Like many other organisations, the Vatican gives names to years. This year has been the Year of St Paul; next year is the Year of the Priest. It coincides with the 150th anniversary of the death of John Vianney, a simple French parish priest who spent much of his life in post-Revolutionary France hearing confessions.
Vianney, known popularly as the Cure of Ars, was a compassionate man, and in a rural France where religious practice was part of society, communities were tight-knit and wounds festered, a confessor who made tangible the love of God was much in demand. His priestly ministry, with its focus on individual confession, was part of a credible pastoral strategy.
Australian society differs greatly from that of rural France. So does the challenge facing church ministers, including Catholic priests. The Year of the Priest offers an opportunity to muse on the questions faced by Catholic priests today.
The reflection may be sharpened by the fact that three out of the four priests ordained for the Sydney Archdiocese celebrated their first Mass in Latin. Given the place of the first Mass as a symbolic statement of how a priest views his ministry, this majority choice is of some significance. The concerted choice of Latin suggests that many young priests share a distinctive vision of the Church, of priesthood and of pastoral priorities that older priests would not share.
It would be easy to pass judgment, either to approve or to condemn, on such decisions and on the pastoral strategies that they reflect. But it may be more helpful to reflect on their significance within all the complex relationships that constitute priesthood within the Catholic Church.
Priests are defined by their relationships. They exist within a church, which in turn is defined by its relationship to God through Jesus Christ. So they are disciples of Jesus within the Catholic Church. Their ordination as priests defines further their complex relationships to other Catholics, including bishops and other priests.
In the Catholic view, the relationship between the bishop and the clergy of his diocese is of particular symbolic significance. The image of the clergy gathered around their bishop expresses the unity of the local church. In the same way, the image of the bishops gathered around the Pope expresses the unity of the universal Church.
Images and symbols tend to be taken for granted until the reality they represent is put under