Priests in the Church (part 1)

Did Jesus Give Priests to the Church?
By Kenneth J. Howell

OBJECTOR: The Catholic Church has priests who are distinct from the laity and even elevated above them. This is unscriptural because the New Testament nowhere sets certain men apart from the rest of God’s people to be priests.

 

CATHOLIC: Surely you would agree that the New Testament authorizes leaders of the Church to be pastors, deacons, maybe even bishops.

 

OBJECTOR: Yes, but the word priest is never used in the New Testament for the leaders of the Church. The words pastor, bishop, and elder are used, but never priest.

 

CATHOLIC: That’s almost correct. The word hiereus (priest) is not used of church leaders in the New Testament, but the cognate verb hierourgeo (to act as a priest) is used in Romans 15:16. There Paul speaks of himself in these words: "to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit."

 

OBJECTOR: Paul may have used the verb to describe his missionary work. You’ll notice that he speaks of the Gentiles as his offering. He is not offering something on behalf of the Gentiles; he thinks of the new people of God as the offering.

 

CATHOLIC: Paul’s use of "to act as a priest" (hierourgeo) fits with the Catholic Church’s understanding of a priest as one who intercedes for the people of God as an intermediary. The priest today, like Paul, offers the people back to God in union with the perfect sacrifice of Christ, the great high priest.

 

OBJECTOR: I have no problem with that understanding as long as we realize that Paul was one of the people of God. As an apostle, he guided the Church and was one of its pastors, but the priesthood was a concept that applied to all God’s people, not some select group of men.

 

CATHOLIC: We agree in one respect. The non-Catholic doctrine of the priesthood of all believers is not an idea that the Church rejects. In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says clearly that all of God’s faithful people share in the priesthood of Christ by virtue of their baptism: "Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church ‘a kingdom, priests for his God and Father’" (CCC 1546, cf. Rev. 1:6, 5:9–10). Further, it says, "The whole Church is a priestly people. Through baptism all the faithful share in the priesthood of Christ. This participation is called the ‘common priesthood of all the faithful.’ Based on this common priesthood and ordered to its service, there exists another participation in the mission of Christ: the ministry conferred by the sacrament of holy orders, where the task is to serve in the name and in the person of Christ the head in the midst of the community" (1591). In other words, the existence of a common priesthood for all God’s people does not exclude a special calling for the pastors of the Church to be priests.

 

OBJECTOR: But that’s not what the New Testament says. When Peter speaks of priesthood, he applies it to the whole people of God. "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2:9). As you can see, this expression "royal priesthood" refers to all of God’s people, not a special class of men.

CATHOLIC: Peter is, of course, speaking of the "common priesthood of all the faithful" of which the Catechism spoke. But why do you insist that this excludes a special role for those men chosen by God to serve as priests for and to God’s people?

 

OBJECTOR: Because it’s not part of the New Testament teaching on the government of the Church. The priesthood of Christ is unique and cannot be repeated. Christ appointed shepherds for the Church as Jesus taught Peter in John 21:15–19. As we said, these leaders are called elders (or presbyters) and deacons, but never priests except for the Romans 15:16 text you cited.

 

CATHOLIC: Perhaps you are unaware that priests in the Catholic Church are also called presbyters, which is usually translated as "elders" in most English Bibles. They are the elders who guide the Church under the authority of the bishops (called episkopoi in the New Testament).

 

OBJECTOR: Well, I didn’t know that, but I still don’t see how it changes anything. First Peter 2:9 still applies to the whole Church and not to some select group of leaders, be they presbyters or bishops.

 

CATHOLIC: You will notice that 1 Peter 2:9 is quoting from a number of Old Testament texts. One of them is Exodus 19:6, where the people of Israel are called "a kingdom of priests." Isaiah 61:6 says that in the New Covenant times, the restored people of God will be called "priests of the Lord."

 

OBJECTOR: Yes, these texts from the Old Testament just confirm my point that all the people of God are considered priests in the Bible and especially in the New Testament. This is what we call the "priesthood of all believers."

