Vatican’s annual letter for the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests

(April 27, 2012) The Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy is urging priests worldwide to be ‘ministers of sanctification’ for their brothers by first sanctifying themselves. The exhortation came in the Congregation’s annual letter to priests in preparation for the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests, which is commemorated each year on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, June 15. The letter signed by Congregation prefect, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza and Secretary Archbishop Celso Morga Iruzubieta, argues that “we cannot be sanctified without working on the holiness of our brothers, and we cannot work on the holiness of our brothers unless we have first worked on and continue to work on our own holiness.” This striving for personal holiness however does not mean that we are not aware of our personal shortcomings, or of the faults committed by some who have brought shame upon the priesthood before the world, the letter says, hinting at the paedophile and sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church. The Church has the task to proclaim God in today’s world, with its ever more painful and preoccupying lacerations. For this task, the Church needs saints who dwell “in the heart of Jesus”, and in order to serve the Church and the world, priests need to be saints, the letter says.