Priesthood of the Faithful

PRIESTHOOD of the FAITHFUL. — It is the power to participate in acts of Christian worship conferred upon the faithful in Baptism.

I. THE PRIESTHOOD OF THE FAITHFUL IN REVELATION AND THE MAGISTERIUM

To the persecuted neophytes, St. Peter recalls their priesthood twice: “Draw near to him (Christ), the living stone; you too, as living stones, are built (or: build yourselves) upon him (to be) a spiritual structure, a holy priesthood (ἱεράνευμα ἄγιον), to offer spiritual victims (πνευματικὰς δυσίας) pleasing to God through the mediation of Jesus Christ... But you (who believe) are a chosen race, a royal priesthood (βασίλειον ἱεράνευμα), a holy nation, a people of God’s own possession” (I Pt. 2, 4-5, 9). The entire passage is metaphorical.

St. Peter interprets allegorically the highest religious realities of Judaism: temple, priesthood, sacrifice, taking his starting point from Psalm 118, 22 and Is. 28, 16. The stone of which the Prophets speak is Jesus Christ, who is

regarded as the cornerstone of the spiritual building of the Church (the new temple), in which all the baptized, having become priests of the new worship, take their place in order to offer spiritual victims. The nature of these victims is not directly indicated by St. Peter, but from the adjective “spiritual” and from the parallel passages of St. Paul it appears that they are offerings improperly so called, whose objects are the bona animae, prayer (Hebr. 13, 15), faith (Phil. 2, 17); the bona corporis (Rom. 12, 1); and the bona fortunae (Hebr. 13, 16; Phil. 4, 18). If the nature of every priesthood is inferred from the nature of the victims offered, the priestly prerogative with which the ordinary faithful are invested is metaphorical and improper. Indeed, according to De Ambroggi, from the passive term used (ἐξάττευα) and from the biblical context to which it alludes, it seems that St. Peter holds that the faithful constitute a passive priesthood, that is, a society governed by priests. In fact, the phrase of V. 9 regale sacerdotium (ἐξάττευα), taken from Ex. 19, 6 (according to the Septuagint), is to be understood in the sense of a kingdom belonging to the priests, in which the priests possess governing power. It is therefore a hierocracy, in which the one who governs is consecrated, while the one who is governed shares in this consecration as a “holy nation.” The faithful are not themselves priests, but the object of the priests’ care and government. Just as the expression “you are a kingdom” does not mean “you are all kings,” but subjects of royal authority, so the expression “you are a priesthood” does not imply “you are all priests,” but subjects of priestly authority. The passages analogous to St. Peter’s letter, found in It. 61, 6; 62, 12; Apoc. 1, 5-6; 20, 6, should be interpreted in the same way (P. De Ambroggi, Il s. dei fedeli secondo la prima di Pietro, in La scuola catt., 75 [1947], pp. 52-57; cf. L. Cerfaux, Regale sacerdotium, in Revue des sciences philos. et théol., 28 [1939], pp. 5-39). It is undeniable, however, that this passivity does not signify inertia on the part of the faithful who, united to Christ the high priest and to the regularly established ministers of worship, offer the spiritual victims of which the two Princes of the Apostles speak. In the offering of spiritual victims, a certain sacrificial activity of the faithful is discernible, accompanying the true and proper sacrifice reserved to the hierarchical priesthood. Indeed, it could be maintained that the Eucharistic Sacrifice is at least implicitly included among the spiritual victims. It is well known that the Eucharist, essentially constituting the worship in spirit and truth (Io. 4, 23) of the New Testament, is called a spiritual sacrifice and ὁδία λογική (hostia rationalis), especially in opposition to the materiality and formalism of the sacrifices of the Old Testament. Moreover, this Eucharistic orientation of the faithful’s oblationary activity is not merely glimpsed, but is openly affirmed many times by Tradition, while leaving undecided the question of the intimate nature of this “potestas offerendi.” St. Justin Martyr was the first to affirm an explicit relationship between the passage of St. Peter and the prophecy of Malachi concerning the Mass: “We who, as one man, all believe in God, creator of the universe... are a priestly race (the enlargement of the meaning with respect to I Pt. 2, 9 is noteworthy), as God himself attests when he says that pure and pleasing sacrifices will be offered to him in every place among the nations (Mal. 1, 10). Now God accepts sacrifices from no one except from the hands of his priests” (Dialogus cum Tryphone, cap. 116; PG 6, 745). St. Irenaeus attributes priestly dignity to all the just (Adv. haeres., 4, 8, 3; PG 7, 995) and affirms that the whole Church offers the sacrifice of the Eucharist (ibid., 4, 17, 6; PG 7, 1024; cf. also Origen, Hom., 9, 9; PG 12, 521); Chrysostom, in explaining the special value of the Mass (Hom. 18 in 2 Cor. 3; PG 61, 527); St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, 17, 5; PL 41, 535; ibid., 20, 10; PL 41, 676; Quaest. Evang., 2, 40; PL 35, 1355) shows the exercise of this cultic power in the collective offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice: “Christ is priest, he the offerer, he the offered, of which he established a daily sign in the Sacrifice of the Church, which, being the body of Christ the head, learns to offer itself through him” (“quae cum ipsius capitis corpus sit, seipsam per ipsum discit offerre”: De Civ. Dei, 10, 20; PL 41, 298, cf. ibid., 10, 6; PL 41, 284).

