith in the government of their
own activity. For the local Church perfect in faith, the divinely re­
vealed message must not and cannot be a dead letter. It must be die
motive force for all of its life.
The authorized teachers of the divine faith in any local Church
are the bishop and his presbyterium. The bishop holds this position
by reason of his membership in the apostolic collegium. His diocesan
priests are, by virtue of the divine constitution of the Church itself,
2/Prt.3:15.

MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

199

a sacerdotal brotherhood formed unice et ex integro for the purpose
of aiding the bishop in his ministry. Together with the bishop and
subject to him, the diocesan priests are responsible for the vigor and
darity of the faith in the local Church. This remains true even in a
day like our own when the people have access to a great number
of papers, magazines, and books, written by Catholics with the
avowed intention of explaining the Church’s faith. Under the lead­
ership of the bishop, the diocesan priests are responsible before
God for the spiritual enlightenment of their flocks. They can never
acquit themselves of their responsibility in a manner pleasing to
Our Lord by the facile process of giving a sweeping recommenda­
tion to "Catholic books” or “books by Catholics.”
For the Catholic laity, reading must always be a subsidiary,
though of course an important, means for acquiring a proper under­
standing of the Church’s divine message. As a result, it will be
impossible to give the people of a diocese the richness in Christ,
“in all utterance and in all knowledge,”3 requisite for a Church that
possesses the perfection of faith demanded by God, apart from a
dear and doctrinally accurate and adequate course of preaching by
the members of the diocesan presbyterium. The preaching ministry
of the diocesan priesthood must thus be directed to the accomplish­
ment of this divinely revealed objective. It must be such as to form
a local Church perfect in the faith of Jesus Christ. All that does
not lead to the fashioning of the diocese into a Church perfect in
faith must be excluded from the doctrinal ministry of the presby­
terium.
The work of the diocesan priesthood to perfect the people of the
local Church in the divine faith is a matter of primary importance
in the Catholic Church. Other priests may be commissioned by the
bishop to preach the word of God in his diocese, but no other body
of men within the entire society of Our Lord’s disciples is re­
sponsible for the accuracy and perfection of the faith in a local
Church in the same way as the presbyterium of that local Church.
God has formed His Church in such a way that this brotherhood,
and none other, is directly charged with the task of devoting all of
its energies and efforts in aiding the bishop, the divinely commis­
sioned teacher of the local Church. The vigor and the correctness
of the divine faith in any diocese is, consequently, something for
31 Cor. 1:5.

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which the presbyterium of that diocese and its members will certainly be held accountable by God. ·
During the course of the Church’s long history, the doctrinal
mission of the presbyterium has never been a really easyafiair.lt
is particularly difficult in our own time. We live in an era when the
disintegrating Protestantism around us for the most part acknowledges merely a symbolic or relative value in Christian dogma
During the lifetime of our own generation, this error crept into the
membership of the Catholic Church itself, and Pope Pius X con·
demned it as one of the aspects of the chain of heresies called
Modernism. It would be idle to imagine that the condemnation of
Modernism, during the first decade of our century, put a stop
once and for all to the influence of non-Catholic indifference to
religious truth and orthodoxy upon Catholics weak or ill-instructed
in their faith.
That influence exists and operates vigorously today. Our people
came in contact with it through a literature and society that sees
to take it for granted that all religious teaching is, in the fast
analysis, merely the expression of some religious sentiment The
diocesan priesthood, armed with the truth of Jesus Christ, is faced
with the formidable and glorious work of realizing its divine objective of a Church perfect in faith in the midst of a world that wiH
hardly consider the possibility of religious truth.
The individual diocesan priest accomplishes his doctrinal mission
and fulfils his divinely imposed responsibilities only when he utilizes
all of the resources of sacred theology to insure the accuracy and
the adequacy of the instructions he is privileged to give to his people.
The disciples of Christ, the members of. the Catholic Church, hare
a God-given right to receive the teachings of their divine Master,
clearly and correctly. Sacred theology is the one naturally attainable science containing this body of doctrine. The priest who fails
to avail himself of this resource in preparing for his sermons to
the people runs the very serious risk of misleading them about
the teachings of Christ.
Obviously a great deal of genuine theological study is required for
the preparation of that type of sermon which the diocesan priest
is commissioned to deliver. And, what is most important, that study
is required in at least as great measure when the projected serin®
is to be preached to the poor as when it is to be delivered to a
reputedly more cultured congregation. Riches or higher educati®

MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

201

will never give a Catholic a right to any doctrine over and above
that to which the poorest of the disciples is entitled. The type of
spiritual snobbery that looks down upon instructions or sermons
to the poor or to the ordinary workingmen is a direct violation of
the spirit and the commission of the presbyterium, to which, with
the bishop, the poor of Christ are especially entrusted.
THE MISSIONARY FUNCTION OF THE DIOCESAN PRIEST

The bishop and his diocesan priests work for the formation of
a spiritually prosperous Church of God in their own territory. A
spiritually prosperous local Church of God is one in which the
people themselves seek, with all the powers and resources at their
disposal, the entrance of new members into the society of the
disciples. In its Code of Canon Law, the Catholic Church commands
that "Ordinaries and parish priests should consider non-Catholics
resident in their own dioceses or parishes as entrusted (commenda­
tos) to them in the Lord.”4 This mandate is an expression of the
divine law itself. God wills that the bishop should rule his Church
in the charity of Christ. It is impossible to have the love of Christ
without desiring the salvation of the men and women for whom
Our Lord, died on Calvaiy. When a great many of these men and
women are neighbors and fellow citizens of the bishop and of his
Sock, the charity of Christ manifestly demands that the bishop’s
presbyterium should do all in its power to bring these people into
the company of God outside of which there is no salvation.
Since the presbyterium is a priestly brotherhood formed unice
et ex integro to aid the bishop, its father and ruler, in his sacerdotal
task, the presbyterium itself must labor for conversions to the true
Church of Jesus Christ, especially among the non-Catholics of the
region within which the presbyterium functions. The love of
charity that prescribes this effort for conversions must be ex­
tended even to the bitterest enemies of the Church itself. Thus,
within the confines of any local Church or diocese, there is no man
to whom the bishop and his presbyterium are not striving to bring
the blessing of heaven through membership in Christ’s Church
militant.
The objective of the bishop and of his diocesan priests, however,
demands far more than an ardent missionary spirit in the presby4 Codex ivris canonici, can. 1350, n. 1.

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terium itself. They are commissioned to work for the formation or
the edification of a local Church which, as a social unit, strives
effectively to convert non-Catholics. The blue-print that God gives
the diocesan priesthood, the description of the perfect Church, shows
a people accurately instructed in Our Lord’s teachings and united in
ties of divine charity. When the people of a local Church, as distinct
from the bishop and his collegium of diocèsan priests, are tepid
about the work of the propagation of the faith, that tepidity is an
infallible indication either of ignorance in matters of faith or of a
failing charity for God.
To love God sincerely is to will that He be glorified forever in
the company of those who enjoy the beatific vision. To love Christ
is to desire ardently that those for whom He died may rejoice
always in the fruits of the redemption. Furthermore, because God
actually wills that all men should serve and love Him in the Church
militant, in the company of His Son on this earth, and because there
is no salvation apart from the true Church of Christ, the love of God
necessarily demands and desires the accomplishment of the divine
will in and through the work of the missionary apostolate.
Thus, if the local Church lives ardently the life of divine grace
and charity, and if it has been so instructed that the people realize
the real and vital necessity of the Catholic communion, that local
Church will inevitably manifest sincere enthusiasm for the mis­
sionary efforts of the ecclesia. If, on the other hand, it is tepid and
remiss in love for God; if a considerable and influential number of
its members have fallen from grace ; or if the people of that Christian
community are so ill-informed on matters of the faith that they have
come to imagine that the work of the propagation of the faith is
simply one of the many devotions within the Church which art
laudable, but in no way requisite for the Church as a whole or for
any individual within it, that local Church will inevitably be unenthusiastic for the work of conversion. A local Church or an
individual Catholic strong in charity and enlightened by anaccruate
knowledge of divine revelation will, with absolute certainty, be
ardently and genuinely interested in bringing men into the company
of Christ within His Church.
Since charity is essentially an active thing, the enthusiasm of the
well-ordered local Church for the propagation of the faith mast
necessarily manifest itself in sincere efforts on the part of the
Catholic community as a whole, and on the part of the various iadi-