 

CATHOLIC: But surely you must agree that, just because the people as a whole in the Old Covenant played a priestly role, it did not exclude a special calling for the Levites as priests. As I am sure you know, there is abundant evidence in the Old Testament for a special priesthood for the one tribe of Levi. Deuteronomy 18:1–8 is just one among many such passages. This special priesthood could not be held by just anyone. It was restricted to those who were called. The author of Hebrews speaks of this Old Covenant priesthood in these terms in Hebrews 5:1–4. Now, if there were two kinds of priesthood in the Old Covenant—we might call them "the priesthood of the faithful" and "the

ministerial priesthood"—then why can there not be this same distinction in the New Covenant?

 

[TO BE CONTINUED…]
Taken from: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0404sbs.asp

God Bless
Nathan

Holy Orders

The sacrament of holy orders is conferred in three ranks of clergy: bishops, priests, and deacons.

Bishops (episcopoi) have the care of multiple congregations and appoint, ordain, and discipline priests and deacons. They sometimes appear to be called "evangelists" in the New Testament. Examples of first-century bishops include Timothy and Titus (1 Tim. 5:19–22; 2 Tim. 4:5; Titus 1:5).

Priests (presbuteroi) are also known as "presbyters" or "elders." In fact, the English term "priest" is simply a contraction of the Greek word presbuteros. They have the responsibility of teaching, governing, and providing the sacraments in a given congregation (1 Tim. 5:17; Jas. 5:14–15).

Deacons (diakonoi) are the assistants of the bishops and are responsible for teaching and administering certain Church tasks, such as the distribution of food (Acts 6:1–6).

[In the first centuries] the term for bishop, episcopos ("overseer"), was fluid in meaning. Sometimes it designated the overseer of an individual congregation (the priest), sometimes the person who was the overseer of all the congregations in a city or area (the bishop or evangelist), and sometimes simply the highest-ranking clergyman in the local church—who could be an apostle, if one were staying there at the time.

Although the terms "bishop," "priest," and "deacon" were somewhat fluid in the apostolic age, by the beginning of the second century they had achieved the fixed form in which they are used today to designate the three offices whose functions are clearly distinct in the New Testament.

As the following quotations illustrate, the early Church Fathers recognized all three offices and regarded them as essential to the Church’s structure. Especially significant are the letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who traveled from his home city to Rome, where he was executed around A.D. 110. On the way he wrote letters to the churches he passed. Each of these churches possessed the same threefold ministry. Without this threefold ministry, Ignatius said, a group cannot be called a church.

Ignatius of Antioch

"Now, therefore, it has been my privilege to see you in the person of your God-inspired bishop, Damas; and in the persons of your worthy presbyters, Bassus and Apollonius; and my fellow-servant, the deacon, Zotion. What a delight is his company! For he is subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ" (Letter to the Magnesians 2 [A.D. 110]).

"Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God, and with the presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles, and with the deacons, who are most dear to me, entrusted with the business of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from the beginning and is at last made manifest" (ibid., 6:1).

"Take care, therefore, to be confirmed in the decrees of the Lord and of the apostles, in order that in everything you do, you may prosper in body and in soul, in faith and in love, in Son and in Father and in Spirit, in beginning and in end, together with your most reverend bishop; and with that fittingly woven spiritual crown, the presbytery; and with the deacons, men of God. Be subject to the bishop and to one another as Jesus Christ was subject to the Father, and the apostles were subject to Christ and to the Father; so that there may be unity in both body and spirit" (ibid., 13:1–2).

"Indeed, when you submit to the bishop as you would to Jesus Christ, it is clear to me that you are living not in the manner of men but as Jesus Christ, who died for us, that through faith in his death you might escape dying. It is necessary, therefore—and such is your practice that you do nothing without the bishop, and that you be subject also to the presbytery, as to the apostles of Jesus Christ our hope, in whom we shall be found, if we live in him. It is necessary also that the deacons, the dispensers of the mysteries [sacraments] of Jesus Christ, be in every way pleasing to all men. For they are not the deacons of food and drink, but servants of the Church of God. They must therefore guard against blame as against fire" (Letter to the Trallians 2:1–3 [A.D. 110]).