The study of the liturgy has revealed another current of primitive Christian teaching concerning the relationship of the faithful to the Sacrifice of the Mass. All liturgies, Eastern and Western, are permeated by the idea that the Mass is the sacrifice offered by the entire assembly of believers in the majesty of God, through Christ.

The recent teaching of the Church’s magisterium is nothing other than a confirmation and clarification of the thought of the Fathers and of the liturgy. The Council of Trent, in claiming against the Protestants the value of Masses said privately, had already taught that the Eucharistic Sacrifice is always public, because it is offered by the Church through a legitimately deputed minister (Denz-U, 944). In the encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor (8 May 1928), Pius XI brings the biblical text of the “regale sacerdotium” into connection with the office and obligation incumbent upon all the faithful to offer the Mass in expiation of their own and others’ sins. Pius XII, who had already used the phrase “Christifideles ipsimet immaculatum Agnum... per sacerdotis manus Aeterno Patri porrigunt” in the encyclical Mystici corporis (29 June 1943), returned ex professo to the subject in the encyclical Mediator Dei (20 Nov. 1947), providing decisive clarifications, and began his teaching with the statement: “It must also be affirmed that the faithful too offer the divine victim, under a different aspect.”
II. NATURA DEL S. DEI F. — A questo riguardo si presentano subito due affermazioni estreme, che sfociano in un duplice errore.

1. Errore per eccesso. — È quello di equiparare, per una specie di democrazia liturgica, i fedeli al sacerdote vero e proprio. Tertulliano, che nel De Baptismo, cap. 7 (PL 1, 1206) aveva enunciato il principio cattolico, divenuto montanista fu il primo a formulare questo errore: (De exhortatione castitatis, cap. 7; PL 2, 922). I valdesi ritenevano che la virtù e non l'ordinazione era la fonte della dignità sacerdotale. Secondo questo sistema ogni laico virtuoso poteva amministrare validamente tutti i Sacramenti, mentre un prete indegno lo si doveva considerare destituito di ogni potere (cf. Denz-U, 424 e F. Tocco, L'eresia nel medioevo, Firenze 1884, p. 179). Lutero nell'appello alla nobiltà cristiana della nazione tedesca (1520) affermò che tutti appartengono allo stesso stato e sono veramente sacerdoti, vescovi, papi (An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation, ed. Erlangen, XXI, pp. 282-83; cf. G. Miegge, Lutero, I, Torre Pellice 1946, pp. 377-85). Queste idee furono condivise da tutti i «riformatori» del sec. xvi (cf. A. Michel, Ordre, in DThC, XI, coll. 1333-46). Il Concilio di Trento condannò l'errore protestante, nel cap. 4 della sess. XXIII (Denz-U, 960). Spener (v.), pietismo (v.) luterano, contro l'esagerato monopolio dei pastori, rese popolare l'idea del «s. universale» dei credenti (cf. M. Bendiscioli, Il luteranesimo, Milano 1948, pp. 111-14). In occasione della controversia di Crema, che si agitò nel sec. xviii sul diritto dei fedeli alla Comunione fatta con particolare consacrate nella Messa cui hanno assistito, i difensori del Guerrieri e soprattutto i giansenisti svilupparono argomenti, che riecheggiano il pensiero luterano sul s. universale. Tale tendenza trionfò nel Sinodo di Pistoia, che fu subito condannato da Pio VI nella cost. Auctorem Fidei del 28 ag. 1794 (Denz-U, 1528; cf. B. Matteucci, Controversia sulla Comunione liturgica e il giansenismo italiano, in Riv. del clero ital., 18 [1937], pp. 203-208; id., Comunione liturgica, in Fides, 40 [1940], pp. 515-22; A. Mercati, Un biglietto inedito del Muratori in occasione della controversia di Crema, in Riv. della stor. della Chiesa in Italia, 2 [1948], pp. 403-11; L. Paladini, La controversia della Comunione nella Messa, in Misc. in honorem L. C. Mohlberg, I, Roma 1948, pp. 347-71). Edwin Hatch, anglicano, con le sue conferenze di Oxford sull'organizzazione della Chiesa antica (1880) dice che all'inizio del cristianesimo appare una categoria di persone incaricate di compiere le funzioni liturgiche (battezzare, consacrare l'Eucaristia, ecc.): queste costituiscono il clero. Ma tale distinzione tra clero e laici era fondata unicamente su necessità pratiche di buon ordine. Difatti tutti i fedeli si considerarono sacerdoti e all'occorrenza potevano predicare, battezzare, celebrare l'Eucaristia. Solamente nel sec.

