«AD CATHOLICI SACERDOTII». - Opening words of the encyclical with which Pius XI (20 Dec. 1935: AAS, 28 [1936], pp. 5-53), on the occasion of his sacerdotal jubilee, intended to fittingly celebrate the dignity and character of the Catholic priest.
The priest, in fact, by divine vocation and mandate is «the minister of Christ and the dispenser of the mysteries of God» (1 Cor. 4:1); he offers to God on the altar the pure oblation foretold by Malachi (Mal. 1:11), performing that sacrificial action which has real efficacy to reconcile sinners with the divine Majesty; he remits sins in the name of God; he accompanies man throughout the course of life, administering to him the appropriate sacraments; he blesses Christian marriage and defends its prerogatives; he is the principal apostle of the education of youth; he mitigates social conflicts by preaching Christian brotherhood, justice, and evangelical charity; he has the inalienable right and imprescriptible duty to teach and govern (Mt. 28:19-20).
Hence for him arises an urgent series of duties so that his ministry may attain the end indicated by Christ and neither deviate nor, much less, cause the little ones entrusted to his care to stray: holiness of life, interior spiritual formation, assiduous prayer, detachment from earthly goods, renunciation—through celibacy—of the joys and consolations which he might otherwise justly enjoy in another state of life; sound knowledge and doctrine; zeal that faces every hardship and even death for the defense of the truth. Hence also the vigilant care of bishops in the selection and spiritual and cultural formation of candidates for the priesthood.
And to show how the doctrine expounded in the encyclical was not a dead letter, Pius XI recalls the particular care he devoted from the beginning of his pontificate to the formation of clerics with the Apostolic Letter *Officiorum omnium* of 1 Aug. 1922 (AAS, 14 [1922], pp. 449 ff.), with the Apostolic Constitution *Deus scientiarum Dominus* of 24 May 1931 (AAS, 23 [1931], pp. 241 ff.), and with seminaries either newly established where none existed or provided with larger and more dignified premises or better equipped with resources and personnel.