Find within these pages a clearinghouse of articles, news, links, events, collaboration tools and other resources shared with fellow priests. New pages every week — look forward to an expanding toolbox of practical resources at your fingertips!
News Bytes for Your Parish Bulletin
- US Bishops: Marriage Came Before State
- Priest Calls for a More Missionary Clergy
- Advocates Urge Mexico to Protect Migrants in Transit
- New Chinese Bishop Hopeful for Church
Confession for Confessors
Priests should frequent the sacrament of confession as part of the ongoing reforms the Church needs, a cardinal told the international meeting of priests in Rome. Cardinal Joachim Meisner, archbishop of Cologne, told an audience of about 10,000 priests that just as the "Church must always be reformed," so bishops and priests "must always be reformed." He added, "It is not enough in our pastoral work to correct only the structures of our Church so that it is more attractive. It isn't enough! What is lacking is a change of heart, of my heart."
A Priest's Human Identity
The clerical abuse crisis is essentially a problem rooted in the priest's humanity, specifically, his fundamental human identity as man, husband and father and the relationships that necessarily flow from it. So says Father John Cihak, a priest of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon, in an essay published on the Web site of the Congregation for Clergy. "Since Christ's manhood is indispensable for his priesthood," writes Father Cihak, "we can conclude that the manhood of his priest is equally indispensable in sacramentally representing Christ's priesthood. Thus the current renewal of the priesthood will not happen by changing or modifying the priest's function but by renewing the identity, specifically the human identity of the priest."