A sure sign of one’s love for the Church, is an ardent love for the Catholic Priesthood. For without a Catholic priest, there is no Mass, and therefore no Eucharist. Right now in America, Catholic priests are mocked and viewed with suspicion because of the clergy abuse scandal. This is unfortunate, but predictable.
The vast majority of Roman Catholic priests, despite this cross, carry out their job with honor and often with heroic courage.
Catholics teaching tells us that a Catholic Priest is a sinner and a man like all of us. What makes him different is that he has received “a call” from Christ. Catholics believe that the priesthood is a vocation that our Lord calls men to, as opposed to simply a job they choose, like becoming a teacher or a lawyer. While Christ calls, he does not force, and it is always up to the young man whether to say “yes” or not.
A Catholic priests stands in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) and we know that Jesus Christ was a divine man. When a priest says “This is my body,” at the Catholic Mass, he is a living icon of Jesus Christ. In light of this truth (and many others), the feminist push for ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood is not possible.
Pope John Paul II has firmly stated that the Church has no authority to allow women’s ordination. In a 1994 apostolic letter John Paul II on women’s ordination wrote:
“I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
Baptized Catholics who persistently and continuously refuse to assent to this definitive Church teaching put themselves at risk of heresy.
The ordination of a priest is one of the seven Catholic sacraments (visible signs of God’s grace), and it is known as Holy Orders. The Church Catechism notes:
1578 “No one has a right to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. Indeed no one claims this office for himself; he is called to it by God. Anyone who thinks he recognizes the signs of God’s call to the ordained ministry must humbly submit his desire to the authority of the Church, who has the responsibility and right to call someone to receive orders. Like every grace this sacrament can be received only as an unmerited gift.”
