Ad Catholici Sacerdotii

Some excerpts from Pius XI's encyclical on the priesthood.

Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on the Catholic Priesthood

Mediators between God and humanity

8. The human race has always felt the need of a priesthood: of men, that is, who have the official charge to be mediators between God and humanity, men who should consecrate themselves entirely to this mediation, as to the very purpose of their lives, men set aside to offer to God public prayers and sacrifices in the name of human society. For human society as such is bound to offer to God public and social worship. It is bound to acknowledge in Him its Supreme Lord and first beginning, and to strive toward Him as to its last end, to give Him thanks and offer Him propitiation. In fact, priests are to be found among all peoples whose customs are known, except those compelled by violence to act against the most sacred laws of human nature. They may, indeed, be in the service of false divinities; but wherever religion is professed, wherever altars are built, there also is a priesthood surrounded by particular marks of honor and veneration.

9. Yet in the splendor of Divine Revelation the priest is seen invested with a dignity far greater still. This dignity was foreshadowed of old by the venerable and mysterious figure of Melchisedech, Priest and King, whom St. Paul recalls as prefiguring the Person and Priesthood of Christ Our Lord Himself.

Christ instituted the Priesthood

13. For, in the first place, as the Council of Trent teaches, Jesus Christ at the Last Supper instituted the sacrifice and the priesthood of the New Covenant:

Our Lord and God, although once and for all, by means of His death on the altar of the cross, He was to offer Himself to God the Father, that thereon He might accomplish eternal Redemption; yet because death was not to put an end to his priesthood, at the Last Supper, the same night in which He was betrayed in order to leave to His beloved spouse the Church, a sacrifice which should be visible (as the nature of man requires), which should represent that bloody sacrifice, once and for all to be completed on the cross, which should perpetuate His memory to the end of time, and which should apply its saving power unto the remission of sins we daily commit, showing Himself made a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech, offered to God the Father, under the appearance of bread and wine, His Body and Blood, giving them to the apostles (whom He was then making priests of the New Covenant) to be consumed under the signs of these same things, and commanded the Apostles and their successors in the priesthood to offer them, by the words 'Do this in commemoration of Me.' "

14. And thenceforth, the Apostles, and their successors in the priesthood, began to lift to heaven that "clean oblation" foretold by Malachy, through which the name of God is great among the gentiles. And now, that same oblation in every part of the world and at every hour of the day and night, is offered and will continue to be offered without interruption till the end of time: a true sacrificial act, not merely symbolical, which has a real efficacy unto the reconciliation of sinners with the Divine Majesty.

15. "Appeased by this oblation, the Lord grants grace and the gift of repentance, and forgives iniquities and sins, however great." The reason of this is given by the same Council in these words: "For there is one and the same Victim, there is present the same Christ who once offered Himself upon the Cross, who now offers Himself by the ministry of priests, only the manner of the offering being different."

16. And thus the ineffable greatness of the human priest stands forth in all its splendor; for he has power over the very Body of Jesus Christ, and makes It present upon our altars. In the name of Christ Himself he offers It a victim infinitely pleasing to the Divine Majesty. "Wondrous things are these," justly exclaims St. John Chrysostom, "so wonderful, they surpass wonder."

Echo of the 'Word of God"

26. The experience of twenty centuries fully and gloriously reveals the power for good of the word of the priest. Being the faithful echo and reecho of the "word of God," which "is living and effectual and more piercing than any two-edged sword,' it too reaches "unto the division of the soul and spirit"; it awakens heroism of every kind, in every class and place, and inspires the self forgetting deeds of the most generous hearts. All the good that Christian civilization has brought into the world is due, at least radically, to the word and works of the Catholic priesthood. Such a past might, to itself, serve as sufficient guarantee for the future; but we have a still more secure guarantee, "a more firm prophetical word" in the infallible promises of Christ.

27. The work, too, of the Missions manifests most vividly the power of expansion given by divine grace to the Church. This work is advanced and carried on principally by priests. Pioneers of faith and love, at the cost of innumerable sacrifices, they extend and widen the Kingdom of God upon earth.

Followers of the example of Christ

28. Finally, the priest, in another way, follows the example of Christ. Of Him it is written that He "passed the whole night in the prayer of God" and "ever lives to make intercession for us"; and like Him, the priest, is public and official intercessor of humanity before God; he has the duty and commission of offering to God in the name of the Church, over and above sacrifice strictly so-called, the "sacrifice of praise," in public and official prayer; for several times each day with psalms, prayers and hymns taken in great part from the inspired books, he pays to God this dutiful tribute of adoration and thus performs his necessary office of interceding for humanity. And never did humanity, in its afflictions, stand more in need of intercession and of the divine help which it brings. Who can tell how many chastisements priestly prayer wards off from sinful mankind, how many blessings it brings down and secures?

