I hope that nobody will expect from me a theological treatise on priesthood. What I feel I am able to do is something like a contribution to a discussion, which is, as everybody knows, going on for some years. So I should like to formulate a rather Surprised remark. Some surprised remarks may be challenging. Remarks of a layman on the subject of priesthood.

[01:06]

I am a layman in the double sense of the word. I'm not a priest and not a theologian. Well, the second fact is clearly a handicap insofar as I am not able nor authorized to speak on this subject on the basis of my own competent interpretation of our sacred tradition within it of the New Testament in particular. On the other side, one should not understate too much either. I am not quite unfamiliar with the great tradition of theology regarding priesthood, and I may be allowed to say for instance that I had a rather long meditating intercourse with that doctrine, that clear and I feel very deep doctrine on priesthood which is formulated by St.

[02:11]

Thomas. Now you certainly know of that painful fact that it has meanwhile become somewhat embarrassing to use even the name of this last great teacher of the still undivided Western Christendom. But it should not be suppressed, however, that the Second Vatican Council demands the future priests to go deeper into the mysteries of salvation under his guidance, Sancto Toma Magistro, and it has been said rightly that never before an ecumenical council has named and distinguished an individual theologian in such a way now to be a layman in the first sense of the word which means not to be an ordained priest maybe I should rather say to be a non-ordained priest

[03:21]

This seems to be much less a handicap. It may be of some advantage to complete a bit the discussion which is going on about the priestly self-understanding and to correct it a bit by what a simple Christian layman considers to be a priest and what he finds are his desirable qualities and necessary qualities. I said it will be a surprised remark, the surprise which I should like to express is concerned only with one thing, with one point of that discussion among priestly theologians. And the point is that there is usually not even mentioned that quality which has been unanimously considered hitherto the distinguishing mark of a priest, that which makes him a priest.

[04:38]

I said hitherto. That is perhaps not a very precise term. In any case, it has to be understood in such a way that it explicitly includes the decrees of Vaticanum Secundum. So what then is the priestly in the priest? What does distinguish him from the non-priest, from the non-ordained priest? Now it is of course not much meaning to give here a private individual answer. and be this answer as original and as modern as it can possibly be. Instead, I should like to quote three hitherto informations, three hitherto answers, all of them of representative character. First information.

[05:41]

Priests are being ordained for this, that they perform the sacrament of the body of Christ. The priest has two main acts. The first and primary act is related to the celebration of the mystery of the Eucharist. And the second and secondary act, which is based on the first one, but notabene also belongs to the main and specific task of a priest, that second priestly act is to lead the people to and to prepare them for the meaningful and convenient participation in the celebration of this mystery. Second answer. that in and with the office of priesthood the Apostles and their successors have received the power to consecrate, to offer and to spend the body and blood of Christ and to forgive or not to forgive the sins.

[06:58]

This in the Holy Scripture is clearly said and has always been taught in the tradition of the Catholic Church. And third answer, the Lord has established certain ministers among the faithful so that they, provided with the sacred power of their order to offer sacrifice and to remit sins, should perform their priestly office publicly for man in the name of Christ. Priests fulfill their chief duty in the mystery of Eucharistic sacrifice. They exercise the sacred function of Christ most of all, Maxime, in the Eucharistic liturgy or Synaxis, in Eucharistico cultu, acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming his mystery.

[08:01]

They reap present, re-, present and apply in the sacrifice of the Mass the one sacrifice of the New Testament, namely the sacrifice of Christ until the coming of the Lord. Now these three informations or answers, fully identical in their core, cover the span of seven centuries, up to our own present time. The third answer, namely, is contained in the Decrees of Vaticanum Secundum. The first one has Thomas Aquinas for its author, and the text quoted in the second place is a formulation of the Council of Trent. Of course, none of these answers claims to describe the totality of all concrete possibilities of priestly activity within history.

[09:08]

And certainly the emphasis on the different aspects of the life of a priest may change according to time and place. But what is under discussion here is the differencia specifica, the difference, the distinguishing quality. If we are to define what a medical doctor is, an officially authorized surgeon, let's say, or a lawyer or a judge, then, of course, It can be said that a doctor or lawyer, a judge, at the same time and always, is also a citizen, he is also a husband, he is also a father, and so on. And it can be possibly said also that a specific individual, a mother or a nurse, might likewise have some experience and capacity of healing.

[10:21]

as a doctor. True. But the differencia specifica of an authorized doctor would still be that he alone, for instance, is allowed to make a surgical operation or to declare a person to be dead. So, in the same way, it can be rightly said, and it must be said, of course, that the priest is also a responsible citizen, and that he should be maybe a well-trained speaker, or maybe even a journalist, or that he should be acquainted with social problems and be an active social worker, and so on. But all those three answers emphasize the differencia specifica, that quality which makes a priest a priest.

[11:27]

And if, in a theological exposition and representation of the priestly service or the priestly self-understanding, you can find hardly a single word which could remind you of those three answers I quoted If there is, of course I am referring here to those discussions I know of, Germany, Europe, but I think it is not very different here. If there is an almost complete silence with regard to the consecratory power and to the offering of the sacrifice and to the connection between what the priest is doing on the one side and the Lord's sacramental presence in the sacred bread on the other side, then neither friendship nor personal veneration can prevent me from looking at the basic conception with an extreme degree of distrust.

[12:41]

And I think it is simply wrong to say, for instance, what in our discussions many times has been said, that according to the Vaticanum Secundum, the Word would be the all-embracing and fundamental thing. The Word. Unless you would understand by the Word the divine Logos who became man in Christ and whose body and blood we venerate and receive in the Eucharist. And it is, I think, not true either, that the entire priestly service essentially should be kerygma, proclamation, also the celebration of the Eucharist, au fond, at bottom, proclamation of the mystery of Easter, or cultic proclamation of the death of Christ.

