Question

Dear Father Angelo,

I am a priest who has been discharged from the obligation of celibacy and now I am married.

I try to live in God’s grace daily with all the hardships that come along with it.

As a matter of fact, I am now a reject. However I offer everything to the Lord and I donate this gracious capital that comes from my great suffering to the Church, in the hope that the Kingdom of God will come soon.

I am in the process of meditating on my priestly spiritual character, which is indelible.

It’s written on the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1582 As in the case of Baptism and Confirmation this share in Christ’s office is granted once for all. The sacrament of Holy Orders, like the other two, confers an indelible spiritual character and cannot be repeated or conferred temporarily.

1583 It is true that someone validly ordained can, for grave reasons, be discharged from the obligations and functions linked to ordination, or can be forbidden to exercise them; but he cannot become a layman again in the strict sense, because the character imprinted by ordination is for ever. The vocation and mission received on the day of his ordination mark him permanently.

Since I feel like an outcast, I would really appreciate it if you could give me an explanation, hoping that it will make me live and understand better the concept of “spiritual character”.

I wish I could do more, but right now I can only pray, which I know is no small thing.

Give me your blessing, please.

Answer from the priest

Dearest,

1. The Catechism of the Catholic Church rightly says that a priest cannot go back to being a layman in the strict sense.

The Church reduces him to the lay state, so he cannot celebrate the sacraments ordinarily within the Christian community. However his soul will always carry the indelible character conformed to Christ the Head and Good Shepherd.

2. Even if you are forbidden to celebrate the exterior worship, you can still celebrate the interior worship, not only as baptized and as part of the common priesthood of all believers, but also as priest conformed to Christ the Head and Good Shepherd.

Priests pray not only for personal worship, but also as a task, as a received obligation.

They have the duty to do so. They have to pray according to their role of priests of the people.

They have been appointed by God to do this. In the Old Testament (see Num. 8:18-19) it’s written that they have to pray for the people (in Latin: orent pro eis) to keeep them from evil (in Latin: ne sit in populo plaga).

3. To further show you the power of prayer, I am going to cite the words of Saint Joseph Cafasso, who was considered, in his time, the gem of the Italian priesthood.

Here they are.

“Now, if this is true for the oration in general, what about the oration carried out as a task by a person who has been explicitly appointed to the cause for which he presents himself to God?

Have you ever thought about the difference between someone who presents himself to a sovereign as a common subject and private citizen to beg a favor and someone to whom a certain power along with its quality has been assigned and who therefore is announced and received and listened to with great respect?

The latter does not pray, instead he represents. He does not ask, instead he concerts. It is quite impossible that his requests will be rejected.

That, my brethren, is our condition on earth: as long as it’s an ordinary believer who prays, he will be just a private citizen who implores and begs mercy. Whereas when we pray, especially at the altar and every time we do it as our duty, we present ourselves not as ordinary suppliants but as people entitled to represent, request and concert.

Envision a man who is called to be a mediator between two parties, just like us. Not only does he pray, but he also suggests, gives advice, persuades and often says: “this should be done, this shouldn’t”. This, and not another, is the right way to act, therefore let us act this way.

Observe how the minister of a sovereign speaks to the latter at a hearing. He does not beg, at most he goes away painting and displaying the reasons to his sovereign. But soon he concludes: “Your Majesty, things will have to be done this way.”

These two examples resemble the priest who prays and they show the difference between us and ordinary believers.

I wonder if there is just one among the believers, who, despite being good and saintly, can use such a language with the Lord!

Ah! If only a priest was filled with his quality and armed with his faith, when he prays! He would say: “Lord, you know me, I am your minister, the one to whom you decided to entrust the missions to represent you on Earth, to prevent sins, to save souls, to gain sinners; I am now here, before you, to negotiate one of these deals. You already know everything: there is that scandal, there is that soul who does not want to hear a thing about anything at all, there is that broken chain, there is one of your glorious works that cannot go any further. Many are the difficulties. I have already done everything in my power to persuade, to prevent, to win. These actions are not useful enough and I, myself, am not enough anymore. That is why I had to come here, before you, because I know that you will solve all things effortlessly.

– Now tell me if it is possible that God would dismiss one of his ministers who speaks in this way about such an important deal, when He was the very one to entrust that mission to the priest, hoping that he would succeed!

It is impossible that the Lord would reject. Such thing cannot even be conceived” (Saint Joseph Cafasso, “Esercizi spirituali al clero”, pp. 409-411).

4. You have not been removed from the priestly office.

In fact, you still have it and you are even called to perform it with great humility, as we all do.

It’s a gift that has been assigned to you and that you need to nurture now more than ever.

I will happily remind you to the Lord and I bless you.

Father Angelo

Tradotto da Chiara Midea

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