Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Archives
Priesthood
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The Catholic Priest in the Modern World:
A Living Martyr for His Faith in the Priesthood
Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.**
You may rightly wonder at the title of this chapter. When I asked what I should speak on, I was told, “The Priesthood.” So I took the liberty of choosing the full title that I just gave you: “The Catholic Priest in the Modern World: A Living Martyr for His Faith in the Priesthood.”
What exactly are we saying? We are saying that for a Catholic priest who wants to be loyal to his priesthood in today’s world, he must resign himself to the life of a martyr. Not a few Catholic priests in the twentieth century have died a martyr’s death including, I am happy to report some 2000 of my fellow Jesuit priests in Communist Spain.
But that is not the focus of our reflection. Be assured that there are two kinds of martyrdoms, the red martyrdom of blood, and the white martyrdom of professing one’s faith with heroic courage in the face of virulent opposition from hostile forces in a society that militates against the Catholic priesthood. We could name a whole catalogue of obvious forces:
- Like the rampant secularism that sees man’s purpose in life as ending with bodily death. On these terms, there is no need of a priesthood whose professed function is to prepare people for eternal life in a heavenly destiny.
- Like the preoccupation with material possessions that typifies what we call developed countries like the United States. There is no material prosperity that comes from the priesthood.
Consequently, as a society becomes more secularized and materially preoccupied, there will be a corresponding lack of interest in the priesthood. Once flourishing Catholic cultures that have become materially wealthy, become proportionally de-Catholicized and, to coin a term, desacerdotalized. Vocations to the priesthood decrease, as departures from the active priesthood increase. As we might add, naturally.
The modern media in societies like our own are, with rare exception, not friendly to the Catholic priesthood. Or, more accurately, the media are friendly in so far as Catholic bishops and priests do not challenge the secular values of a society—like contraception, sodomy or adultery. But once these values are challenged, the opposition is a plain fact of contemporary history.
However, this is not, in my judgment, the main grounds for claiming that a Catholic priest must expect to live a martyr’s life in the modern world. I believe the main reason is the spread of alien ideas in nominally Catholic circles about what exactly is a priest.
Articles in popular magazines, studies in scholarly journals, lectures and seminars and even whole volumes are being published disclaiming that Christ never really instituted the sacrament of Holy Orders.
The key word now is “ministry.” Every baptized Christian, it is said, can be called to the ministry. The call comes from God, but through the people of God. They decide whom they want to serve their spiritual needs. The idea of being specially ordained for the priesthood is becoming a remnant of an outmoded theology.
Let me quote, at length, from a standard book on the subject, by a contemporary writer who is himself a priest.
**Ordination as a rite and ceremony that confers power or office does not exist in the New Testament. Ministry does not need to be empowered by mandate or delegation of a superior possessing power. The forms of “ordination” are subject to the dispositions of the churches in any given period of history. Priesthood, as a specific type of ministry, does not exist in the New Testament.
“Ministry,” or diakonia, is a nonsacral word. The early church leaned heavily on this secular term to describe its main ministering activity.
Ministry in the New Testament is primarily functional. It is concerned with doing, like teaching, preaching, or governing.
The historical Jesus was not a priest.**
Once you deny that Christ Himself was a priest, and that He ever instituted the sacrament of the priesthood, you have to provide for some person who is to celebrate at the liturgy of the Eucharist.