[13:50]

These are formulations of Ratzinger and Kaurana. And consequently, the priest, primarily a preacher, the announcer and proclaimer of the Word. In the Institutio Generalis of the new Ordo Missae, you will find that the priests are called neither preachers, nor managers, nor chairmen, of the congregation, nor even presbyters, of course, in that liturgical context. But they are called sacerdotes et ministri sacri. Now, nobody will deny that there happens also proclamation, also keringma, in the performance of the Eucharist and in the sacrament of the Confession.

[14:52]

And it may well be that I, as a receiver of those sacraments, get an insight which possibly changes all my life when I hear the words of the Absolution, or the word of the Body of Christ broken for me. Nobody will deny that. But I would say, I would ask the question, pose the question, is not the real abolition of my guilt, my sin, and the real reception of the sacramental bread something which is different on principle from all that? If, let's say, in the service of the Word, in the first part of the Mass, the report from the Gospel of St. Matthew, on the Last Supper, is being read, then, without any doubt, there is happening keringma, proclamation.

[16:08]

But this reading can be done by every Christian. For this, there is not needed an ordained priest, not even a lector. But if, on the contrary, the same report is being spoken within the prex eucharistica, within the canon of the Mass, then, besides the Kerygma, And apart from the proclamation, something quite different happens. It happens what the word of the proclamation is speaking of. But that this event really takes place and can take place, for that the consecratory power is needed, which the priest receives in the sacrament of the ordination

[17:09]

and through which alone he is an ordained priest. My very good friend Joseph Ratzinger, whom you certainly know by name at least, once published the somewhat fatal sentence. We had some debate on it and he even allowed me to publish my different and opposed opinion. He once published the somewhat fatal sentence that a priest should not be, I'm quoting him, a cultic craftsman, but a ponderer of the word. Now, as I said, the author said at the same time, in the same article, that this is a drastically over-pointed formulation. But it is exactly this headline character which makes it a dangerous thing.

[18:14]

I experienced that myself many times in some dozen discussions with students of theology and with young priests. This formulation seduces people all too easily to enter into a wrong alternative. Of course the priest must not be a cultic craftsman, whatever that may mean, but he has to be, and he is, one who is in a unique way called upon and authorized and empowered through the sacrament of ordination for the cultic performance of the divine mystery. And of course the priest ought to be also a ponderer of the Word. Nobody has ever denied that. When Thomas Aquinas, for instance, in the 13th century is fighting for the mendicant's permission to preach in the churches, in the parish churches,

[19:35]

One of his main arguments is that the normal, at that time, the normal parish priest doesn't know anything about Holy Scripture, and that the preacher should know the Holy Scripture. Without this acquaintance, with the Bible, the priest would not be able to fulfill his secondary, but not less important, task to lead the people to the meaningful participation in the celebration of the divine mysteries. But to be a ponderer of the Word, perhaps even a preacher and a proclaimer and an announcer of the Word, is in a certain sense the task of every Christian. For this, that's true, possibly in special cases an explicit mission, commission, the missio canonica by the Church is needed, but by no means the sacrament of ordination.

[20:48]

On the other hand, nobody will maintain that the priest would receive in his ordination the charism of pondering the Word, or of its right proclamation, or even the ability of a correct interpretation of the Holy Scripture. It takes time, it takes exercise, and there is practical experience needed, for the realization and the fulfillment of the two offices and tasks of the priest, to be a good pastor and shepherd, and to be a good preacher. But there is needed neither time, nor exercise, nor experience, for his becoming able to fulfill the specifically, monu sacerotale, It is exactly this ability which in its fullness is received by the priest and by him alone in the sacrament of ordination, in its fullness.

[21:57]

He receives above all the consecratory power to celebrate the Eucharist in persona Christi and for the whole Church. Exclusively this is also the basis and the reason for and of the true dignity of the ordained priest, by virtue of which, according to Vaticanum Secundum, he is distinct, essentially, I'm quoting, you know that, essentially and not only gradually, from the common priesthood of all faiths. And for me, again I have to remind you of that surprise, for me it is not only a surprising but a deeply terrifying experience to hear priestly theologians speaking ironically of that dignity, as if it would have anything to do with something on which one could pride oneself.

[23:10]

On the contrary, I would say, the objectivity of this dignity makes the non-priestly faithful independent of the incidental and casual qualities of the priest. popular sermons during the first mass of a new ordained priest, they may certainly sometimes get into all too drastic and sentimental comparisons, even with angels, or something like that. But personally, I do not feel the slightest difficulty to call a young chaplain, whose father I could be, reverend, and even father, pear, what by no means would come to my mind when I meet the most ingenious ponderer of the world, or the most dedicated social worker, or the most learned professor, of theology.

[24:21]

By the way, the Christian could be raised whether the special priestly form of life In the first place, the celibacy could be made plausible in the most convincing, if not in the only way, by going back to that consecratory dignity on which everything else is based. I said it could be made plausible. I should say plausible at least as something internally belonging and meaningful. Nobody says that there is a necessary connection. At this point I should like to make some remarks in order to clarify first the term in persona Christi and second the objectivity, the objective efficiency and effectivity of what the priest is doing in persona Christi, in the person of Christ.

[25:30]

So first, this expression, in persona Christi, is to be found in St. Thomas Aquinas, and I think from there it came into the decrees of the Council of Trent, and also from there again in the decrees of Vaticanum Secundum. So to act in the person of somebody else is a representation which is – we have spoken here often enough now, of the preambular. This is also a pre-theological representation. It belongs to the preambular. If you don't understand what it means to act in the person, in persona, of somebody else, you cannot really understand what it means to act in persona Christi. And There are probably two sources from two realms from which this representation is taken.

[26:40]

From the juridical sphere, to act in the person of someone else, juridically, or maybe even more, from the theatre. The actor acts in the person of Hamlet, let's say. That is to say, there is a specific kind of identification. The actor, for instance, does not quote Shakespeare. When he says, to be or not to be, this is the question. He does not quote a poet. It might perhaps be helpful to consider for one moment some different possible ways to say the words, this is my body. There could be, let us say, a non-Christian, educated Hindu who reads or who cites that passage of St.