IV sorse l'idea che il s. fosse un potere riservato e inalienabile. Un secolo dopo s. Agostino diede una base a questa teoria con la dottrina del carattere indelebile (E. Hatch, The organization of the early christian Church, 5ª ed., Londra 1895; cf. J. Tixeroni, L'Ordine e le ordinazioni, trad. it., Brescia 1939, pp. 21-52; A. D'Alès, Sacerdote catholique, in DFC, IV, col. 1039). Recentemente alcuni spinti fautori del movimento liturgico hanno ricalcato le idee dello Hatch. J. A. Jungmann sostiene che l'antico nome di sacerdote spettava in prima linea a Cristo e che fu in un secondo tempo riconosciuto a tutta la comunità dei fedeli (cf. I Pr. 2, 9). Solamente in un terzo momento e dopo alcune generazioni questo nome fu dato anche alle persone rivestite dell'ufficio. Quindi la comunità dei fedeli è una società sacerdotale che compie la liturgia sotto la guida di ministri ufficiali (Christus-Gemeinde-Priester, in K. Borgmann, Volksliturgie und Seelsorge, Kolmar in Alsazia s. d., pp. 25-30). E. Walter ritiene che il comando del Signore « Fate questo in memoria di me » si riferisca essenzialmente a tutta la Chiesa e che solo in actu secundo si suddivida in funzioni gerarchiche. Il distacco e l'indipendenza dell'azione sacerdotale si attuò lentamente e solo in un tempo in cui la liturgia non era più, come in antico, opera del popolo, ma una rigida e fredda formola (Weine und Laienpriestertum, das eine Priestertum der Kirche, in K. Borgmann, op. cit., pp. 31-46). P. Parsch considera la Messa privata un « fenomeno indesiderabile » perché si avrebbe in essa una deviazione della forma primitiva del Sacrificio e l'abbandono di un principio essenziale nella liturgia, quello della partecipazione attiva dei fedeli. Aggiunge che è benemerito della Chiesa colui che si oppone alla Messa privata (Messerbildung im Geiste der liturgischen Erneuerung, Klosterneuburg 1935, p. 51; id., Volksliturgie, ivi 1940, p. 216; cf. F. Carpino, Il giubileo sacerdotale di Pio XII alla luce della sua dottrina sul s., Roma 1949, pp. 25-26). Appunto quest'errore Pio XII ha respinto nell'encicl. Mediator Dei (AAS, 39 [1947], pp. 521-95).

2. Errore per difetto. — In reazione agli eccessi ricordati, alcuni negano qualunque vera e propria partecipazione attiva dei fedeli al Sacrificio della Messa. Questa posizione svuota del loro reale contenuto i documenti della tradizione, della liturgia e del magistero della Chiesa. Pur evitando questa cruda negazione, alcuni scrittori cattolici minimizzano forse troppo i dati della Rivelazione e del magistero (così, p. es., J. van der Meersch, De cooblatione fidelium in sacrificio Missae, Bruges 1942). Altri ancora, pur mantenendosi nell'ambito dell'ortodossia, fluttuano nell'incertezza (cf. S. Bordin, La partecipazione dei fedeli al Sacrificio della Messa, in Riv. liturgica, 34 [1947], pp. 182-85; 35 [1948], pp. 17-20).

