A day late with this, but there are wonderful remarks here by the Holy Father. From yesterday's edition of Vatican Information Service:
• What Is Success for a Priest? | Fr. Alvaro Delgado
• The Seminary as Nazareth: Formation in a School of Prayer | Dn. James Keating
• Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love? Why This Gen-Xer Is a Priest | Fr. John Cihak, S.T.D.
• Becoming a Man of God | Interview with Fr. Larry Richards
• Letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI Proclaiming a Year for Priests on the 150th Anniversary of the "Dies Natalis" of the Cure of Ars
• St. John Vianney's Pastoral Plan | Fr. John Cihak
• The Blessed Virgin Mary's Role in the Celibate Priest's Spousal and Paternal Love | Fr. John Cihak
• Surrendering to the Healing Power of Christ's Own Chastity | Dn. James Keating, Ph.D.
• Liturgical Roles In the Eucharistic Celebration | Francis Cardinal Arinze
• The Ingredient for Priestly Vocations | Rev. Jacek Stefanski
• The Year for Priests and Its Patron | Sandra Miesel
• Holy Christians Guarantee Holy Priests | Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
• Priest as Pastor, Servant and Shepherd | Fr. James McCarthy
PRIESTS: COMPLETE ADHERENCE TO CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH
VATICAN CITY, 12 MAR 2010 (VIS) - At midday today, the Holy Father received participants in a theological congress promoted by the Congregation for the Clergy, and which is being held on 11 and 12 March in the Pontifical Lateran University on the theme: "Faithfulness of Christ, faithfulness of Priests".
In a time such as our own, said the Pope, "it is important clearly to bear in mind the theological specificity of ordained ministry, in order not to surrender to the temptation of reducing it to predominant cultural models. In the context of widespread secularisation which progressively tends to exclude God from the public sphere and from the shared social conscience, the priest often appears 'removed' from common sense". Yet , the Pope went on, "it is important to avoid a dangerous reductionism which, over recent decades ... has presented the priest almost as a 'social worker', with the risk of betraying the very Priesthood of Christ.
"Just as the hermeneutic of continuity is revealing itself to be ever more important for an adequate understanding of the texts of Vatican Council II", he added, "in the same way we see the need for a hermeneutic we could describe as 'of priestly continuity', one which, starting from Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Christ, and over the two thousand years of history, greatness, sanctity, culture and piety which the Priesthood has given the world, comes down to our own day".
Benedict XVI affirmed that "it is particularly important that the call to participate in the one Priesthood of Christ in ordained Ministry should flower from the 'charism of prophecy'. There is great need for priests who speak of God to the world and who present the world to God; men not subject to ephemeral cultural fashions, but capable of authentically living the freedom that only the certainty of belonging to God can give. ... And the prophecy most necessary today is that of faithfulness" which "leads us to live our priesthood in complete adherence to Christ and the Church".
Priests, the Holy Father continued, "must be careful to distance themselves from the predominant mentality which tends to associate the value of Ministry not with its being, but with its function". Our "ontological association with God", he said "is the right framework in which to understand and reaffirm, also in our own time, the value of celibacy which in the Latin Church is a charism imposed by Holy Orders, and is held in great esteem by the Oriental Churches. ... It is an expression of the gift of the self to God and to others".
"The vocation of priests is an exalted one, and remains a great mystery. ... Our limitations and weaknesses must induce us to live and safeguard this precious gift with great faith, a gift with which Christ configured us to Himself, making us participants in His mission of salvation. Indeed, the understanding of priestly ministry is linked to faith and requires, ever more strongly, a radical continuity between formation in seminaries and permanent formation".
The Holy Father concluded by telling his audience that "the men and women of our time ask us only to be priests to the full, nothing else. The lay faithful will be able to meet their human needs in many other people, but only in the priest will they find that Word of God which must always be on his lips, the Mercy of the Father abundantly and gratuitously distributed in the Sacrament of Penance, and the bread of new life".

• What Is Success for a Priest? | Fr. Alvaro Delgado
• The Seminary as Nazareth: Formation in a School of Prayer | Dn. James Keating
• Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love? Why This Gen-Xer Is a Priest | Fr. John Cihak, S.T.D.
• Becoming a Man of God | Interview with Fr. Larry Richards
• Letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI Proclaiming a Year for Priests on the 150th Anniversary of the "Dies Natalis" of the Cure of Ars
• St. John Vianney's Pastoral Plan | Fr. John Cihak
• The Blessed Virgin Mary's Role in the Celibate Priest's Spousal and Paternal Love | Fr. John Cihak
• Surrendering to the Healing Power of Christ's Own Chastity | Dn. James Keating, Ph.D.
• Liturgical Roles In the Eucharistic Celebration | Francis Cardinal Arinze
• The Ingredient for Priestly Vocations | Rev. Jacek Stefanski
• The Year for Priests and Its Patron | Sandra Miesel
• Holy Christians Guarantee Holy Priests | Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
• Priest as Pastor, Servant and Shepherd | Fr. James McCarthy
This address from the Holy Father will be the subject of my next weekly segment on the Son Rise Morning, broadcast nationwide on EWTN. Tune in on Monday, March 15, at 7:35 am.
Posted by: Rich Leonardi | Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 12:05 PM
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Posted by: armiger jagoe | Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 03:03 PM
"And the prophecy most necessary today is that of faithfulness" - and that is supposed to mean...?
That doesn't make sense - it's like saying "And the cheese most necessary today is that of a Drambuie". Drambuie is a Scotch whisky, not a cheese - while faithfulness is very important, it is not a species of prophecy. Any more than green is a species of triangle.
It looks very much as though something has been lost in translation... - the question is, what ?
Posted by: M | Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 05:26 PM
That doesn't make sense - it's like saying "And the cheese most necessary today is that of a Drambuie".
The heart of prophecy is the proclamation, or forth-telling, of the Gospel and the truth. To publicly demonstrate one's faithfulness to God and the Church is, then, an act of prophetic witness, a lived proclamation of the Gospel. The Holy Father's remarks made me think of what St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about receiving the Eucharist, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26). It is also very much in keeping with what John the Revelator states at the beginning of The Apocalypse: "Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written therein..." (Rev. 1:3). Being faithful--that is, keeping the words entrusted to the Church by Christ--is an act of prophetic witness.
Posted by: Carl E. Olson | Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 05:43 PM