[27:45]

Matthew to his friends or to his students. This is what the Christians believe that this man, Jesus, said during what they call the Last Supper. This would be a mere quotation out of a certain book or a certain author. Then a Christian could read the same passage to his family in a Sunday's scripture reading, let's say. then it is obviously more than a mere quotation. There's a kind of realization in this specific sense, which this word realization has only, as it seems to me, in the English language. And then, as I already said, the same report could be read in the mass

[28:53]

by a layman within the service of the Word, in the first part of the Mass. And again, it would have become much more than a quotation. It would have become proclamation, keringma, in the stricter sense of the term. And finally, it can be said, as in fact it is being said, in the canon of the Mass by the priest. Where? No, I could not say where the priest is identifying himself with Christ, as the actor identifies himself with Hamlet. No, where Christ himself is speaking and acting in and identifying himself with the priest. And this mystical, but of course real, objective identity becomes also somewhat visible.

[30:04]

That is the sense of any sacrament, of every. It has to be made somewhat visible in the way the priest is speaking and behaving. He visibly takes the brand. in his hands, and so on. And Otto Casel once said, he was quoting then this Dutch theologian or historian Gerardus van der Leeuw, not his Phenomenology of Religion, a book on primitive religion, where this Pfanderle who says, if you would like to see or to attend, to observe a real myth, a real mythical happening, of course, myth and mythical is here taken in the positive, the most thinkable, positive way.

[31:07]

He said, if you would like to attend such a mythical event, then you cannot, then you only have to go to the Catholic mass. There is this mythical identification with a divine person. By the way, I would like to put this into brackets, so to speak, because it is only a side remark and it is not of real importance, I mean not of essential, it doesn't belong to the essentials, but this speaking and this acting objectively in persona Christi is, I said, it has to be made visible in some way, but it is also made visible in fact in the liturgical vestments, for instance.

[32:08]

And again, I would say, in analogy to the theater. I don't speak of entertainment theater, that's clear. Tragedy. Or when I think of the Japanese no plays, for instance. And this, for my feeling, is also the reason why the priest, I think, should not go outside the church in his liturgical vestments in order to talk to people. who meanwhile light their cigarette, maybe offer the priest another one. There are some other reasons for that, I would say. It has also to do with the meaning of the sacred action we spoke already of last night, or the night before. It belongs to the nature of a sacred action to have a definite beginning and to have a definite end.

[33:10]

again in analogy to the theater. Hamlet on the stage neither says good night to the spectators nor does he talk to them while in his costume. But I said this is in brackets. Here is also just another remark belonging still into the brackets. It is, I feel, also the reason why the individual name of the celebrant is not in the least of interest. I spoke of the Indians, and I'm just coming from New Mexico, and I attended some dancing celebration, sacred dances with the Pueblos. Santo Domingo, for instance.

[34:15]

And I had a conversation with a man who is really an expert on all these sacred customs of the Indians. A certain Mr. Ortega, he wrote also on that subject. And I asked him, would an Indian, I think I talked some in private conversation, I already told that to somebody here. I asked him whether a Pueblo Indian, while wearing his ceremonial dance vestment, would possibly talk to people on commonplace subjects, or whether he would leave his ritual place. The answer of this Mr. Ortega was a very definite, no, never. The dressing itself, which takes place in the kiva, is a ritual event, and so the disrobing too. And Mr. Ortega said, I have many friends among the Indians, but if I would meet them in such a ritual dance, they would ignore me.

[35:24]

But this would not mean that they deny my friendship, that they deny the brotherhood also. It only means they are now acting on a different level. Now, brackets closed. I should like to try to make clear the meaning of that mystical identity between Christ and the priest acting in persona Christi still in another way. In our discussions there in Santa Fe on pastoral liturgy, we had there the French, the president of the National Liturgical Center of France, the Pergi, and he pointed out that the priest alone is able to say, we, in order to represent the congregation.

[36:29]

He alone can say, in the name of the congregation, we. One could say that he is speaking, then, in persona congregaciones. Certainly true. But sometimes the priest says also ego, I, and not we. And this ego, again, can have a different meaning, and I think it is important to see and to realize the differences. St. Thomas, for instance, is stressing that point when he distinguishes between ego te baptizo and ego te absorbo. In the second case, he is acting strictly in persona Christi. The ego is Christ himself, although, of course, in the first case, true, as in all sacraments, the real agent is Christ.

[37:33]

But there is a difference. And a last remark on the objectivity and the objective effectivity of the priests acting in persona Christi. We speak of the Eucharist prayer. But there again has to be made, I would say, a distinction or even more than one. I pray that my child may become healthy again, my sick child. Or the priest prays I eat your body and drink your blood, let it not bring me condemnation, but health in mind and body." This is one kind of prayer, petition prayer, but it is quite a different thing when he prays, Father, may the Holy Spirit sanctify these offerings, let them become the body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.

[38:45]

That's a quite different kind of prayer. It's not a petition. The petition prayer is an expression of hope. Petitio est interpretativa spes, Sir St. Thomas. But in the first, in the prayer, let this become the body and blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord. In that case, the priest does not express his hope or our hope. This prayer expresses gratefully, of course, what we are sure will really happen. It is an expression of the acknowledgement of what objectively will take place.

[39:48]

So far about these two points, what does in persona Christi mean and how about the objectivity and the objective effectivity of this acting in persona Christi. Now concluding, everybody knows that all this has become somewhat questionable today, and that it has been made questionable, and that by an appeal to a, as they say, new understanding of the New Testament, which our generation has brought about. From the point of view of this pretended new understanding, All I have said seems to be a kind of relapse into the Old Testament or even into paganism. And at this point I have to confess that my handicap of being a non-theologian comes in again.

