Today I would like to reflect on the renewal of the holy priesthood. It is a subject that should be close to the heart of every Catholic because there can be no renewal of the Church without a renewal of her priests. Every age of great renewal in the history of the Church has been marked by holy priests – men who loved Christ above all else, who preached the truth without compromise, who celebrated the Holy Eucharist with profound reverence, and who willingly laid down their lives for the salvation of souls.
Today we hear much about renewal. We hear calls for reform, for change, for new approaches. But authentic renewal in the Church never begins by abandoning what Christ established. It begins by returning to Him more faithfully. It begins by rediscovering the treasures He entrusted to His Church.
If we are to speak about the renewal of the priesthood, then we must first ask a very simple question: What is the priesthood?
The priesthood is not simply a profession. It is not an occupation or merely a position of leadership. The priesthood is a sacrament instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, Christ continues His own priestly ministry in His Church until the end of time.
During His public ministry, Our Lord gradually prepared the Apostles for this sacred office. From among His many disciples, He chose the Twelve and formed them personally. They accompanied Him, listened to His teaching, witnessed His miracles, and learned from His example. Little by little, He entrusted to them responsibilities that He had entrusted to no one else.
At the Last Supper, on the night before He died, Our Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist. After taking bread and wine into His sacred hands, He gave them His own Body and Blood and commanded the Apostles, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” With those words, Christ entrusted to them the sacred power to offer His sacrifice sacramentally until the end of time.
After His Resurrection, He breathed upon them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” In those words, He entrusted to them the ministry of reconciliation, allowing His own mercy to be extended through their priestly ministry.
Finally, before ascending into heaven, He commanded them to go forth into the whole world, to preach the Gospel, baptize all nations, and teach everything He had commanded.
Here we see the foundation of the Catholic priesthood. Christ Himself established it. It was not invented by the Church. It is His gift to His Bride.
The priesthood is Christ’s gift to His Church because He knew that until the end of time His people would need shepherds. The Church would need men who would faithfully hand on the truth He revealed, celebrate the sacraments He instituted, and care for His flock with the heart of the Good Shepherd.
This is why the Church has always held the priesthood in such profound reverence. The priest does not simply speak about Christ; he acts in the Person of Christ, in persona Christi. When he stands at the altar to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it is Christ who offers Himself to the Father. When he pronounces the words of absolution in the confessional, it is Christ who forgives. When he baptizes, when he anoints the sick, when he proclaims the Gospel, Christ continues His work through the ministry He established.
That is why the renewal of the priesthood is not first about what a priest does. It is about who he is. Before he is a pastor, a teacher, an administrator, or a counselor, he is a man who has been configured to Jesus Christ through the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
Every baptized Christian shares in Christ’s priesthood. The Church speaks of this as the common priesthood of the faithful. By virtue of Baptism, all are called to offer spiritual sacrifices, to live holy lives, to bear witness to Christ in the world, and to unite our prayers, sufferings, and daily work with the sacrifice of Our Lord.
But the ministerial priesthood differs not merely in degree but in essence. Through Holy Orders, the priest receives a sacramental character that enables him to act in the Person of Christ the Head. He offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, feeds Christ’s flock with His Body and Blood, forgives sins, and shepherds the faithful in a way that belongs uniquely to the ordained ministry entrusted by Christ to His Apostles.
It is for this reason that I believe we should be very careful not to blur the distinction between the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood entrusted by Christ to His Apostles. Every baptized Catholic has a beautiful and indispensable vocation within the life of the Church. The laity are called to sanctify the world, to witness to Christ in their homes, their families, their workplaces, and their communities. But the ordained priest has received a unique sacramental character that no one else receives.
When that distinction becomes less clear, our understanding of the priesthood and the Holy Eucharist can also become diminished. Throughout the centuries, the Church carefully guarded the sanctuary and the sacred actions surrounding the altar, not because the laity were somehow less loved or less important, but because the mysteries celebrated there belong in a unique way to Christ acting through His ordained priest. For this reason, the use of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion obscures the unique sacramental role that Christ entrusted to His ordained priests.
