Dignity is an ontological substance that is received as a gift and that requires the utmost of custody that arises from joy and penance. Pope Francis has addressed to the American bishops gathered for spiritual exercises a very dense letter which could serve as a compass in the decisions to be taken in the near future. In the meantime, it is essential to be clear about the dynamism on which the clerical perversions of which the Holy Father often speaks are triggered.

Priests, take care of your dignity

Dignity is an ontological substance that is received as a gift and that requires the utmost of custody that arises from joy and penance.

«Look after your dignity, friars priests, and be holy because He is holy. And as the Lord God honoured you above all men for this mystery, so you more than any other man love, revere and honour Him" (1)

With this extraordinary quotation from the poor man of Assisi, I wish to begin this articulated reflection.

In this paper, the method I follow in dealing with theology is not deductive, but rather biblical; it arises from experience and has been settled and systematized theologically after so many steps and so much life, after so many tears and so much marked flesh. Theological insights and their systematic organization, in spiritual theology, are therefore posthumous to give voice to what has happened, to what has been seen, to what has been tasted. It does not claim to be organic, but the desire to provide “brushstrokes” of a reality that must be faced by pastors with the love and rigor it deserves.

But, returning to the above quote, Saint Francis’ words are an extraordinary statement for at least two reasons.

First of all, because its shattering content is serious, grave, beautiful, of a “chivalrous” matrix, like many of Francis' writings. It evokes a fact that is always valid: that of honour. Honour recalls the dignity that God gives, in many ways and in many forms. Linked to that ecstatic fulfilment that God lives and gives in creation and re-creation.

Secondly, this statement is extraordinary in its object.

Francis addresses it, because he owes, responsibly and honourably, to the priest friars and does not address it out of respect to all priests. In fact, in the Testament of Siena uses another tone: “... and that they always be faithful and subservient to the prelates and to all the clerics of the holy Mother Church” (2).

However, encouraged by the beautiful exhortative passage of the second Vatican Council in Presbyterorum Ordinis, we can state that:

“This holy synod asks not only priests but all the faithful that they might receive this precious gift of priestly celibacy in their hearts and ask of God that he will always bestow this gift upon his Church” (3).

And recently, the Holy Father addressed his brother Bishops but also to all the faithful, saying:

“And here, each of us must humbly enter into our depths and ask ourselves what he can do to make holier the face of the Church that we govern in the name of the Supreme Pastor. It is of no use just pointing the finger towards others, to make scapegoats, to tear up one’s clothes, to dig into the weakness of others, as the children who have lived in the house as servants love to do (cf. Lk 15,30:1-31). Here it is necessary to work together and in communion, in the knowledge that true holiness is the one that God accomplishes in us, when docile to his Spirit we return to the simple joy of the Gospel, so that his bliss may be flesh for others in our choices and in our lives.” (4).

And, again, the Holy Father said: “If a member suffers, all members suffer together" as St Paul told us. Through our prayerful and penitential attitude, we will be able to come into personal and communitarian harmony with this exhortation, so that the gifts of compassion, justice, prevention and reparation may grow among us” (5).

Therefore, I beg pardon if some considerations, though screened through a careful and long experience in the field, may seem too strong, but they arise from the genuine desire to help make holier the face of the Church, in communion with Peter and in caring for the gift of the priesthood in the Christian Community, in the People of God.

Placing the emphasis on wounds and asking God and the Church for the salt of medicine may appear partial. But we do not want to neglect the substantial river of good done by so many priests in silence and without following the trends. Neither the “conservative” trends, nor the “progressive” ones. They don’t need “special” appellations, such as “street priests” or “traditionalist priests.” Because most of them, it has to be said, are just “priests” and nothing else, priests all the way. Sure, with the human limits we all have and with a titanic responsibility arising from the priestly “sphraghis”.

Here, in these few lines, we are talking about rare, virulent cases that, as we said, need urgent curative attention. And woe to procrastinate this attention.

The clarity of light rather, than the turbid evil

It comes to our aid the Liturgy of the Hours, as usual, in approaching such situations not with the itching of gossip, but with the joy of clarity. Says an anthem that we sing at the opening of Lauds:

Grant us clear eyes, that overcome the murky suggestions of evil. (6)

As warned Nietzsche, the philosopher:

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” (7)

This is because the Need for Identity, so strong, since the original wound, loves to mirror itself in the charm of abasement, in order to assert itself. And as already mentioned (8) the charm of evil intoxicates you letting you believe that you can dominate and control the evil itself.

And, little by little, we proceed along that line, believing ourselves to be stronger than temptation.