3. Dottrina più probabile. — Le due posizioni estreme rimangono colpite alla radice dalle solenni definizioni della Chiesa, che respingono qualunque confusione tra s. e laicato, come qualunque separazione e opposizione. Nessuna confusione: s. e laicato non si confondono, perché mentre il laico è in senso gerarchico nella sponda più lontana, il sacerdote è nel punto equidistante tra i due estremi, tra Dio e l'uomo. Il livellamento di tutti i credenti davanti a Dio è una tendenza eterodossa, che la Rivelazione non tollera. Nessuna separazione, perché pur rimanendo in piani distinti, laici e sacerdoti tendono verso Dio; con attività diverse, ma convergenti, compiono l'atto sacrificale della riconciliazione.

Quanto alle opinioni fluttuanti, si elimina la causa d'incertezza, togliendo di mezzo la varietà delle sentenze sulla natura del Sacrificio della Messa. Pio XII sembra cancellarla con le incisive parole dell'encicl. Mediator Dei: « Etiam atque etiam animadvertendum est eucharisticum sacrificium suapte natura incruentam esse divinae victimae immolationem, quae quidem mystico modo ex sacrarum specierum separatione patet, ex earumque oblatione Aeterno Patri peracta » (AAS, 39 [1947], p. 563; cf. anche pp. 548-49). Con questo è aperta la via per giungere al centro del problema: a) l'immolazione, che risulta dalla duplice consacrazione, è opera esclusiva del sacerdote come strumento dell'onnipotenza divina (principio di distinzione tra sacerdoti e laici); b)

the oblation, which implies an interior act of homage to God, is common to priests and laypeople (the principle of union between priests and laypeople). Indeed, priests and laypeople, as intelligent beings, are deputed to Christian worship by virtue of the character. The character, including the baptismal character, is a participation in the priesthood of Jesus Christ (Sum. Theol., 3ª, q. 63, a. 3), which consecrates and deputes all the faithful to divine worship, to be actively exercised according to the form established by Jesus Christ (ibid., 3ª, q. 63, a. 1 e 3). Since the character is different in the baptized person and in the ordained person, the common oblation likewise assumes a particular nuance. By virtue of the character of Orders, the priest, in the very act of immolation, offers the victim to God “ritually”; by virtue of the character of Baptism, the ordinary faithful person offers the same victim “spiritually” together with the priest. It cannot be said, however, that the oblation of the faithful, being spiritual, remains outside the sacrifice, because their interior act is united with the actual internal oblation of Jesus Christ, which constitutes the soul of the Eucharistic Sacrifice and which is embodied and made visible in the external rite, the divinely established sign for the manifestation of the interior act.

On the other hand, the ritual oblation made by the priest is in some manner also that of the faithful, by virtue of the character and of the solidarity of the Mystical Body: totum corpus agit in membro suo. Just as the whole human person sees through the eye, so it is the whole Church that offers the Sacrifice through the membrum electum, who is the priest (cf. G. De Broglie, Du rôle de l'Eglise dans le Sacrifice eucharistique, in Nouvelle rev. théol., 70 [1949], pp. 449-60). Into the ancient and sturdy trunk of mystical or sacramental immolation there is grafted the doctrine of the oblation of the faithful; the immolation, produced by the priest alone, becomes the visible sign of the interior offering of the Head and the members, of the Christus totus. It may therefore be affirmed with s. Agostino that through the external rite of the Mass “tota redempita civitas, sacrificium universale (offert et) offertur Dio per sacerdote magnum Jesum Christum” (De Civ. Dei, 10, 6; PL 41, 284). Hence it is evident that the faithful contribute “actively” to the offering of the Mass, the true Sacrifice of the Mystical Body. This contribution does not place them on an equal footing with the hierarchical priest, but introduces them into the sphere of cultic and religious activity, which is a participation, albeit in the lowest degree, in that perfect worship which Jesus Christ, as High Priest, has always offered to God. The faithful, therefore, through the baptismal character, have become cultores Dei, not in just any manner, but secundum ritum religionis christianae, that is, in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. In this sense it may perhaps be said that all the baptized participate, within the limits entailed by their condition as simple members of the Mystical Body, in the priesthood of Jesus Christ (Sum. Theol., 3ª, q. 63, a. 3).

