The role of the priest

In my blog entry on July 9th I addressed an incident I faced challenging the role of priest as a teacher. This got me thinking about the role of the Catholic priest. The Catholic priest shares in the threefold mission of Christ: that of teacher, priest and shepherd. A Catholic priest serves 'In Persona Christi Capitis' ( in the person of Christ the Head) and as such share in the headship and ministry of Christ. As I was thinking about this I decided that I would spend the next three blog entries blogging on each of these ministries and responsibilities of the Catholic priest.

I want to give a little background on the priest and his position in the Church as a foundation for these next three blogs. The Church speaks of the two priesthoods of Christ. The first is royal priesthood and this is a priesthood shared by every baptized and confirmed Catholic. Those belonging to the royal priesthood, also called the common priesthood, have an important role to play in the Church. "The common priesthood of the faithful is exercised by the unfolding of baptismal grace --a life of faith, hope, and charity" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 1547).

The second priesthood, the hierarchial or ministerial priesthood, is that of the ordained ministry and is at the service of the common priesthood. The ministerial priesthood is bestowed by the sacrament of Holy Orders. There are three degrees of Holy Orders: bishop, priest and deacon. Each have a special role in the the service to the common priesthood. The bishop and priest share in the the ministerial priesthood of Christ whereas the deacon is intended to help and serve the bishop and priest. With that in mind, I am going to focus on the bishop and priest as they share in the ministry of the Person of Christ the Head.

The ministerial priesthood is ordered in the ministry of bishop and of priest. The bishop is said to have the received the "fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders" (CCC, para. 1594) meaning he is a successor of the Apostles and is the visible head of Church. It is the bishops, in union with the Holy Father, that govern the Catholic Church. It is only the bishop who can ordain a man to the priesthood. The priest shares in the ministerial responsibilities of the bishop and serves as a co-worker with the bishop. It is their ministy as teacher, priest and shepherd that we will focus on in these next entries.

Obviously, with the discussions we have had recently, my first entry on this subject will be on the role of priest (when I refer to the priest this will also include the bishop as they both share in the ministerial priesthood) as teacher. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 06:47 | link | comments (1) |
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So much to do...so little time...

Wow! The response to my last post on the role of the priest as teacher was impressive and also very comforting. I didn't really question my responsibility as a priest to be a teacher of the flock but it is nice to know that good, solid Catholics agree with that role of a priest.

The reason I haven't followed up is that I am preparing to take 20 teens from our parish to a youth conference in Springfield, MO. This is my 5th year of attending this conference but is the 1st year for Prince of Peace so I have been handling alot of the specifics. As a result I have not been able to blog like I usually do.

I will be leaving on Thursday morning for the youth conference and will be away until Sunday. I am leaving again Monday for a class retreat and will not return until Wednesday. So, I will not be making a blog entry again until sometime after July 24th. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 14:24 | link | comments (3) |
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What is the role of a priest as teacher?

I am deviating from my discussion on the sacraments to address an interesting situation I encountered the other day. At the end of Mass the other morning someone in the congregation began singing Immaculate Mary. This is not something we do every day after Mass rather something that happens completely randomly although it is always the same person in the congregation who begins the hymn (I do not know who it is and it doesn't matter). We don't have music at our daily Masses so its is rather odd to sing any songs. We do, however, sing Immaculate Mary at the end of Mass on Marian feast days and Saturdays in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mother. This has been a tradition in the Church for hundreds of years. After this Mass I told the people about the Church's tradition and that if we sang it every day then the hymn doesn't have any significance. I had about a dozen persons come to me in the sacristy after the Mass to thank me because they had felt the same. It wasn't these people but another person that came in the next day that compelled me to write this blog entry.

This person entered the sacristy after the Mass and proceeded to tell me that I had no right to dictate when and what we sing at the Mass. When I explained that I was simply informing everyone of the Church's tradition with singing a Marian hymn she responded by telling me, among other things, that it wasn't my place to be telling people what do do. She then proceeded to state that she was tired of priests who felt that they needed to 'set people straight' about the world and what the people are doing wrong. She gave the example of a priest who had given a homily about how we've come to ignore the presence of Satan in the world and that our doing this was a empowering Satan. She said this priest didn't have the right to chastise people for their thinking. Then, she had the audacity to challenge me on my homily about the reasons for the lack of reverence in the Real Presence....how ironic. According to her, I had no right to 'scold' the people for how they receive the Eucharist or what we are doing that is effecting our reverence.

