VATICAN - Pope tells participants of the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation for the Clergy: “The centrality of Christ brings with it the correct appreciation of the ministerial priesthood, without which neither the Eucharist nor, consequently, the mission and the Church herself would exist.”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – On the eve of his first apostolic trip to Africa, the Holy Father Benedict XVI held an audience with participants of the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation for the Clergy on March 16. The theme of the Assembly was: “The Missionary Identity of the Priest in the Church, as Intrinsic Dimension of the Exercise of the 'Tria Munera'.”
“If the entire Church is missionary and if every Christian, by virtue of baptism and Confirmation, receives quasi ex officio the mandate to profess the faith publicly, the ministerial priesthood also from this point of view is distinguished ontologically, and not only by degree, from baptismal priesthood, called also common priesthood. Constitutive of the first, in fact, is the apostolic mandate: 'Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation' (Mark 16:15). We know that this mandate is not a simple charge entrusted to his collaborators; its roots are deeper and must be sought much further afield.
The Holy Father mentioned that “The missionary dimension of the priest is born from his sacramental configuration to Christ the Head: this brings with it, as a consequence, a cordial and total adherence to that which the ecclesial tradition has recognized as the 'apostolica vivendi forma'. The latter consists of participation in a 'new life' understood spiritually, in that 'new style of life' that was inaugurated by the Lord Jesus and which was made their own by the Apostles...In light of this it seems clear how the 'tria munera' are in the first place a gift, and only as a consequence an office, participation in a life and because of this 'a potestas.'” Although the ecclesial tradition has “justly detached the sacramental efficacy of the concrete existential situation of the priest...the indispensable, tension to moral perfection, should dwell in every genuinely priestly heart.”
Here, the Holy Father announced the “Priestly Year,” which will be held June 19, 2009 to June 19, 2010, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of the Holy Cure of Ars, Jean Marie Vianney, “true example of Pastor at the service of Christ's flock,” during which various spiritual and pastoral initiatives will be promoted in order to “make the role and the mission of the priest in the Church and in contemporary society increasingly perceived.”
Benedict XVI then paused to describe the mission of the priest “in the Church.” “Such an ecclesial, communional, hierarchical and doctrinal dimension is absolutely indispensable for any genuine mission and, on its own, guarantees its spiritual efficacy. The four aspects mentioned must always be recognized as profoundly related: the mission is 'ecclesial' because no one priest proclaims or takes himself, rather within and through his own humanity, every priest must be very conscious of taking another, God himself, to the world...The mission is 'communial' because it takes place in a unity and communion that only in a secondary way also has relevant aspects of social visibility. Moreover, these derive essentially from that divine intimacy of which the priest is called to be expert, to be able to lead, with humility and confidence, the souls entrusted to him to the encounter itself with the Lord. Finally the 'hierarchical' and 'doctrinal' dimensions suggest reaffirming the importance of ecclesiastical discipline (the term is joined to 'disciple') and of doctrinal formation, and not only theological, initial and permanent.”
Continuing his address, the Pontiff reflected on the importance of forming candidates to the ministry, exhorting Pastors to cultivate “truly paternal human relations” with their priests, being concerned for their permanent formation, especially in the doctrinal and spiritual aspects. “In a special way the mission has its roots in a good formation, carried out in communion with the uninterrupted ecclesial Tradition, free of ruptures and temptations to discontinuity. In this connection, it is important to foster in priests, above all in the young generations, a correct perception of the texts of the Second Vatican Council, interpreted in the light of all the doctrinal baggage of the Church. It also seems urgent to recover that consciousness that drives priests to be present, identifiable and recognizable both by the judgment of faith, or by personal virtues, or also by their dress, in the realms of culture and charity, ever at the heart of the mission of the Church.”
In the concluding part of his address to the participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation for the Clergy, the Pope highlighted once more that “as Church and as priests we proclaim Jesus of Nazareth Lord and Christ, crucified and resurrected, sovereign of time and history, in the joyful certainty that this truth coincides with the profoundest hopes of the human heart. In the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, namely, in the fact that God became a man like us, is both the content as well as the method of the Christian proclamation. The mission has here its propellant center: precisely in Jesus Christ. The centrality of Christ brings with it the correct appreciation of the ministerial priesthood, without which neither the Eucharist nor, consequently, the mission and the Church herself would exist. In this connection it is necessary to watch so that the 'new structures' of pastoral organizations are not thought out for a time in which the ordained ministry is 'undervalued,' starting from an erroneous interpretation of the correct promotion of the laity, because in such a case the premises would be established for an ultimate dissolution of the ministerial priesthood and the eventual presumed 'solutions' would coincide dramatically with the real causes of the current problems linked to the ministry.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 17/3/2009)