"In like manner let everyone respect the deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, and just as they respect the bishop as a type of the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God and college of the apostles. Without these, it cannot be called a church. I am confident that you accept this, for I have received the exemplar of your love and have it with me in the person of your bishop. His very demeanor is a great lesson and his meekness is his strength. I believe that even the godless do respect him" (ibid., 3:1–2).

"He that is within the sanctuary is pure; but he that is outside the sanctuary is not pure. In other words, anyone who acts without the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons does not have a clear conscience" (ibid., 7:2).

"I cried out while I was in your midst, I spoke with a loud voice, the voice of God: ‘Give heed to the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons.’ Some suspect me of saying this because I had previous knowledge of the division certain persons had caused; but he for whom I am in chains is my witness that I had no knowledge of this from any man. It was the Spirit who kept preaching these words, ‘Do nothing without the bishop, keep your body as the temple of God, love unity, flee from divisions, be imitators of Jesus Christ, as he was imitator of the Father’" (Letter to the Philadelphians 7:1–2 [A.D. 110]).

 

Copied from: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/bishop-priest-and-deacon

 

God Bless
Nathan

Women's Ordination

Priestly Ordination

There seems to be a lot of controversy nowadays about the Church changing its views on female ordination.  Can women in fact be validly ordained to the priesthood?  That's a question that promotes a lot of debate in the Catholic world but one in which the Catholic Church has always answered NO.  Certain functions can be shared between the sexes but what is innate is unalterable or you would be going against nature itself.   “Where there is an absolute difference in the roles the two sexes can play is in the giving of life. By natural law, only women can give physical life by serving as mothers. By supernatural law, only men can give spiritual life to the faithful by serving as priests.”(1)

In fact, Pope John Paul II said that "in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church's faithful" (Ordinatio Scerdotalis 4).

And so we see that it’s not that the Pope doesn't want to ordain women, it’s that the Church has no authority to ordain women.  The Church has had the chance to ordain women for 2000 years and never has it ever attempted to ordain women beginning with Jesus Himself.  Jesus chose 12 apostles, 12 men. It’s true that the culture of the time of Jesus would have made the choice of women apostles very difficult to continue His ministry but Jesus allowed women to join in His mission, to follow and finance his ministry (Luke 7:37-50) elevating them above cultural norms (Mark 16:9, John 8:3-11).  His decision not to ordain women had nothing to do with the culture.  Women have always been held with the highest regard in the church but Jesus only breathed on the male apostles, the first bishops, giving them the authority to forgive and retain sins (John 20:22-23).  What most don't seem to realize is that the male priesthood of Christianity was a distinction from the priestesses of paganism that existed during these times.  A female priesthood would be a reversion to non-Christian practices.

Jesus called whom He willed (Mark 13:3).  Not because the culture demanded it but because He willed it, whose will was perfectly united to the Will of God.  Who are we to decide to know the Will of God better then Jesus Himself?  To try to ordain women is to go against nature and against God Himself.  Here are a few quotations from very early Christian history expressing this belief…

“[A female heretic], lately conversant in this quarter, has carried away a great number with her most venomous doctrine, making it her first aim to destroy baptism. . . . But we, little fishes, after the example of our Icthus [Greek, “Fish”], Jesus Christ, are born in water . . . so that most monstrous creature, who had no right to teach even sound doctrine, knew full well how to kill the little fishes, by taking them away from the water” (Tertullian on Baptism 1 [A.D. 203]).

“Similarly, in regard to the deaconesses, as with all who are enrolled in the register, the same procedure is to be observed. We have made mention of the deaconesses, who have been enrolled in this position, although, not having been in any way ordained, they are certainly to be numbered among the laity” (First Council of Nicea, Canon 19 [A.D. 325]).

"[T]he so-called ‘presbyteresses’ or ‘presidentesses’ are not to be ordained in the Church" (Council of Laodicia, Canon 11 [A.D. 360]).

Reference: (1) http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/what-is-the-catholic-view-of-women

Prepared by a St-Denis parishioner