The Universal Priesthood

In the Gospel Reading for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Jesus declared to Thomas,

“I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:6).

In this statement, Jesus asserted His absolute uniqueness as the one and only means of ‘coming to the Father.’  He is not a way, a truth, or a life.  He is not one means among many others, but the one and only means, the exclusive Redeemer of mankind and Savior of the world.

Christ is by definition a priest, an anointed man who stands between God and the human race interceding before the Father and offering perpetual adoration and sacrifice to Him.  The purpose of Christ’s priestly ministry is identical to the purpose of the Church’s ministry; it is both the glorification of God and the salvation of souls.

Remarkably, in the Second Reading from the Mass, Saint Peter wrote,

“You are a ‘chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own'” (1 Pet. 2:9).

The prince of the apostles stated that all the members of the faithful are, in some way, priests.  Note, then, that there are different levels of priesthood.  There is Christ’s supreme high priesthood, there is the ministerial priesthood of the sacramentally ordained, and there is the universal priesthood of the baptized.  Every baptized Catholic, then, is a priest.  The catechism states this teaching in the following way:

“Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church ‘a kingdom, priests for his God and Father’.  The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly.  The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ’s mission as priest, prophet, and king.  Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the faithful are ‘consecrated to be…a holy priesthood'” (CCC 1546).

By virtue of our Baptism, we are obligated to offer the sacrifice of adoration to God, and by virtue of our Confirmation, we are obligated to bear public witness to Christ and the Catholic faith.  Hence, properly understood, all lay Catholics are both priests and missionaries.

The differences in the two priesthoods concern degrees and types.  This should cause no jealousy or competition between the ordained and the non-ordained, for both are intended by God to serve in their own respective spheres and to collaborate in the fulfillment of the will of God in the world.  There is no place for pompous clericalism on one side, or for envious overreach on the other.  Ordained priests are meant to preach and teach the faith, administer the sacraments, and tend to the spiritual needs of the faithful.  By means of their sacramental ordination, they have received spiritual powers that lay people do not possess.  Most obviously, these powers include the ability to consecrate the Eucharistic elements, and the power to absolve sins.   Non-ordained priests – those who have the received Baptism as well as Confirmation – are meant to worship God in spirit and in truth and to sanctify the secular world with the principles of the Gospel, in accord with their ability and position in life.  These are extremely important responsibilities, and our failure to fulfill them has allowed the modern world to plunge into a horrid state of militant atheism, accompanied, as it must be, by industries and worldviews of death and perversity.

Every good thing can be abused.  So, the Church’s hierarchical design can be terribly abused, and in countless ways.  One such way concerns a laxity on the part of the lay faithful.  It is both tempting and convenient to conceive of the Church as a top-heavy institution in which certain officials are expected to provide services to the indolent, to those who are expected to know and do little.  In this arrangement, the priests provide sermons and sacraments, while the lay people attend the relevant occasions.  For the latter, then, Mass and the other sacraments can be viewed merely as pre-arranged rituals which they must attend, but for which their active participation is no vital matter.  They are expected to observe the ceremonies, utter a few responses, and then receive Holy Communion, whereas all the essential acts are all performed at the podium and altar by the priests.  From the position of the laity, then, Catholic devotion can be quite passive, whereas from the position of the clergy, it is quite active.  This is a serious problem in the daily life and workings of the Church.

Now we might feel that, in the ordinary form of the Mass – the English or vernacular Mass – the Church has fairly overcome this problem, and that it concerns only the extraordinary form – the Latin Mass.  In other words, the modern Church with its many changes and reforms, has allegedly resolved the problem with the Second Vatican Council’s liturgical principle of “active participation.”  But I would disagree with this view and would cite as proof our current situation.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a virtual sacramental black out.  People speak of a societal “lockdown.”  Well, in the Catholic Church – at least as far as lay people are concerned – there has been at this point a two-month sacramental lockdown.  Even as many businesses have remained open, the parishes and chapels have been forcibly closed.  Religion has been officially declared a non-essential service.  This has been an anti-religious scandal of an unimaginable kind, in that the secular state has declared itself the Church’s master, while the institutional Church has bowed to this servitude.  If anyone had told me six months ago that such a situation could possibly exist in the Church, I would never have believed them.  I can believe it now only because I’m witnessing it.  The bishops’ response to this situation has been one of replete submission to a power that holds no authority whatsoever over the Church.  Even worse, it has become the policy of the Church that Catholics are not presently allowed to take part in the sacraments.  We have been banned from a central aspect of our own religion and barred from entering the churches we have financed.  There have been a few stirrings among priests and laity, a few attempts to quietly violate this excessive policy, but they have been met with further force by both the state and the Church.  It presently seems that the single religious duty belonging to all lay Catholics is to refrain from publicly practicing the Catholic religion., while continuing to financially support it.