29. If Our Lord made such magnificent and solemn promises even to private prayers, how much more powerful must be that prayer which is said ex officio in the name of the Church, the beloved Spouse of the Savior? The Christian, though in prosperity so often forgetful of God, yet in the depth of his heart keeps his confidence in prayer, feels that prayer is all powerful, and as by a holy instinct, in every distress, in every peril whether private or public, has recourse with special trust to the prayer of the priest. To it the unfortunate of every sort look for comfort; to it they have recourse, seeking divine aid in all the vicissitudes of this exile here on earth. Truly does the "priest occupy a place midway between God and human nature: from Him bringing to us absolving beneficence, offering our prayers to Him and appeasing the wrathful Lord."

Holy office

33. Nevertheless, it is quite true that so holy an office demands holiness in him who holds it. A priest should have a loftiness of spirit, a purity of heart and a sanctity of life befitting the solemnity and holiness of the office he holds. For this, as We have said, makes the priest a mediator between God and man; a mediator in the place, and by the command of Him who is "the one mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ." The priest must, therefore, approach as close as possible to the perfection of Him whose vicar he is, and render himself ever more and more pleasing to God, by the sanctity of his life and of his deeds; because more than the scent of incense, or the beauty of churches and altars, God loves and accepts holiness. "They who are the intermediaries between God and His people," says St. Thomas, "must bear a good conscience before God, and a good name among men." On the contrary, whosoever handles and administers holy things, while blameworthy in his life, profanes them and is guilty of sacrilege: "They who are not holy ought not to handle holy things."

34. For this reason even in the Old Testament God commanded His priests and levites: "Let them therefore be holy because I am also holy: the Lord who sanctify them." In his canticle for the dedication of the Temple, Solomon the Wise made this same request to the Lord in favor of the sons of Aaron: "Let Thy priests be clothed with justice: and let Thy saints rejoice." So, Venerable Brethren, may we not ask with St. Robert Bellarmine: "If so great uprightness, holiness and lively devotion was required of priests who offered sheep and oxen, and praised God for the moral blessings; what, I ask, is required of those priests who sacrifice the Divine Lamb and give thanks for eternal blessings? " "A great dignity," exclaims St. Lawrence Justinian, "but great too is the responsibility; placed high in the eyes of men they must also be lifted up to the peak of virtue before the eye of Him who seeth all; otherwise their elevation will be not to their merit but to their damnation."

35. And surely every reason We have urged in showing the dignity of the Catholic priesthood does but reinforce its obligation of singular holiness; for as the Angelic Doctor teaches: "To fulfill the duties of Holy Orders, common goodness does not suffice; but excelling goodness is required; that they who receive Orders and are thereby higher in rank than the people, may also be higher in holiness." The Eucharistic Sacrifice in which the Immaculate Victim who taketh away the sins of the world is immolated, requires in a special way that the priest, by a holy and spotless life, should make himself as far as he can, less unworthy of God, to whom he daily offers that adorable Victim, the very Word of God incarnate for love of us. Agnoscite quod agitis, imitamini quod tractatis, "realize what you are doing, and imitate what you handle," says the Church through the Bishop to the deacons as they are about to be consecrated priests. The priest is also the almoner of God's graces of which the Sacraments are the channels; how grave a reproach would it be, for one who dispenses these most precious graces were he himself without them, or were he even to esteem them lightly and guard them with little care.

"Deeds speak louder than words"

36. Moreover, the priest must teach the truths of faith; but the truths of religion are never so worthily and effectively taught as when taught by virtue; because in the common saying: "Deeds speak louder than words." The priest must preach the law of the Gospel; but for that preaching to be effective, the most obvious and, by the Grace of God, the most persuasive argument, is to see the actual practice of the law in him who preaches it. St. Gregory the Great gives the reason: "The voice which penetrates the hearts of the hearers, is the voice commended by the speaker's own life; because what his word enjoins, his example helps to bring about." This exactly is what Holy Scripture says of our Divine Savior: He "began to do and to teach." And the crowds hailed Him, not so much because "never did man speak like this man," but rather because "He hath done all things well." On the other hand, they who "say and do not," practicing not what they preach, become like the scribes and Pharisees. And Our Lord's rebuke to the other hand, they who "say and do not," practicing not what they preach, the word of God, was yet administered publicly, in the presence of the listening crowd: "The Scribes and Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you observe and do: but according to their work do ye not." A preacher who does not try to ratify by his life's example the truth he preaches, only pulls down with one hand what he builds up with the other. On the contrary, God greatly blesses the labor of those heralds of the gospel who attend first to their own holiness; they see their apostolate flourishing and fruitful, and in the day of the harvest, "coming they shall come with joyfulness carrying in their sheaves."

(...)

92. There only remains for Us, Venerable Brethren, to impart to all the Apostolic and paternal Benediction, which all expect and desire from their common Father. May it be a blessing of thanksgiving for all the benefits poured out by Divine Providence in these extraordinary Holy Years of the Redemption; may it be a blessing of good augury for the new year which is about to begin.

Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, the twentieth day of December, 1935, in the fifty-sixth anniversary of Our priesthood, the fourteenth of Our Pontificate.

PIUS XI