III. THE FAITHFUL AS VICTIMS OF THEIR SACRIFICE

In the Mass Christ is not only priest but also victim; if the Saviour made himself present in the Consecration, he did so in order to be offered to the Father together with his mystical members. It is the Christus totus who is the victim of this Sacrifice, as is evident from the entire Catholic tradition. St. Augustine, after asserting that Christ « nos ipsos voluti esse sacrificium suum » (Sermo 227; PL 38, 1101), adds that this Sacrifice is « praeclarissimum atque optimum » (De Civ. Dei, 19, 23; PL 41, 655), because the multitude of the redeemed, that is, the assembly of the Saints, is presented as a victim to God by the great Priest, who is Christ (ibid., 10, 6; PL 41, 284). All this takes place in the Eucharistic rite, where the Church learns to offer herself in the liturgical victim, which she raises toward God. This idea was accepted by the whole of medieval theology. Through Pascasio Radberto, Rabano Mauro, Guimondo d'Aversa, Algero di Liegi, Ruperto di Deutz, Pietro Lombardo, and Innocenzo III, the Augustinian formulas reached the scholastics of the 13th century, among whom s. Alberto Magno distinguished himself by calling Jesus « caput hostiae », as if to indicate that there is but one victim, constituted by many faithful who have one head, Jesus Christ (cf. the individual passages in A. Piolanti, Il Corpo mistico e le sue relazioni con l'Eucaristia in s. Alberto Magno, Roma 1939, pp. 186-91). S. Tommaso expresses the same idea

(Sum. Theol., 3ª, q. 83, a. 4), which was extensively developed by the « French school », especially by Thomassin, Bossuet, and Bourdaloue (cf. M. Lepin, Il sacrificio del Corpo mistico, Italian trans., Milano 1941, pp. 81-139). The liturgy confirms the idea that all the faithful are like so many « segmenta » of the « catholica hostia » offered in the Mass.

The magisterium of the Church has authoritatively interpreted the data of Revelation. Pius XII expresses himself as follows: « The divine Redeemer not only offers himself to the heavenly Father (in the Mass) as head of the Church, but in himself offers all his mystical members, since he bears them all, including the weakest and most infirm, in his most loving Heart » (encyclical Mystici Corporis, 28 June 1943. Cf. also Pius XI, encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor of 28 May 1928; Pius XII, encyclical Mediator Dei of 20 Nov. 1947; AAS, 39 [1947], pp. 521-93).

It is not difficult to establish theologically the nature of this « status victimae » inherent in the Christian profession. By virtue of the baptismal character, all the faithful, while receiving a mystical and analogous participation in the s. of Jesus Christ, are also constituted victims of their s., united with that of the eternal and supreme Priest. Indeed, in the present divine economy one is a victim precisely insofar as one is a priest: sacerdoz et hostia. Just as Christ became, in the hypostatic union, « victima sui sacerdoti et sacerdoz suae victimae » (s. Paolino di Nola, Ep. IX ad Severum: PL 61, 19), so all Christians become, in Baptism, victims of their s., united with that of Jesus: « corpus regenerati fit caro Crucifixi » (s. Leone Magno, Sermo 63 de Passione Domini: PL 54, 156), appointed to offer themselves as fragments of the one great host, which is the Lamb sacrificed for the sins of all.

How the immolation takes place in the Sacrifice of the Mass may be clarified analogically by the « mactatio mystica » of Jesus Christ. The Lord’s real body, present under the Eucharistic species, is the symbol and efficient cause of the Mystical Body; from this principle it follows that, just as Christ in the Mass is immolated not physically in himself but « sacramentally », insofar as he is signified and contained under the separate species of bread and wine, so the Mystical Body in the Eucharistic sacrifice is not physically immolated but in signo suo (s. Alberto Magno, De Sacrificio Missae, tr. 3, cap. 1, n. 3). Indeed, the separate species of bread and wine are signs (indices) that directly represent the separation of Jesus’ body from his blood and indirectly signify the mystical immolation of the Church. Likewise, the sacramental immolation of the true body of Jesus Christ directly signifies the interior act of the will by which the Redeemer offers himself in perfect self-surrender to the Father; indirectly, it also indicates the interior oblation by which the Church, « tota redempta civitas », consecrates herself to God in Christ and with Christ.