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MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

203

viduals within that community, to do what they can to cause non­
Catholics to enter the company of Christ. By the order of charity,
the first beneficiaries of this love for God on the part of the local
Church must inevitably be the non-Catholic people of their own
locality. Certainly the local Church must pray sincerely for the con­
version of these individuals, since prayer is, after all, the expression
to God of our inmost and basic desires. Charity is the dominant
motive in the life of grace, and since the conversion of non-Catholic
neighbors is something desired in the very act of charity, those who
love God will pray for this intention.
Prayer, like charity itself, is necessarily a dominant factor in the
life of grace. Hence the people of God within a local Church, in
praying sincerely for the* spiritual well-being of their neighbors,
will necessarily do everything in their power to bring the truth of
Christ to those of their own neighborhood. Thus, if the local Church
acts as Our Lord wills that it should, each individual within it
will co-operate in the apostolic work of the propagation of the faith
in prayer and in deed.
THE DIOCESAN PRIEST AND THE FOREIGN MISSIONS

Although the local Church is primarily interested in the con­
version of its own non-Catholic neighbors, it does not and cannot
limit its charitable attention to these people. Basically and essen­
tially the local Church is a unit in the Catholic Church militant.
Each Catholic in the local Church is meant to desire in charity the
success of the missionary activity of the Church throughout the
entire world. In those sections of the world in which the Church
is not as yet perfectly and completely established, the portions of
the earth not divided into individual local dioceses, the missionary
activity of the Church is entirely under the direction of the Vicar
of Christ, the Roman Pontiff.
The Holy Father is truly the Bishop of the Catholic Church,
having true and episcopal power of jurisdiction over every one of
the faithful. The universal Church of God on earth is the household
or the family of Christ, over which the Bishop of Rome presides as
Our Lord’s vicar. Hence the members of the Church, as Christ’s
disciples, must be interested in the spiritual good towards their
divine Master. They must desire, pray for, and, according to their

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individual capacities, work for the spread of the true Church
throughout the world.
Because the local Church is essentially and inherently a part of
the Church universal, the objective of the diocesan priest in the indi­
vidual diocese demands that he work to render his people effectively
cognizant of the world-wide functions of Catholicism. Thus, despite
the fact that the presbyterium is fashioned by God to aid the bishop
in his conduct of a local Church, the orientation of the diocesan
priesthood is in no way circumscribed and limited by the borders of
the individual diocese. Paradoxically enough, it is precisely by
reason of the fact that the ministry of the presbyterium is essentially
diocesan that its interests and its charity must be coextensive with
those of the Church Catholic. The diocese has neither meaning nor
worth apart from its position in the universal Church. The man who
is commissioned to act as the instrument of the bishop in caring for
the local Church must, in order to do his work as Our Lord wills
that it should be done, concern himself whole-heartedly and essen­
tially with the life of the entire Church militant.
Recently there have been some theologians who have decried the
movement towards a recognition of the spirituality of the diocesan
priesthood on the ground that such a spirituality would be limited
and un-Catholic. They have imagined that this doctrine would be a
kind of spiritualité de clocher, tending to attach the secular priest
.to his own locality in such a way as to detract from his affection for
and interest in the Church universal. Archbishop Guerry has
assured the men troubled by such fears that there is small danger
of provincialism or over-specialization within the Church coining
from the diocesan ministry and its spirituality.5 The men who
voiced their anxiety that attention to the spirituality of the diocesan
priesthood would prove in some way hostile to the unity of the
Catholic Church seem not to have adverted to the theological teach­
ing about the position of the diocese (and hence of its presbyterium)
in the universal society of Our Lord’s disciples.
Obviously the diocesan priest labors for the fostering of the mis­
sionary spirit in the people of his local Church through his sacra­
mental ministry. The. sacraments, giving divine grace ejc opcrs
operato, increase the perfection and the fervor of charity in ths
faithful who receive them, and in the Church itself. Nevertheless the
1 Cf. La Maison Diev, HI, 81.

MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

205

upbuilding of the Church, which is the work of achieving the objec­
tive of the presbyterium, demands a great deal of effort by the priest
along lines other than those of the sacramental ministry alone. The
priest must bring his people to understand the true revealed teaching
on the real and vital necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation.
He must bring them to recognize the requisites for membership in
the true Church of Jesus Christ. Finally, he must bring them to
see the meaning and the implications of divine charity itself.
Particularly in our own day, instruction along these three lines
is badly needed by the Catholic people. What at any rate appears to
be the most dangerous doctrinal phenomenon in modem Christen­
dom is the tendency to play down and to underrate the importance of
the true and visible Church of Jesus Christ In the writings of some
“Catholic intellectuals” this tendency results in what is for all
intents and purposes an explaining away of the axiom "extra ec­
clesiam nulla salus," so as to make it appear that really the
Church is not necessary at all. Others, better skilled in the tech­
nique of religious writing, make the axiom itself the excuse for
the crudest form of latitudinarianism by teaching that no man can
be saved without actually being a member of the Church, and at
the same time suggesting that, de facto, persons can be at the same
time non-Catholics and members of Our Lord’s true Church. The
unfortunate Catholic who accepts this false teaching in either of the
two forms mentioned will obviously not be in a position to sustain
the logical and correct Catholic attitude with reference to the work
of the propagation of the faith. If he has fallen into the error of
believing that the visible and organized Church of the Roman
communion is not really requisite for salvation, then he can not
logically and consistently see in the missionary effort of the Church
the supreme expression of the Church’s charity for those outside
of its own fold.
likewise the people of our own time must have continual and
accurate theological instruction on divine charity itself. There is
an observable tendency at the present time to think of charity almost
exclusively in terms of a devotional exercise, and to measure the
perfection of our love for God primarily in terms of what we should
do or fail to do under conditions which are not, and never will be,
existent. In order that the people of God in the local Church may
accomplish their mission of charity to non-Catholics through an
ardent co-operation in the work of the propagation of the faith,

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these people must be brought to realize that charity is essentially a
dynamic thing, impelling sincere efforts for the good of those whom
God calls into His kingdom, in heaven and on earth. They must be
taught the truth that the ultimate and essential social effect of divine
charity is an intention to work so that the men and women for whom
Our Lord died may have the eternal gift of the beatific vision.
THE UNITIVE FUNCTION OF THE DIOCESAN PRIEST

Christ wills that His Church on earth should manifest itself
for what it actually is, the family or the household of God. For
that reason, time and time again, He insisted that His followers
should love one another. In his various epistles St. Paul brought
out the teaching of the divine Master by inculcating His command
that the disciples, the members of His ecclesia, should hold each
other in real affection. The command that the members of the
Church should love one another constitutes the basic instruction
in the epistles of St. John.
Our Lord also taught that we should love our enemies, and we
have St. Paul’s instruction to do good to all men. All of these
commands, of course, are expressions of the basic and general
mandate of charity, according to which the disciples of Christ are
ordered to love God and to love their neighbors as themselves.
Fundamentally, then, there is no reason in the world able to justify
the withholding of charity from any man or woman in the world. To
hate our fellow men is to cancel out and destroy the love of God
in our own hearts.
Nevertheless, there is such a thing as an order of charity. By
the law of charity itself, we are commanded to give a special love
and affection to certain persons in the world. Thus, for example, the
divine precept of charity requires us to have and to show to our
own families and our own neighbors a stronger, more intense, and
more effective love than that which we should have for persons in
no way directly connected with our own lives.
As the family or the household of God, into which we have been
received as brothers by Our Lord Himself, the Catholic Church, the
one society of Christ’s disciples, brings its members together in a
unity which, though supernatural, remains more perfect and real
than the union achieved in any other way. Hence, if we are to follow
out and obey God’s command of charity, we must have a special

MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

207

and dominant affection among ourselves as members of the Catholic
Church. We must love the Church itself, and love our brothers,
our fellow members of this Church, with an affection that is out­
standing. If our love for the Church and for our fellow-disciples of
Christ in it is not noticeably strong ; if our family affection within
the household ot God is not powerful and manifest enough to con­
tribute towards making the ecclesia a society so perfectly united in
charity as to constitute an indication to the world that Christ’s
message is actually a divine revelation and that ours is really the
company of Our Lord’s followers ; we are being recreant to the
duties our membership in the Church has imposed upon us.
This need for a specially powerful love of charity for the Church
and among Catholics is manifest from an examination of the New
Testament texts about love for each other, for outsiders, and for
our enemies. As Fr. Deman, O.P., points out in a brilliant article in
La vie spirituelle, the texts that tell of the necessity of love for our
enemies insist upon the incompatibility of hatred for any man with
charity for God. Those, on the other hand, which deal with the
necessity of mutual love and affection among the members of the
society of the disciples speak of a special and most intense union of
love, a true bond of family affection.®
The immediate disciples of Our Lord understood His teaching in
this sense. The book of the Acts of the Apostles informs us that,
directly after His ascension into heaven, the eleven apostles "were
persevering with one mind in prayer, with the women and Mary
the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.”7 After the membership
in the Church had been multiplied by reason of the influx of con­
verts on the first Christian Pentecost, we are told that the disciples
"were persevering in the doctrine of the apostles and in the com­
munion of the breaking of bread and in prayers.” Three times in
the Pauline epistles® and twice in the letters of St. Peter,9 the
members of the Church are commanded and entreated to have a
brotherly love (ψιλα&λφία) for one another. In the epistle to the
Romans, St. Paul begs his Christians to have this love of the
• Cf La vie spirituelle, CLXXV, 5 (Dec, 1946), pp. 678 ff.
1 Acts 1:14.
8C£. Rom. 12:10; I Thes. 4:9; Heb. 13:1.
•Cf. I Pet. 1:22; II Pet. 1:7. The word is found twice in the text of St
Peter's Second Epistle.

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THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW

brotherhood make them φιλόστοργοι, that is, possessed of that tender
affection which belongs within a family, towards one another.10
The Church of God needs building up or “edification” in any
place where the need for this φιλαδελφία among Catholics is not
a
recognized. Thus the objective of the diocesan priesthood in any
j
place or time is the formation and the perfection of thé Church along
«
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the lines of this love of the brotherhood. That task is rendered
I
particular difficult in our day by reason of the same tendency which
j
has militated against a recognition of the real necessity and the
visibility of God’s Church in this world. The forces which seek to
1
turn men away from the salvation of Christ have tried, sometimes
,f
with at least a modicum of success, to deceive Catholics into a posi;|
tion in which they imagine that the Church’s social bonds are not
;j
very important in everyday life.
Hence we have, in our own time, the amazing spectacle of Catholic periodicals and Catholic writers protesting against what they
' !
sometimes designate as group-consciousness or group-solidarity
I
within the true Church of Jesus Christ, and the spectacle of a
?
Catholic author solemnly warning his readers against an excessive
attachment to the real and visible Church, at the expense of that
figment of the imagination he calls the invisible church. Fr. Deman
d
has remarked the apparent prevalence, in our own time, of a tend;
ency to exalt the love for those outside the ecclesia over that which
,j
is due to its own members.11 We live in a time when ill-instructed
M
but sometimes influential Catholic writers seem to bum with a
ί· ;;rl
desire to exalt and to exult in every good that can be found outside
r-.'d
the visible Roman communion which alone is the Church militant
of God, and to blacken and calumniate whatever they can within it
We must not allow ourselves to forget the fact that the most
.· J
important papal pronouncement of our era, the present Holy
U
Father’s Mystici corporis, ends in and centers around a plea to love
/
the Church. Where this genuine and dominant love of the Church,
and the sincere and effective love of Catholics for one another do
·-·!·">■.·.··.<■.>.. Λί·.
not exist, the people of that local Church are not acting as God wills
ί
that they should. They are being recreant to their duties as Christ­
ians. Where the need for such φιλα&λφία within the Catholic Church
ί,and for it is misconstrued or denied, we have, not merely an undesir-

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11 Cf. Detnan, loc. cit.

