Church in the World

Pope insists on strict demarcation between clergy and laity

Pope Benedict XVI has warned Brazil’s bishops not to allow the severe shortage of priests to blur the difference between the roles of the laity and ordained clergy, saying the distinction was “one of the most delicate issues in the existence and life of the Church” today.

“It is necessary to avoid the secularisation of priests and the clericalisation of the laity,” he told bishops from north-eastern Brazil on 17 September at Castel Gandolfo. The Pope said the role of the laity was to take the “anthropological vision and social doctrine of the Church” into society and politics, while the “specific identity and indispensable role” of the ordained was to be a “witness of the authenticity of the faith and dispenser, in the name of Christ the Head, of the mysteries of salvation”.

Brazil has a recent history of priests actively seeking public office. Last year there were 10 mayors in Brazil who were priests. Several others are city councillors, some of whom say they can continue to celebrate Mass. Last year the 1,400-member National Association of Brazilian Priests, which is independent of the country’s bishops’ conference, encouraged priests to run for office in local elections.

The Pope acknowledged that Brazil, the country with the world’s largest Catholic population, was suffering from an acute shortage of ordained priests. But he said the Catholic “community should never resign itself to this shortage” or think that it could be supplemented by lay people. “The function of the presbyterate is essential and irreplaceable for the proclamation of the Gospel and for the celebration of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist,” he said.

“Strive with particular attention to ensure that the communities in your dioceses have the presence of an ordained minister,” the Pope told the bishops, who were in Rome for their five-year ad limina visit. “You must concentrate your efforts on awakening new priestly vocations,” he insisted. In the last several decades Brazil’s bishops have asked the Holy See to allow them to ordain married men of proven virtue (viri probati). Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, the former Archbishop of São Paulo, was recently the most senior Brazilian churchman to suggest this just after being named secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy in 2006.

But Pope Benedict has been consistent in refusing to entertain the question, and has stated repeatedly during his pontificate that clerical celibacy is a “tradition of the Catholic Church” that should be maintained because it allows priests to be fully committed to God and the Church. In his ad limina address, the Pope reminded the Brazilian bishops that celibacy was part of what was demanded of the priest’s “total gift of self”. He told them to hold up St John Vianney (1786-1859) to their priests as a model of a celibate life.