Although we hope and expect that this draconian policy will soon be corrected, the Church has revealed a stubborn vice at its core that seems, not only to belong to previous generations, but even more, to be part and parcel of contemporary Catholicism.  It is the same old passive-active problem previously mentioned.

First and foremost, it is the duty of every Catholic to observe at all times the divine moral law.  The Commandments of God are never to be violated, and any Catholic who is told to do so by a priest or bishop has a sacred duty to disobey man and obey God.  No authority exists in the Catholic Church – not even in a pope or council – to eliminate the sacred and eternal laws or truths revealed by the Almighty.  If we lay people do not stand for this principle, then we stand for nothing.

To be fair, though, the bishops have not forbidden the entire practice of the Catholic religion, but only the gathering of Catholics in churches.  It is the gathering aspect that is the issue, not the religion aspect.  But what has been the message from the Church regarding this extraordinary situation?  It has been one syllable: “Stop!”  We have heard little from our leaders other than that, for the time being, we must stop going to Church.  And the misunderstanding that has followed from this directive has been that we are presently relieved of all religious duties, until further notice.

Every Catholic is obligated to worship God.  This duty especially pertains to the Lord’s Day, the Christian Sabbath that commemorates both the Resurrection of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  This is true even for those who are in a state of mortal sin.  A Catholic in such a state, even though he or she cannot receive Holy Communion, is still obligated to worship God by attending Sunday Mass, receiving instruction through the homily, joining in the various liturgical prayers, and offering to God their desire to one day be fit to receive Holy Communion – the so-called “spiritual” communion.  Hence, in the midst of this sacramental black out, every Catholic still possesses the duty to offer God divine worship on the Lord’s Day.  Has this been made clear by the Church?  Regardless, a proper catechetical formation would have made this clear from the beginning, with or without a pandemic.  But catechetical formation is in ruins, in my personal opinion, and it has been for half a century at least.  Thus, the common understanding of the Church’s present policy is that, until further notice, Catholics need not worship God on the Lord’s Day.  It is presently sufficient to watch a televised Mass.  This is a dangerous impression that has been allowed to fester, and it will contribute further to the de-catechization of the faithful.

On the contrary, the duty to actually worship God on the Lord’s Day remains – with or without a parish or chapel community – and it will always remain, even in the most difficult of times.   Digital religion is no substitute for real religion.  This applies even on those occasions when we stay home from Mass due to an illness.  If we are able to worship God under such circumstances, then we must.

This occasion might have been utilized as a fine opportunity to practice a temporary non-sacramental form of Catholicism.  And it could have been derived entirely from the prayers of the Holy Mass itself and served as a sort of ongoing spiritual communion and a pious expression of longing for the sacraments.  A simple version of this Sunday morning devotion would require only a missal, a hymnal, and a catechism.  Every Catholic home should have these resources.  The service order based on the Mass would consist of the following:

– Eucharistic Hymn
– Act of Contrition
– Kyrie (Lord, Have Mercy)
– Gloria (Glory to God in the Highest)
– Readings and Psalm of the Day
– Relevant Excerpts from the Catechism (or homily from the bishop)
– Credo (Nicene Creed)
– Intercessory Prayers (spontaneous)
– Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy)
– Agnus Dei (Lamb of God)
– Closing Prayer (Collect)
– Hymn

An individual or family could sing the various acclamations, and the readings and intercessions could be distributed between several members.  This simple Sunday service – the heartfelt devotion of the domestic Church – could be wonderfully enjoyable and edifying and serve as a serene means of maintaining a love for the Mass during the somber days of this pandemic.  I would suggest this service to anyone who has been religiously idle on these Sunday mornings and who has allowed the Lord’s Day to become just another profane day given to chores, shopping, and amusements.

During these dark days, a service like the one above, together with a homily offered by the bishop or priests, could be made available weekly to all the members of the Church, either online or through a mass mailing.  It would be easy to achieve this, and it would help to maintain the bonds of unity and charity between the clergy and the laity.  And it would assist the members of the Church in exercising under the worst of circumstances their universal priesthood.