Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “The Bishop’s paternity with regard to his priests” was the subject of a lecture given on 16 September by Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, to Bishops taking part in a study seminar organised in Rome by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. “Our priests long to find in us the father, teacher, friend and brother whom they need and deserve to encounter in order to be sustained, defended and encouraged in their sacred ministry and on the path of priestly holiness” the Cardinal said.
To understand “the sense, style and above all the content of this being a father to priests”, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos focussed his reflections on two theological aspects: Christological dimension and sacramental nature. “When we are ordained bishops we are called to be a father to our priests in the spirit of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his flock” the Cardinal said. “Without a doubt the effectiveness of the new evangelisation to which we are called depends also on this spirit of paternity which should exist between us and our priests as we form ‘one body of priests, although destined to different duties, permeated by a spirit of service and mutual trust. Although God calls us to be ‘heralds of the faith’ and ‘authentic teachers’, giving us the authority of Christ among the People of God entrusted to us by the Holy Spirit, only the capillary activity of our priests, like clear water, regenerator of life, which permeates rocks and imbues the earth even the most arid, can guarantee each of our missionary communities the nourishment of the Word of God and the vigour of the Sacraments”.
Since the Bishop shares “Christ’s own consecration and mission”, the bishop’s paternity is not an option of the individual instead it is “a sacramental gift and a mystery of grace in Christ … This means that the bishop’s paternity concerns the whole of his ministry in all three dimensions teaching, sanctifying and governing”. “We are fathers - said the prefect of the Congregation for the clergy - because we generate spiritually for the transmission of the priesthood in Christ through the laying on of hands. We are fathers because with our life at the service of salus animarum, we nurture in men the birth of the priestly vocation and successively we guarantee in them the means for their priestly, apostolic and missionary life”.
Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos then said that the Bishop helps his priests grow in holiness and guides them to fulfil the mission entrusted to them firstly by his own holiness of life: “If a Bishop fails to strive for holiness, other means are of little value”. The Bishop must be the first to demonstrate with his life, “primacy of being over doing”. “The example of the Risen Christ who appears to the Apostles on the shore of Lake Tiberiade after a night of unsuccessful fishing, can inspire us for our pastoral planning - the Cardinal said -. We will have the courage to speak frankly to our brothers in the priesthood like fathers who hand on not the world’s wisdom, but God’s wisdom which helps us to be holy guides and teachers”.
In the last part of his lecture Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos spoke about ongoing formation and formation to missionary activity: an essential aspect of formation “manifested in paternal and fraternal accompaniment of the ministerial life of his priests”. More specifically with regard to missionary formation the Cardinal said: “Let us remind ourselves and our priests that we exist and we act for the proclamation of the Gospel to the world and the building of the Church in the name and person of Christ, Head and Shepherd, wherever and in whatever duty we work, since our ministry is not only for the particular Church but also for the universal Church”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 18/9/2006; Righe 45 - Parole 652)