[41:01]

I am not really on my own capable of a counter-argumentation on the basis of my own interpretation of the New Testament. Although I am convinced that the early fathers of the Church and the great teachers of medieval Christendom have likewise thought and argued biblically and that they were much closer to the Holy Scripture than most people today are willing to concede. And the more I become aware of the enormously contradictory variety of exegetical information, also of the apparently evident ones, the more urgently I feel faced with the question, who is the definitively legitimatized explainer and interpreter of the New Testament and the Scripture in general?

[42:07]

And in spite of all my grateful respect for the historical, critical labor, whose fruits are absolutely, of course, indispensable also to the Church, nevertheless, I am infinitely happy that I have to expect the true explanation of the New Testament, inspired and guaranteed by its author himself, not from the side of the exegetical science, nor from theology in general, but just from the Church herself, not only to be sure from her explicit edicts on Scripture and decrees, but at the same time from all and perhaps even more from all what she, the Church, especially as the Ecclesia Orans, is saying by her cultic sacramental life itself.

[43:11]

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I don't think there are any questions. I'm expecting that you are willing to kill me, some of you. Would it help if we stood up just a moment? And in the view of modern conditions and the necessity of examining other aspects of priestly ministry, they focus on these and discuss and elaborate and explore. But with this understood, as in the background, you think that the silence is a kind of conspiracy to eliminate from the notion of priesthood what is, as he would put it, is essential to it?

[44:26]

That's, of course, difficult to answer. I would say I wouldn't judge what they have in mind and what they really think, but what they say. And if they claim to describe what priesthood means and they don't speak of that, and they even say, as Ratzinger did, I think he changed his mind a bit meanwhile. But as he did, that the main thing is the Word, according to Vatican Council 2, and the priest is primarily a proclaimer only of the Word, then I would say he suppresses something. Of course, he wouldn't deny that there is a consecratory power, but he doesn't speak of it. then it becomes, of course, very close to the Protestant view of the minister.

[45:29]

But in regard to this proclaiming of the word, in some things I've read, and I must confess I haven't read widely in this area, but in some of the things I've read, it has been pointed out that this office of proclaiming the word is also realized in his proclaiming the you know, the Eucharistic words, the consecratory words, this is also part of the proclamation, obviously not in the same way in which it is in the proclamation of the Word in the foremast, but this also, and because it is in the essential part of the Mass, is also proclamation of the Word, when the priest says, this is my blood, my blood he is proclaiming with... No, I do not deny that, I mean, I made it I made it explicitly clear that there is proclamation also, but, I mean, the main thing is that it is really happening what the proclamation is about.

[46:32]

And, I mean, if you wouldn't see that distinction, then I would say the main point is is failed. You fail the main point, then, if you speak only of proclamation and do not realize at the same time that what your proclamation is about is at the same time really happening as an objective reality. But if this isn't denied by such theologians, do you think that one should assume that they No, I wouldn't say that they explicitly deny, but they don't explicitly speak of it either. And that is misleading at least. And I had some very sharp debates with them, and so I saw that they, they have some, there are some obstacles which prevent them from, from accepting that.

[47:38]

And they speak of magic, of a magical idea of peace and so on. Not Ratzinger. And of course, Rahner. But Rahner never says, speaks as far as I know, he says, it's a cultic proclamation. I asked him, what does it mean, cultic proclamation? There is proclamation within the cultic performance of the Eucharist. That's all true. But I would like that he would stress also this point that there happens something, something real, objectively, and that it happens exactly that what the proclamation is speaking about, and that there is a difference between that proclamation and that happening. There are two things. You cannot separate them. They are together, but they are to be distinguished, and they are two different things, I would say. And what makes the priest, I should say that, is this power that this really happens then by his proclamation, not by my, as a blamer, not by my proclamation.

[48:54]

Even if I would that, I mean this objectivity also in the absolution points. I remember, and that was for me really a clarification of the objectivity. of what happens in the sacraments. A friend of mine who was in Siberia in the prison, in a big prisoner's camp, and he said one day there came to me a minister, a Protestant minister, there were many others, or some, several others also, Protestant ministers. He came to me and said, I would like to have, to say confession to you. He said, I answered, why don't you go to your Protestant He said, because I do not wish to get an advice, nor a consolation, what I wish to get is the absolution. So I think here the man, he knew what is going on in the absolution.

[49:55]

not only proclamation and not only kind of prayer, I hope God will forgive you, but the real forgiveness, the real abolishment of sins. That was what he was looking for. And I wouldn't deny that when I hear the words ego te absolvo, that could change my life, that this is possible, that a man can say that. I would say that is the fruit of proclamation, can be, but the real forgiveness is something different. I mean, the main obstacles, the main objections also, they seem to come out of the interpretation of the New Testament. They say there is no talk about priesthood. There is no talk about the Zerdos. The New Testament even avoids all these names, Kohen, and the pagan expressions for priesthood, especially them, but also the Jewish

[51:12]

But I feel there could be in that, I mean, there could be an interpretation of this fact, could be that the situation of the first generation is always different. When I was in India, I found a, it is a situation of the mission, of the converts, of the first generation. I found there a Belgian priest who had on his chalice and even on his liturgical vestment, the holy syllable of the Indians, OM. And it was in Kolkata, where they speak Bengali, and this OM, with which all religious sessions in India begin, even non-religious lectures. This OM is written in Bengali in three letters, A-O-M. And he says for me that is first the symbol of Trinity, Holy Trinity, and at the same time the symbol of my deep connection with the sacred tradition of Hinduism.

[52:26]

But I spoke with other people also, and he himself said, if you become a convert, from Hinduism to the Catholic Church. You cannot in the first generation, you have to get away from it. You have to leave out this, you cannot speak out anymore for a longer time this holy syllable. This is impossible. You have to get away first and you have to avoid any mistaking of what you are doing now with what you were doing before. And I think this could be true also for the first generation in the New Testament. It was dangerous to speak of something or of somebody or of some institution which at the same time was still valid in the Jewish religion or in the pagan religion. So I think that it has to be at least considered, I would say, that this possibility exists.