As she was lecturing me, I repeatedly pointed out that it IS the responsibility of the priest to teach the people even if that includes pointing out our shortcomings and those things we are doing that go against the will of God (notice I used 'us' and 'we'). I asked her what she thought priests should be teaching the people. She replied that we should be teaching of God's love and mercy and forgiveness to which I replied that we do that as well. Again, she returned to priests having the audacity of criticizing the people. I stated that when I give my homilies I ALWAYS include myself and make that clear often times by specifically saying so. So we went back and forth for about ten minutes with her theme continuing to be that it is not my place to tell her how to live, what to do or not to do and what a person is doing wrong. Our conversation ended when she told me that I was a bad priest and that God would judge me on the Last Day for my actions today and in my 'teachings.' The conversation basically ended because I told her I was offended at that comment and that our conversation was over.

Now, my biggest issue here is not with the singing of a Marian hymn or when we do it. In fact, it isn't even something I would list as an issue at all. My issue is with her belief that a priest has no right to tell the faithful they are sinful persons or that there are things we are not doing that we should. I am not even taking issue with her. It is this belief that it is that my 'place' as a priest is to preach the Gospel message and celebrate the sacraments not to preach the errors of the faithful that I have issue with. I have a VERY strong opinion about this belief, which is not unique to only this lady but is becoming a common issue brought up to other priests as well. I have some deep convictions as to what I see as being the role of the priest toward the people. However, before I give my thoughts I would like to hear your thoughts. I am curious as to what you think the role of the priest is as a shepherd of his people and what form their role should take as a teacher of the faith. I look forward to your comments and I will post my thoughts in my next blog entry. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 14:34 | link | comments (4) |
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We hit 10,000!!!!!

At 7:00 PM CST today the blog site had its 10,000th visitor!!! How cool is that.

Blogging has been such an enjoyable (mostly), exciting, educational and wonderful experience these last 2+ years (33 months to be exact). We've covered ALOT of topics, had many discussions about the faith and in my opinion this blog has become a great evangelization tool.

We have readers from every continent except Antartica. We have readers from 58 countries throughout the world. We average about 25 hits a day which is great. We have readers who are Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish and even a Buddhist reader. I have had the opportunity to reach out to and to meet people from all over the world through this blog.

Sometime in the next week or so I will do a blog entry and take sort of nostalgic look back at what we've done in the past 2+ yrs. Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know we made 10,000 readers!!! Here's to another 2+ years and another 10,000 readers! Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 17:12 | link | comments (2) |
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Where do the sacraments come from?

Recently, someone stated to me that the 7 sacraments of the Catholic Church are made up and either have no foundation whatsoever in scriptures or are grotesquelly distorted from what Jesus intended. This person is extremely anti-Catholic and ocassionally approaches me with these challenges. A number of times in the past, when I have undeniabley shown that a teaching of the Church comes from Christ himself, this person has responded by swearing at me and insinuating that I am a 'minion of Satan' to use his own words. I do not take offense to his attitude. As a matter of fact, I actually kind of enjoy it because when he gets like that I know I've defended the faith to the point that he can't counter the Truth and must resort to childish insults. While, I doubt I will ever change this person's views of the Catholic faith (although God can accomplish anything if we only let him) I do feel it necessary to defend the faith because that is my responsibility as a priest.

So, I thought in the next few blogs I would discuss the 7 sacraments of our faith, their origins in scripture and how they have been a part of the faith since Christ established the Church. Because this person is an evangelical Protestant, I rely on scriptures primarily to prove the sacraments. However, when I need to, I also point out their existence since the very first faith communities were formed. I usually point this out when he cites that the Protestant church does not believe in such foolishness. I tend to counter that I can understand why they don't believe it them since the Protestant churches were only formed 400 years ago.

I will begin next time with the sacrament of Baptism, which may be the easiest to explain. Nearly all Protestant churches baptize and the Catholic Church recognizes those baptisms. Interestingly, some Protestant churches do NOT recognize Catholic baptisms. That ought to be fun to explain. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 06:47 | link | comments |
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