His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in an address to the participants in the International Theological Conference Organized by the Clergy expounded beautifully and poignantly on the meaning of the Priesthood and its connection with the Priesthood of Christ. Here is an excerpt form zenit.org.
Jesus Christ, the Eternal Priest
"For this reason, it is important to overcome dangerous reductionism that, in past decades, using categories that were more functional than ontological, has presented the priest almost as a "social agent," running the risk of betraying the priesthood of Christ itself. Just as the hermeneutic of continuity is increasingly revealed as urgent to understand in an appropriate way the texts of the Second Vatican Council, similarly an hermeneutic seems necessary that we could describe "of priestly continuity," which, starting from Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Christ, and going through the 2,000 years of the history of grandeur and holiness, of culture and piety, which the priesthood has written in the world, arrives at our days."
Holy Orders (Wikipedia, Priesthood Catholic Church)
I am delighted that here in this speech the Holy Father has underscored the need to understand the meaning of the Second Vatican Council through a hermeneutics of continuity. By this it means that the Second Vatican Council is not a "super council" that overrides the other councils and magesterial pronouncements of Popes and the Church. Rather it is a valid council and one among the many councils that the Church has had since the church was founded by Christ in Jerusalem and handed on to the apostles. The Second Vatican Council did not define new dogmas, but of a fact it is a pastoral council and not a dogmatic council. It simply reaffirmed what was already in existence. Unfortunately the liberal elements and those with leanings on "modernism" have taken the wrong notion that the Second Vatican Council was a blanket authority to discard the old and to bring in the new. The problems in Liturgy and moral teachings that resulted in the aftermath of the council stemmed from the hermeneutics of rupture. All of a sudden it was as if the umbilical cord that connects the mother to the child was cut off thus resulting to serious problems.
This hermeutics of rupture is very much a problem in the priesthood. The role of the priest has been reduced to a "social revolutionary", "politicians", "champion of the poor", "social worker", etc... While it is true that priests must defend and uphold the welfare of the flock in the social sphere, it is by no means a limitation on the role of the Priest. The primary role of the Priest is to be a Priest-Mediator, Alter Christus, along the lines of the Order of Melchizedek. To be a priest forever. It is our fervent prayer that our priests will realize this need and once again reclaim their place in the house of the Lord and redefine their identity as identical with that of Jesus Christ the eternal priest.
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