[53:29]

And then, after then, when the danger was over, this Belgian priest who was for 25 or 30 years now in India, for him it was not danger at all to see the connections between the sacred tradition of Hinduism and of all religion and of his Catholic faith. But as I said, the Hindu who becomes first a Catholic, he cannot insist on that connection. He has to go away first. And so I would say this may explain this avoidance of all terms which could lead to a misunderstanding of the new, of the absolutely new kind of priesthood in the In Christianity, priesthood distinguished from what was in the temple, the Jewish religion, and from pagan, in the pagan religion.

[54:39]

And we spoke already of that last night, of that other objection, that the Eucharist is derived from the meal in the family, the home, and not from the temple service. But I think again, at least the church is clearly using in the explanation of the Eucharist all terms which were used in the temporal sacrifices also. And the sacrifice of Christ is at the same time, I would say, has the character of a meal and at the same time the character of the sacrifice which was prefigured in all the sacrifices in the temple. So there are some biblical objections and I think they are not valid, these ones. Maybe there are other ones, but this wouldn't convince me.

[55:47]

I'd like to continue the same thing, but I guess I have nothing to contribute. But I'm not completely satisfied. I would like to hold on to what you said, which I always did hold on to, until those documents came out that the big thing about the priesthood is power to consecrate against sins. But I'm sorry I don't have the documents here, but it seems to me the way that Bannekin, too, speaks, that the emphasis on the preacher We would always say before that, that it was the consecratory power. But it seems to be on the pitch. Yeah. So many of these modern theologians, they're not denying the consequence, but they say, what is the most important function of the priest? And from the way the Vatican says it, it seems to be the preaching the word. That's the impression I have, either. Yeah, there are two expressions in the, as far as I can see, in the decrees of Vatican Council.

[56:53]

The primary act, or the first act of the priest is, that sometimes is said, the proclamation and preaching, but it depends upon what first means. And of course, first comes the proclamation, the leading to. That is temporarily first, I would say. And second, I should say, that this certainly has been a bit neglected in our pre-conciliar church life, so that the emphasis is understandable on preaching. But if you ask for the differencia specifica, I think, then things become different. But this leading to the meaningful celebration of the faithful, the meaningful participation of the faithful in the celebration of the mystery of the Eucharist, this leading includes many, many things.

[57:57]

It may even include revolution in South America, to take part in the revolutionary movements. But we had in Santa Fe also the Archbishop of Panama, Thomas Clavel, with his San Miguelito liturgy. Maybe you know about it. And there was something in his talking which showed that he, in his experience with people, in these very new and daring experiences, that he changed somewhat his mind. For instance, this is a different thing now, but it has to do with what we were talking about yesterday, last night. He, for instance, said, first I was convinced we don't need churches at all anymore. We just have some rooms and finished. And all the palaces and he gave his own bishop palace to a university and so on.

[59:01]

And then he said, I changed my mind. I saw we need real churches and people, not only the normal, simple people, but the educated people and the Christian, we need churches. So he also said that, he was speaking of Camillo Torres and so on, and he didn't agree with his attitude. He said, That is not a priestly task. We have to lead the people there, and we have to make the layman, the Christian layman, able to work in the social sphere. But that is not a priestly task to be just a leader in the revolutionary movement. So, although he was very much involved in all these social problems of South America, He said, this is not our priestly and even not the task of the church.

[60:04]

He said, the church hasn't to change the social situation. We have to teach the people that they do. And then they can participate much more and much more meaningful in what the church herself is doing in fulfilling her own task. So again, I would say this Leading, too, includes so many things you cannot even enumerate them. It may include, as I said, journalism, and to get all tricks and all media of communication, and to make, to be a social worker, at least. But if you divide that, I met in St. Louis some years ago a social worker, a priest, Father Koller, maybe you know his name. He is working among the Negroes, and he gives his life for getting houses and so on, and repair houses with federal help, by the way, for the Negroes.

[61:20]

And he took me around, and my son was with me. He took me around through all the family houses of his parish, through some of them. And he said, I don't care for baptism, mass saying, and all that. Here, this is my work. I said, why? Why do you separate that? They know that you are not a businessman. They know that you are not a manager. They know that you are a father. So I would say, this is wrong. I wouldn't, of course, judge this individual man. I wouldn't dare to judge him. But, I mean, in general, in principle, on principle, that's wrong, I would say. To separate that simply, that that's not my task. I am a social worker. Now, if you are a priest, you are something more, I would say. You can be also a social worker, but in order to lead the people there where they belong. So this doesn't exclude, I mean, a multitude of functions.

[62:25]

And they can be, in our modern society, they may be psychologically even not only emphasized, but may be overemphasized for a while. If it does not mean that the main thing is just neglected and denied. I mean, is that a kind of answer to you? I have a difficulty in that. I can't find anything that you said that I disagree with at all. It all seems perfectly agreeable with me. It's just that the emphasis that you put on certain things makes me uneasy, and specifically the emphasis on the consecratory power of the priest. And this is the specific thing that makes him a priest, which is fine.

[63:29]

But the business with the proclamation of the Word and the early Christian communities, if I'm not mistaken, chose the member of the community among them to be the priest that they thought was the most holy. It seems to me that the most holy member of the community is the one who best proclaims the Word of God. And so what I guess I'm saying is that I don't see how there's really too much of a difference between the consecratory power and the proclamation of the Word, because they're both such complementary concepts, and they're both necessary for each other. In other words, if I don't... If a person within a Christian community doesn't... Well, let me just leave it at that. That's all. Yes, I believe that I understand you.