•i
MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

209

able situation, but an actual error about or denial of the divine
revelation itself.
Hence no aspect of the diocesan priesthood’s objective is more
important than the living and effective union of charity which it
seeks to foster in the local Church of God. For the attainment of
this objective, the presbyterium must have recourse to a complete
and fully accurate thological instruction about the Church of Jesus
Christ. The men who believe that non-Catholics should be treated
with greater kindness and charity than members of the ecclesia
suffer, in great measure, from a faulty and inadequate concept of
the Church. Unless they are able to know what Our Lord revealed
about the Church they will not be in a position to fulfill their obli­
gations as members of the Church. Unless they are able to see the
Church as the άγάπ-η there is little likelihood that they will appre­
ciate the honor God has given them by calling them to membership
within it.
When we speak of a local Church ardent in the love of the
brotherhood as the objective of the diocesan priesthood, we must
not lose sight of the fact that, by the command of Christ, this
charity must be active and effective. Due in great measure to inferior
religious teaching, there is a manifest tendency today to think of
loving our brothers as a task to be accomplished solely in the process
of prayer. Some people seem to imagine that a man has sufficient
love for his brother if he makes no move to exempt that brother from
the mass of mankind for whom his prayer is offered. The truth
of the matter is that the love we are meant to have for our brothers
in the Church enjoins definite and practical responsibilities. St.
Peter mentioned hospitality to Christians as something intimately
connected with charity in the Church.
But before all things have a constant mutual charity among your­
selves: for charity covereth a multitude of sins.
Using hospitality one towards another, without murmuring,
As every man hath received grace, ministering the same one to
another : as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.12
.

Hospitality meant, in apostolic times as now, providing shelter
for those who need it. There is no reason to suppose that the duty
of hospitality was any easier when St. Peter wrote his epistle than it
u I Pet. 4:8-10.

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is today. It required effort, and the overcoming of temptation to
laziness and indifference, as St. Peter’s warning against grudging
hospitality would indicate. Yet the love of the brethren, without
which a man is only a disloyal and recreant member of Christ’s
ecclesia, demanded that hospitality.
It is interesting to see how the inspired books of the New Testa­
ment describe this love of the brotherhood and its implications. In
the first place, St. Paul insists in his Epistle to the Romans, that
this affection for our fellow members of God’s family requires that
we should be extremely careful not to disedify or scandalize weaker
brothers by our words or actions.
Let us not therefore judge one another any more. But judge this
rather, that you put not a stumbling block or a scandal in your brother’s
way ...
Therefore let us follow after the things that are of peace and keep
the things that are of edification, one towards another ...
It is good not to eat flesh and not to drink wine: nor any thing
whereby thy brother is offended or scandalized or made weak.13

Again hé writes, to the Corinthians :
But take heed lest perhaps this your liberty become a stumbling-block
to the weak.
For if a man see him that hath knowledge sit at meat in the idol’s
temple, shall not his conscience, being weak, be emboldened to eat those
things which are sacrificed to idols ?
And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom
Christ hath died ?
Now when you sin thus against the brethren and wound their weak
conscience, you sin against Christ14

What the people who understress the need for “group-solidarity”
among the Catholics of our own day fail to appreciate is the fact that
St. Paul demanded the exercise of fraternal love within the Church
precisely under those circumstances in which the individual Cath­
olic could find some sort of excuse or reason to dispense from it.
The weak brothers to whom St. Paul refers in the Romans and the
First Corinthians are the troublesome sort of people who would be
disedified by their more intelligent fellow-Christians’ performance
of acts which were perfectly acceptable in themselves. Υεζ on this
13 Ram. 14:13,19,21.

141 Cor. 8:9-I2.

MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

211

point, the intelligent Christian is warned and commanded to govern
his activities in such a way that the less perfectly instructed could
come to no spiritual harm by reason of their doings.
Indeed, according to St. Paul, the Christian must be prepared
to suffer real wrong from his brother. The sort of forebearance
which, within the natural human family, would influence one mem­
ber to suffer injury at the hands of another rather than to bring
disedification and to cause dissension within the group by defending
his own rights, is made mandatory within the supernatural family
of God, the Catholic Church.
Already indeed there is plainly a fault among you, that you have
lawsuits one with another. Why do you not rather take wrong? Why
do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded ?
But you do wrong and defraud : and that to your brethren.15