This is why it is important that we strive to preserve the unique role of the ordained priest in the sacred liturgy. The more clearly we distinguish what belongs to the ministerial priesthood from what belongs to the vocation of the laity, the more clearly the faithful can recognize the incomparable gift Christ has given His Church in the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
This is not about elevating the priest as a man. It is about honoring Christ, who has chosen to act through the priest in a sacramental way for the sanctification of His people. The renewal of the priesthood will come as we recover that profound sense of the sacred, recognizing once again that the altar is holy, the Eucharist is holy, and the priesthood instituted by Christ is holy.
If we look back through the history of the Church, we discover that Holy Mother Church understood from the very beginning that a man should never arrive at the altar unprepared. The priesthood was never viewed as simply another office to be assumed or another responsibility to be accepted. It was recognized as a sacred vocation requiring years of formation, prayer, discipline, and growth in virtue.
That understanding gave rise to what came to be known as the minor and major orders. For centuries, a man advanced gradually toward the priesthood. He first learned to serve. He learned reverence. He learned obedience. He learned that every action connected with the sacred liturgy should reflect the holiness of the God whom we worship.
The Latin Church traditionally recognized the minor orders of porter, lector, exorcist, and acolyte, followed by the major orders of subdeacon, deacon, and priest, with the episcopate as the fullness of the priesthood. These were not simply steps in an educational program. They reminded both the candidate and the faithful that approaching the altar of God required humility, preparation, and a growing conformity to Christ.
One of the ancient ceremonies associated with this preparation was the rite of tonsure. In that ceremony, a small portion of the candidate’s hair was cut, marking his entrance into the clerical state. It was an outward sign that his life was now dedicated in a particular way to the service of Christ and His Church. We often think of the distinctive Franciscan tonsure, but the practice itself points us to something much deeper: a willingness to leave behind worldly ambition and to belong entirely to the Lord.
Whether one is speaking of tonsure, the minor orders, or the long years of formation that have always characterized priestly preparation, they all proclaim the same truth: the priesthood is sacred because it belongs to Christ. The Church did not surround the priesthood with these signs because she wished to make priests appear important. She did so because she wished never to lose sight of the holiness of the mysteries entrusted to them.
That is one of the lessons we need to recover today. The renewal of the priesthood begins when we once again recognize that what takes place at the altar is heaven touching earth, and that the man who stands there has been called to a life of profound holiness and complete self-giving. The Church has always expected much of her priests because Christ Himself expects much of those whom He calls to follow Him in this unique way.
As we reflect upon the renewal of the holy priesthood, we should also remember that Christ entrusted the conferral of this sacrament to the Apostles and to their successors. From the beginning of the Church, the ordinary minister of the Sacrament of Holy Orders has been the bishop. Through the laying on of hands and the consecratory prayer, the bishop ordains deacons, priests, and bishops, preserving the apostolic succession that stretches unbroken back to Christ Himself.
This is one of the reasons the Church has always guarded Holy Orders with such great care. It is not ours to redefine. It is not ours to reshape according to the spirit of any age. We are custodians of what Christ has entrusted to His Church.
In our own day, questions continue to be raised regarding who may receive Holy Orders. Yet the Church has consistently taught that she has no authority to confer priestly ordination upon women. This is not a judgment about dignity or holiness. The greatest human person ever created, the Blessed Virgin Mary, was not called to the ministerial priesthood. Her vocation reminds us that holiness does not depend upon ordination.
The priest sacramentally represents Christ the Bridegroom in His relationship with His Bride, the Church. This reality belongs to the very meaning of the sacrament itself. For that reason, the Church has understood throughout her history that she is bound by the example of Christ and the apostolic tradition she has received. She cannot alter what belongs to the substance of the sacrament.