[64:32]

And I would say, first of all, there is no consecratory power which would not be connected with the duty of proclaiming the Word. So it belongs to to the very nature and very essence of a priest to proclaim the Word. But it is not the differencia specifica, I would say. And second, I should say, you said maybe that the proclaimer of the Word who is not a priest may be holier, more holy than the priest. That certainly can be. But if I I would be in the situation to confess my sins and get rid of some sins. I wouldn't go to that holy man. I would just go to that priest, who is maybe a very common and not at all exceptionally holy man, just in order to get what he as a priest has, he alone.

[65:39]

Maybe my question, and I'm really ignorant on this point, is how the consecratory power is conferred by the Church. And this is, I mean, through the ordination of the sacrament of the Holy Lord. How did it come about that one individual got that consecratory power, whereas it seems that in the New Testament no special individual was Yes, that's... I don't know, I cannot decide that question. But anyway, there has been, from the beginning, a consecration. When St. Paul says, this is... has to be distinguished from the normal bread, when... now, when the bread became... came out of the bakery, it wasn't that. So there... there was a consecration act in between, and there is no mention about

[66:43]

the man or the community who did it. But in the history of the church, certainly very early already, there was a designated, ordained one man who did it. And I would say it is just, we are so much talking about history, and historical understanding. Now this is simply unhistorical to jump back to or to try to jump back to the first original community and we don't simply know, I think, we don't know what in what way and this change has taken place that one day a specific individual was given that task to and that power of consecratory power. So this is a question I'm not competent to answer but I mean I would say nobody is

[67:52]

is, as far as I can see, able to answer that question, how it came from the community to a specific thing. But it is certainly the history of the church herself, and I would say, as I said last night already, that the self-performance of the church and the self-realization of the church in history is not only based on a biblical argumentation and an interpretation of the Bible and Holy Scripture, but it is itself an interpretation. of what the revelation is about and what the revelation of Christ is saying and that it that it is not possible to derive everything from Holy Scripture and that is said in I mean in the Vatican Council too that the church knows something which is not included explicitly in the Holy Scripture. From where? If I wouldn't believe that the church and the office of St. Peter is in charge of preserving the revelation of Christ, if I wouldn't believe that, I would leave the church.

[68:59]

I wouldn't be a Catholic. That's the basic problem I'm having. saying about them, and perhaps it goes to a particular interpretation, I'll completely revise them, maybe I'll have it up on myself to understand exactly what is being said there. I go back, though, to being very much the Semitic concept, which I think that I find about a place with. Specifically, you use a great deal of ontology when you're speaking, the state of being, the very concept that red is one time red, another time Christ. All this, certainly it's something the Church has been spending a great deal of time enunciating, and certainly now it's our truth. However, I think that we do this denigration of the very Semitic and therefore the very Christ-like concept. that we cannot speak in terms of what things are, but only in terms of what things do.

[70:09]

The God of Israel was not a God who was something. He was a God who did things, who manifested himself. And I think this is a basic problem I have with you. uh... no decrease in certainly the same problem i have to roll your vision of the secret in the thing because i think this is what you have taken away the actions of the priest examples for the great deal of the of what the statement i think i said to me a liturgical role in the upcoming single boards one message but it cost me that and it's not the only time that the greatest after preaching and perhaps the greatest testimony of the preaching of Christ transcended merely the words of Christ and lead it to the actions thereof. So I see too that this aspect of preaching and the priest occurs mainly in his actions. and that this perfunctory aspect of proclaiming the word and sermon or scripture is merely an aspect thereof, and its consecutory power, if you can call it that, is merely perhaps the apex of the natural continuum

[71:25]

of the priest as preacher through his whole life, both in action outside the church and inside the church. So what I see you doing in order to establish a sort of ontology of the priesthood, you have imposed almost a schizophrenia upon the concept of the priest within the sacred and the man who does priest-like preaching outside the sacred. And I just find the whole concept there. develop as being somewhat inappropriate with the mind of Christ. I would have had to have seen it developing from the Semitic concept of action rather than being. Yes, may I first try to repeat what you are saying in order to find out whether I really did understand what you said. As far as I understand you, you say that, when I may overpoint it perhaps a bit, my view is too static. You said ontologic, ontological.

[72:30]

And what is more important is the dynamic aspect, the action aspect, life aspect of priesthood, even in his consecratory power. And isn't that, I would try to interpret you further on, isn't that the main thing in priesthood? His action, his doing, his life. And isn't this consecratory power and the consecratory act just only one stage in that dynamical life of the priest? Is that what you were saying? Now, first I would answer that maybe this impression is understandable, but I'm not really speaking ontologically. I didn't say this is bread up to now and then it becomes crust. so that this ontological, let's say, change of the state is the main, the important thing.

[73:42]

But when Christ himself says, this is my body, that is also an is. That is a, it is a statement about what is now. And all the attempts to get it, to To get a kind of handle, conceptual handle, that is something quite different. I, for instance, wouldn't insist on the concept of transubstantiation. I only say this is also a handle, an attempt to get a handle. The question is whether you can get a better handle. I don't doubt, I doubt it, whether you can get a better handle. in order to get what happens, but of course you never will get what really happens. But there is not only a question of acting, there is a question of being, and this is my body.

[74:45]

Second, I certainly do not restrict the preacher's or the priest's activity on the realm of words. He has to be a model of a Christian. He has to conduct a real Christian life and even an exemplary Christian life. And that is certainly part of his priestly activity as a preacher also. He shows, he has to show. You can show by words, you can show by doings, you can show by sacrifice, by personal dedication. That's all preaching, I would say. So I don't exclude that at all. And if you are a social worker and get into the social movement as a leader, maybe that is certainly dynamic and that is action. And that belongs, maybe, if it is connected and if it is related in the good sense to that main point, to lead people not only to social justice, but to lead them to what is

[75:58]

meant in this agape meal and this celebration of the Eucharist. If that is done, or this has been done, then I would say this is belonging to the activity of the priest. I have no difficulty with that. Is there still a point which you would... Why on that front, the concept of really the ordination of the priest? Why actually the Eucharist, I think? and it's not very well read. Now, can you apply that further to the concept of a man not a priest, but a man with ordination? How does he... Well, that's not my business. I would say you have to ask the Church. They always say, at least, until the latest decrees of the Church, that there is an essential distinction between the ordained and priest and the common priesthood of all faithful, in which this difference really consists, wherein it consists, that's a different question.