In the Epistle to the Colossians, the Christians are urged to
continue
Bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if any have a
complaint against another. Even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do
you also.18

j

It is the will of God that the disciples of Jesus Christ should act
justly, not only towards one another and towards the Church
itself, but also towards those outside the fold. “Be without offence,"
St Paul wrote to his Corinthians, “to the Jews and to the Gentiles
and to the Church of God.”1T Nevertheless, according to the Apostle
of the Gentiles, the Christian is expected to show himself particularly beneficent to his fellow-members of Christ’s Mystical
Body. “Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to all men,
but especially (μάλιστα St) to those who are of the household of
the faith.”18
The love of the brotherhood which God commands within His
own Church is essentially a positive thing. It is not fulfilled simply
by the process of refraining from giving scandal to the weaker
brethren, or merely by patiently accepting injuries and indignities
from fellow-members of our own supernatural family. God wills
that the individual local Church should consist of Christians who
work together, sincerely and enthusiastically, for His glory.
151 Car. 6:7-8.

« I Cor. 10:3Z

“Col 3:13.

« Gal. 6:10.

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THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW

Now the God of patience and of comfort grant you to be of one
mind, one towards another, according to Jesus Christ :
That with one mind and with one mouth you may glorify God and
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wherefore, receive one another, as Christ also hath received yon,
unto the honor of God.19

St. Paul made it perfectly clear that the people of the local Church
would please God only if they profited from the grace that came to
them from Christ by manifesting a perfect unanimity of sentiment in
working for Him. The diocesan presbyterium must work to present
to God a local Church like that which St. Paul prayed the faithful
at Philippi might become.
Fulfil ye my joy, that you may be of one mind, having the same
charity, being of one accord, agreeing in sentiment.
Let nothing be done through contention : neither by vain glory. But in
humility, let each esteem others better than themselves:
Each one not considering the things that are his own, but those that
are other men’s.20

J

It is, moreover, the business of the diocesan priest to work for
the spiritual edification of a local Church within which there will
be no infringement of brotherly love by reason of favoring the
rich and powerful over the poor. A local Church which exalts the
rich at the expense of the poor sins against its divine commission.
My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory,
with respect to persons.
For if there shall come into your assembly a man having a golden
ring, in fine apparel ; and there shall come in also a poor man in mean
attire:
And you have respect to him that is clothed with the fine apparel and
shall say to him: Sit thou here well; but say to the poor man: Stand
thou there, or: Sit under my footstool :
Do you not judge within yourselves, and are become judges of unjust
thoughts?
Hearken, my dearest brethren : Hath not God chosen the poor in
this world, rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which God hath
promised to them that love him?21

Finally, it is God’s will that the disciples of Christ should preserve
themselves free from any division of charity based upon the distinc-

I

19 Rom. 15:5-7.
20 Pha. 2:2-4.

21 james 2 :l-5.

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MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

213

tion of the clergy from the laity. Thus it falls within the field of
the diocesan priesthood’s ministry to labor towards the eradication
of any anti-clericalism which might enter into the flock of Christ.
God commands that the Catholic people should have a special
affection for those men who are their ministers for Christ.
And we beseech you, brethren, to know them who labor among you
and are over you in the Lord and admonish you :
That you esteem them more abundantly in, charity, for their work’s
sake. Have peace with them.22

Obviously, the formation of a local Church perfectly united in the
bonds of charity constitutes a great and essential part of the min­
istry of the presbyterium. The first and the most important means
the priest must use for the attainment of this end is the force of
example. There will be little incentive in the direction of antidericalism where the priest himself manifests a sincere affection in
Christ for all the members of his flock. And, where the priest shows
himself completely solicitous for the spiritual welfare of all the
people he is called upon to serve, he thereby makes a tremendous
and unique contribution towards the formation of a local Church
united in the bonds of fraternal charity. By his example in this
direction, the priest becomes “a pattern of the flock from the
heart.”23 Furthermore, in order to influence his people to love one another
and to love the Church itself as God wills that they should, the
priest must counteract the tendencies of the .Church’s enemies by
giving his people an accurate and adequate instruction on the nature
of divine charity and on the character of God’s kingdom in this
world. The people will never understand that Catholic love of the
brotherhood is a part of Christian life unless they realize that the
Church is actually the company or assembly within which Our Lord
resides, and within which alone we may gain fellowship with Him.
Furthermore, they must be made aware of the fact that the life of
charity demands a real and special affection for the household of
God and for its members. They should be brought to realize that
the present Holy Father’s encyclical, the Afystiei Corporis, centers
the divine command to love the true Church of Jesus Christ.
«Γ Thes. 5 Λ2-13.

