Pope says Church can never do without priests, announces 'Priestly Year'

(March 16, 2009) The Church can never do without priests, whose formation calls for the best energies of the Church without however giving in to a wrong interpretation of a rightful involvement of the laity in the Church. Pope Benedict told this on Monday to the participants in the plenary assembly of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy. The Pope said the awareness of the radical social changes of the last few decades must summon the best of energies of the Church in order to take care of the formation of candidates to the ministry. He cautioned that new structures or pastoral organizations should not even for a moment think of doing without the ordained ministry, a temptation which derives from the wrong interpretation of the rightful promotion of the laity. Pope Benedict also said that priests must never renounce their religious habit but must always and everywhere make themselves present, identifiable and recognized be it for their judgement of faith, their personal virtues or their dress…. Pope Benedict also recommended that priests, especially those of the younger generation, have a good understanding of the texts of the Second Vatican Council in the light of the entire body of the Church’s teaching.
In order help the priests of the world to always seek moral and spiritual perfection Pope Benedict XVI announced the ‘Priestly Year”. The Pope told participants in the plenary assembly of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy that the Priestly Year will kick off on June 19 this year, and will have as its theme, “The Fidelity of Christ, the Fidelity of the Priest”. Pope Benedict himself will inaugurate the year-long celebration with the evening Vespers prayers on June 19, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Day of the Priestly Sanctification. At the inauguration will be brought a relic of French St. John Mary Vianney, or the Cure of Ars, the patron of priests, whose 150^th death anniversary occurs this year. The ‘Priestly Year” will conclude on June 19, 2010, with a meeting of priests from around the world in St. Peter’s Square in the presence of the Pope.