[77:13]

And I wouldn't dare to answer that question. And the Church doesn't. She only says there is an essential difference. And that is not only a thing of dynamics, but it is a matter of being. In this I would insist that this at least is the teaching of our church. The explanation, that's a matter of theology, interpretation of what the church teaches and interpretation of what is said in the Revelation. So I would here capitulate and I couldn't answer that question. But I would insist that there is a difference in being and not only a difference in action. Bringing in something that you said about the sacred, you brought it into the idea of the priest when you said that if you saw a young man, you know, young enough to be your son, you'd have no hesitation to call him father because of his being a priest.

[78:24]

So it brings in this element of reverence and respect for his being a priest. What I want to know, what would your opinion be on how far should this respect and reverence for his priesthood go? I would not disagree at all that insofar as he can consecrate, insofar as he can forgive sins and his specific priestly duties, I have no question about the respect and reverence due him because of that. But what about outside of that? And the thing I have specifically in mind are the various religious orders. For example, my own, the Jesuits, we have brothers and priests, and at the moment we're having problems, well, with Rome, so that might already terminate the answer, as to the position of brothers with respect to priests.

[79:31]

At the moment, they cannot hold positions of authority over clerics. Now, I would wonder how you would view this with respect to the idea of the sacredness or the respect to a priest because of his consecration. Oh, you certainly don't expect that I should solve that problem of yours. But I mean, I would say first, this respect is based on the priestly quality and I can at the same time find that he has absolutely stupid political opinions for instance that doesn't exclude each other or that he has absolutely stupid scientific opinions or convictions that he is wrong in some way in discussing some even problems of theology

[80:40]

So my respect, I think you overemphasized again a bit what we were talking about last night, that sacredness means always power. And respect, I mean power on one side and respect and even fear and subjection on the other side. You know I am a Westphalian and when I go to bed then the ideas come to me what I should have said last night. A long reaction time. So I would say to you Father, that's the discussion of last night. certainly the main thing in the sacred sphere is adoration and adoration certainly means not power but subjection and that there is a difference and a distance and a subjection and that adoration is not at all opposite to love and agape on the contrary but this is not your point now so when I respect the priestly power

[81:57]

It means it is restricted to the priestly power. And maybe the same man is acting as a social worker, which I respect, but maybe I say what we are doing is absolutely wrong. Now, your question, it seems to me, was whether, let's say, in a community, a non-priest could be the superior in a community in which there are also living priests. I would... There is Arelate of Rival, whom you maybe know, Benedictine called it. Arelate, you have a father, Arelate, there. Now he wrote a book on friendship, and there he says, if you are distributing functions then friendship is not the main point, is not the aspect, but the ability to conduct or to fulfill that function.

[83:11]

And so he refers to Christ and said he didn't make St. John, his friend, the head of the church, of the community, but St. Peter. And so maybe that he would say also, if there is a man in the community who has exceptional abilities, capabilities of leading a community, organizing a community, maybe I wouldn't see any obstacle to make him the leader, although he is not a priest. This is not a specifically priestly function to be the leader of a community. But this, I'm afraid I'm offending some people here, but I mean, this could be said, probably, in abstract, in the abstract.

[84:18]

But I wouldn't like to go into the concrete situation and the concrete decisions. But this, I mean, as a principle, but could be valid. So my respect for the priestly function does not include the respect of his non-existent organizational faculties or abilities, if they don't exist. Is that what you were asking, what you were asking for? Doctor, what do you think of the idea and the tendency today of priests becoming more specialized in different areas? There seems to be more written on this and more of an interest in everybody becoming a specialist and the so-called hyphenated priest.

[85:25]

Do you think this is a good trend or are we getting away from the real work of what a priest is supposed to do according to a therapeutic approach? I do not really know the concrete situation which you may have in mind now, but I would say if this leading the people to, as I said, it includes innumerous possible action and activities, and in so far the priest in his main task can always have this hyphen to some activity on which he has to be specializing. That is a normal thing today. You cannot just be a dilettante or whatever you call that. dilettantizing in some fields of social work, for instance. You have to be specialized, a specialist.

[86:27]

So if that hyphen is between priest with his main task, celebrating the Eucharist, and if that on the other side of the hyphen means leading the people to the meaningful celebration or participation in the celebration of the Eucharist, then it is all right, I would say. But if it means that the main emphasis is on the specialist side, as this example I gave you from St. Louis, this social worker who says, I'm a specialist in social work, I don't care for the task of the parish priest. No baptism, I'm not interested in that, and so he said. Because all these people were not baptized. Then I would say it is problematic, not even problematic only, but it is wrong. But the specializing in, let's say, in the field of television activity or radio activity, I mean radio talks and journalism maybe even, or social work, I would say there is no objection against it.

[87:45]

But the condition, I think, would be that this hyphen really connects the social work or the specialist work with the main task, which is not a special one, in this sense, not a specialist one. I know that there are many priests who say that is not a full-time job. Maybe. That is, of course, this being a cultic craftsman, as my friend Ratzinger said, that is not a full-time job. But to lead people there, that is a full-time job. And that has to be, maybe, the job of a special. So I don't see any real difficulty to concede that there must be this kind of hyphen priest. I wouldn't like to call that this way, but... We think, we could comment on this, the possibilities in the future, say in the 1970s or 1980s, that there might be different dimensions or levels of priesthood.