231 Pet. 5:3.

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THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW
THE PERFECTIVE FUNCTION OF THE DIOCESAN PRIEST

The objective of the Catholic episcopate, and hence of the dio­
cesan priesthood, is a local Church composed of Christians who live
the divine life of sanctifying grace in all of its perfection. Hence the
ministry of the diocesan priesthood involves the effort, on the part
of each member of the presbyterium, to influence and to bring, in
so far as possible, every one of the persons subject to his ministry
to the life of sanctity. The diocesan priest cannot be satisfied with
his work as long as one of the faithful over whom he has been
placed in charge lacks any of the supernatural perfection God wills
that he should possess.
On the negative side, the ministry of the presbyterium in.this
direction involves a fight against sin, and of course against com­
placency in sin. In every period of the Church’s history there have
been certain offences against the law of God which have been par­
ticularly appealing to the fashion of the moment. Long ago, for
instance, the fashion of the world Opposed to Our Lord tended to
consider the sin of duelling as something practically acceptable and
even necessary. In our own times, such vices as “birth control” and
civic dishonesty are all-too-frequently looked upon as allowable.
The diocesan priest’s mission to form a perfect local Church of
God among his own people makes it incumbent upon him to insist
upon the divinely revealed law in all of its force and perfection. It is
his business to see to it that his people may never be led into cotnplacancy towards sin through any failure of his to announce the
truth of God.
Furthermore, the priest must strive by every means within his
power to make his own people avid for perfection in Christ. His
work is incomplete as long as any one under his charge is content
with laxity and imperfection in the service of Our Lord. He must
make his people aware of the fact that God calls every one of them,
not merely to salvation, but to the life of perfection in divine grace.
Thus the ministry God has confided to the diocesan priesthood
within the Catholic Church involves accurate and adequate instruc­
tion and a great many other elements as well. The charge God has
given to every member of the diocesan presbyterium is, in the last
analysis, identical with that He gave to the young bishop, St
Timothy, by the pen of St. Paul.

MINISTRY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

215

I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living
and the dead, by his coming and his kingdom:
Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat,
rebuke in all patience and doctrine.24

Thus every element of exhortation and reproval must be com­
bined with the correct and sufficient preaching of God’s revealed
truth to all of His people and with the administration of His sacra­
ments in order that the God-given ministry of the diocesan priest
may be accomplished in the society of the disciples of Jesus Christ
Our Lord. The bishop’s presbyterium has no other assignment in
the Church of God than the completion of this ministry. The indi­
vidual diocesan priest is responsible before God and obligated, by
his very office, to give his life in this definite ministry for the ac­
complishment of the objective, the perfect local Church of God.
Finally, St Paul’s command to Timothy to ‘‘be instant, in sea­
son, out of season (èmcmj&i ευκαίρων άκαίρωΐ)” is a divinely inspired
reminder that the work God has imposed upon the bishop and the
presbyterium of each local Church is definitely a full-time affair.
Those who have been called by God to the apostolic life have been
assigned to the most important and urgent task in the world.
Because of their position in the Church, they are responsible to
God Himself for the spiritual welfare of the Catholic people over
whom they have been placed, and they are likewise directly charged
with the duty of bringing as many people as possible into the fold
of Christ. Hence there is no portion of their time that they can
legitimately withdraw from the work of their ministry. The res­
ponsibility for building up the Church of God is with them always.
All of the time and all of the energy and talent God has given to
these His chosen servants must be expended generously and en­
thusiastically for the furtherance of our Lord's work in His Church.
Only thus may the ministry of the diocesan priest be fulfilled.
Joseph Clifford Fenton

The Catholic University of America,
Washington, D.C.
Tim. 4 -.1-2.