Likewise, it seems prudent to continue to appreciate the wisdom of the Church’s long tradition regarding the ministries connected with the altar. Historically, the minor orders and the ministries of lector and acolyte formed part of a gradual preparation for Holy Orders. They reflected an ordered movement toward the diaconate and the priesthood and underscored the sacred character of divine worship.
In 2021, Pope Francis modified the Code of Canon Law to permit women to be instituted as lectors and acolytes. That change formalized a practice that had already become common in many places. While recognizing the current discipline of the Church, I believe it is important to continue reflecting upon the uninterrupted liturgical tradition that preceded it and upon the symbolic relationship these ministries have long had to the ordained ministry.
The renewal of the priesthood cannot be separated from the renewal of the sacred liturgy. For centuries, the Church developed her liturgical life in a way that emphasized reverence, sacrifice, silence, and the transcendent mystery of the Holy Eucharist. Every vestment, every gesture, every prayer, every moment of silence reminded priest and faithful alike that the Mass is not something we create. It is Christ’s Sacrifice made present upon the altar.
When reverence grows weak, our understanding of the priesthood also grows weak. When the priest begins to be seen primarily as a presider rather than as one who stands in the Person of Christ offering the Holy Sacrifice, something essential is diminished. The renewal of the priesthood therefore calls us back to a renewed love for the sacred liturgy, a renewed reverence for the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, and a renewed awareness that every Mass unites earth with heaven.
It also calls us to cherish the rich liturgical heritage that has nourished countless saints throughout the centuries. The Traditional Latin Mass remains a profound treasure of the Church, expressing with clarity the sacrificial nature of the Holy Mass, the transcendence of God, and the sacred character of the ordained priesthood. I believe this venerable liturgy should not be a source of division as it is one of the greatest treasures of our Catholic inheritance. The Church is enriched, not impoverished, when she preserves the authentic traditions that have drawn generations of the faithful into deeper reverence, greater holiness, and a more profound love for Our Lord present in the Most Holy Eucharist.
Ultimately, the renewal of the priesthood will not come from a synodal Church – it will come from holiness. It will come from priests who spend time before the Blessed Sacrament, who pray faithfully, who preach the Gospel without compromise, who celebrate the sacred mysteries with profound reverence, who willingly embrace sacrifice, and who see themselves not as servants of the world, but as servants of Jesus Christ.
The renewal of the holy priesthood is not ultimately about restoring external things alone, important as they are. It is about restoring hearts completely to Jesus Christ. When a priest falls deeply in love with Our Lord, he will naturally love the Holy Eucharist, cherish the sacred liturgy, preach the fullness of the Catholic faith with courage, spend generous hours in prayer, hear confessions with compassion, and willingly lay down his life for the flock entrusted to his care. The renewal we seek is, above, all, a renewal of holiness – a renewal that begins in the heart of every priest and radiates outward to every parish, every family, and every soul he serves.
As we pray for the renewal of the holy priesthood, let us also examine our own hearts. Do we pray regularly for our priests? Do we encourage young men who may be hearing the Lord’s call? Do we thank our faithful priests for their sacrifices, or do we take them for granted? The Church has always flourished when her priests were holy, and holy priests have always been sustained by the prayers and sacrifices of holy people. Let us ask the Lord to renew in all of us a deeper love for His Church, a greater reverence for the sacred mysteries, and an unwavering fidelity to the deposit of faith that has been entrusted to us. May we never cease praying that Christ, the Eternal High Priest, will continue to raise up courageous shepherds after His own Heart, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, wrap every priest in her maternal mantle. May she obtain for our bishops, our priests, and our seminarians the courage to stand firmly in the truth, the humility to serve Christ with generous hearts, and the grace to lead souls faithfully to eternal life.
And may the Sacred Heart of Jesus renew His holy priesthood, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
And may Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Bishop Joseph E. Strickland
Bishop Emeritus