[88:52]

This is sort of a caricature, but someone that might act in the celebration of the mass and at the same time be a bartender, No, this is not part of the question. Apparently, the council at the end had to forbid priests from being bodhisattvas. But that's a caricature. But I want to ask that question, because would you see the possibility of different exercises or functions? That there might be a priest ordained to do this, and there might be a priest ordained fully and totally in his life to theologize and preach the word. It seems to me in the past that this, well, right now, the priesthood is suffering from a massive identity crisis. There are a number of reasons in history for this, the identification of the priest and monogamy. In the early church, when they're speaking of the priest, they're really speaking of the bishop. St. Jerome had this problem, bishop.

[89:55]

St. Ambrose's book on the priesthood is really on the episcopacy. The identity crisis, I know this is a case in point in one of the earliest documents of the Church, distinguishes between a deacon and a priest and a bishop. And the only two ranks that were supposed to participate in the offerings were the bishop and the deacon. I don't know where the priest got his patron. But there was this crisis of identity in the early church, whether he belonged to the episcopacy or was sort of a layman that was ordained to function and help the bishop. And the problem of the monkish element coming in is sort of really confusing his identity. So I think today there's a real crisis about his identity, but this church is quite clear about his teaching of preaching the gospel, administering the sacraments, of being a servant and leader of the community. It says this in the Korean Priestly Training.

[90:56]

But what I'd like to ask in view of that sort of almost 2,000 years of this identity crisis, whether you might foresee that there could be different levels or dimensions mainly in terms of function for the priest. I wouldn't like to make any prophecy here, Father, and I wouldn't like to, I am not able to judge this historical question about deacon and bishop in the early centuries. But when you ask this first question, that he could have, the priest could have, let's say, a side business, a side function, like a bartender. Then you said yourself that this probably wouldn't be the ideal case. I would again say, let's say, referring to the work of priests in France,

[92:04]

What they originally had in mind, afterward they came out something different, I mean politically something different, but what they originally had in mind was nothing but to get the worker back to the church in order to make them able to participate in the life of the church whose Kuhlmann-Advanz is the celebration of the Eucharist. So they had certainly they look like workers, but they were at the same time real priests. And I would say this kind of connection is certainly legitimate. And it may be that it will become more and more necessary in the church. I don't know. But the condition is again that it has to be related to the main office of the priest. Then there is no problem. But probably You said itself, the bartender, what can he do in order to lead the people to... So if it is only an economical question, maybe sometimes there will be an economical question just of survival, just of have a living.

[93:18]

But this is then a case of... an exceptional case, not the normal case. It's not the question of what the priest should do. Maybe he has no choice. He has to do what justice offered to him and opened to him. To keep one activity just to have a living. That's different. But if you ask what should be done, then I would say the secondary task has to be connected with the primary task. But with what will happen, I don't dare to say what will happen. I don't know. Just one point further. My problem seems to be a mess of that. This dialectical, this tension between what we seem to be imposing, maybe it's true, maybe it's the reality, that freaks live as a way of life.

[94:23]

And the priesthood is the exercise of function. Now, for example, I could possibly see a priest celebrating the Eucharist and preaching on Sunday, and then the rest of the week is like being dedicated to something else. It's sort of a function for him. At the same time, I can see a role for a priest who is entirely given over to preaching the gospel at all times, reflecting and theologizing, leading people out. and that's why I think they were. I'm not prophesying either. Yeah, I mean this... Yeah, hasn't that been always the case in the church? There were Jesuits who were more active, there were Benedictines who were more contemplative, and there were Benedictines who were contemplative and at the same time having a farm and there were Benedictines who were teaching and but I think there is now going on some change.

[95:30]

I had a very, for me, from my personal feeling, a rather happy experience in Santa Fe with our group there in the center of pastoral liturgy. There came a young Dominican from California and he was ordained, I think, for two years now And he said, he told me in conversation, private conversation, we are three Dominican provinces in America, one here in the east in New York, and then one in the middle west, River Forest, and one in California. The eastern and midwest ones are very big, 500, 600 men, and we are in California, we are rather small. 200 or so, 150, 200. Now they have two novices and we have 25. I said, why? And his explanation was, he said, the reason is that we decided to conduct visibly.

[96:38]

We refused to get off our habit. I am going, he said, with my white Dominican habit in San Francisco over the street. And the older ones, he said, the older priests in that convent in Auckland, or San Francisco, they made the suggestion, whether we should perhaps also leave and give up the monastery and live in some apartment. And the younger one said, no, we stay in the monastery and we conduct our monastic life as before. And he said, this is, in my opinion, the reason why we have 25 novices and they have only two. I don't know whether it is true, but there is a change going on, I think, in the opposite direction. And they don't care. They are not interested in being non-priests during the week.

[97:39]

They show and they will be, they are willing to be priests all the time. Every second, one said. Every second of my life I am a priest. He was talking about a visitor from Holland who didn't go to church at all and saying mass at all. But he said, I'm a priest only in my own community, and when I'm not there, I'm just not a priest. So this was opposed very vehemently by these young people there. So, and I felt it was a... I was rather happy about the experience, and that there is going on some change. And not Sunday, priest, and in the work... Why, in the week there is also... celebration of the Eucharist, all that, and the leading of the people must be done in the week as well as on Sunday. So maybe I am conservative, there are very much so, but when I, of course some people call me conservative, but I always ask them the conservation of what is in Christian.

[98:46]

I certainly would like to conserve and preserve the very important things in the church and in spite of all changes which are going on and which are certainly necessary. But the main thing, if that is not preserved, then we just lose what the Church is about, I would say, and the Church life. Do you have any opinion that you'd like to express about the celibacy of the clergy in Judea today? No, I wouldn't like to touch that delicate problem. The only thing I said, and I would insist on that, that there is a meaningful connection, at least, between being a priest and the celibacy. And that this connection doesn't come to light. I mean that the reason for this connection does not come to light clearly enough if I stress

[99:53]

and emphasize the side activities of the priest, but only if I emphasize the main activity which is in the sacred sphere, in the sphere of the...

[100:08]

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