There is not only the romantic hero who defies fate, the superman of Nietzschean memory, but also the faithful who feels stronger than evil and temptation and who thinks he can dominate them as an expert stoker. But, of course, it's a deception, and it's not so. In fact, you easily become slave of the murky and serial addicted. Because we are fragile and in need of the ever-necessary re-grafting in the real vine (9).

Certain evils, scrutinized for a long time, cast us into the “gaze of the snake.” The snake wins you not just when it bites you, but already when it stares at you, turning your eyes away from the author and perfector of the faith.

Therefore, in the analysis of the evils of the Spirit, we must always walk alongside our brethren and humble, because these evils tickle “what we don’t have” more than “what is given to us” and distract us from thanksgiving. And this too, the lack of thanksgiving, is a source of the lack of “honour.” Criticism without humility and prostration is a harbinger of vanity.

The three basic needs related to the Imago Dei

In analyzing the motions of the soul, I would like to review the three deep and basic categories linked to the Imago Dei, about which I have already spoken at length in another speech (10). These three categories of spiritual theology are much deeper than our own deep and help us to understand and approach more effectively the good of the soul and the Glory of God, in the order of Grace.

This short circuit is sin.

That is to seek good in your ways, in your strength, under the instigation of the devil. Doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, and altogether being a “pagan”.

But how can be that I, so religious, that I go to Mass, I confess, I recite the Breviary and I say the Holy Rosary, I can be a pagan?

Yes, because you don’t let yourself be mase by God in all things that God, by His Grace, allows you to do. In short, with one hand you give and with the other one you steal; by yourself you cancel you in seeing and doing good. You are worse than the sinner who has less conscience, because you, while seeing, consciously decide not to see.

a certain “standing firm”, but this should be lived rightly and without appropriation, so that this work is not destroyed. And this is very important to talk about affectivity, as we are about to do, and it is all the more appropriate when we talk about “chastity,” that is, the baptismal duty of the correct use of our affective and genital life, according to God.

The raw synthesis

Do we have to make an extreme synthesis, with all the limitations that synthesis have? Are there cases of paedophilia, with very young children, in the clergy?

Very few, in a very small percentage. Almost zero. Especially when compared, with the same percentage and proportional pattern, to other non-ecclesial situations.

Are there cases of ephebophilia in the clergy, with female minors and male minors? They are far more than cases of paedophilia.

Are there cases of pederasty among those of ephebophilia?

Yes, most of them are cases of ephebophilia. As can be seen from the percentages of known dossiers, such as German (13) and Swiss (14) ones.

Are there any cases of spiritual worldliness among these?

Yes, quite often, especially in cases of pederasty, network-structured. What we call lobby, but it would be better to call protectorates in some cases.

Is that a celibacy problem?

No, it is instead a problem of human immaturity and of surrender of the priest’s heart to the world. What is called clericalism or, better still, wordliness. Pope Francis has spoken dozens of times about spiritual worldliness. And this virulent scourge crosses all the faithful, all the people of God, both those “conservatives” and those “liberals”, skillfully disguising itself from time to time.

Possible causes

These cases of pederasty do not always arise from homo-affective persons (e.g. with homo-sexual tendencies) who enter the seminary. There is no doubt that discernment has sometimes been lacking, or at any rate it has been superficial and lacking. Or it has not remedied a present and deficient imbalance from the outset, which needed strict accompaniment to better discern its structure and whether the objective conditions for the continuation of vocations were met.

Priestly nullity. Some vocations, although this is not verifiable, are "null" (in re) in the res of the Sacrament. That is, these priestly ordinations could be declared null and void. But we will discuss it later.

Wordliness. To be clerical, for the priests and sometimes for the laity, is already to bring the “world” into their heart; it is to betray that “It shall not be so among you” (15).

Let’s do a simple example. See how many times the Holy Father, Pope Francis, has spoken of spiritual worldliness. For example, click on the following link https://www.ilcattolico.it/component/search/?searchword=mondanit%C3%A0%20spirituale&ordering=newest&searchphrase=exact&limit=60

And what is worldliness? To bring the “world” into one's heart and surrender to it. Little by little, the world enters. Small privileges, small bullying, the loss of the dimension of the service, which in itself has, rather, a kenotic nature, we could say minoritic nature.

Feeling part of a cordate of ecclesial “power”, a movement or a Protectorate exacerbates this deformation.

Or else, bohémien hero attitudes, almost with a tinge of anarchism, with edgy looks, unconnected from any connection with other priests. If we do not even dive "into the tan" to avoid the liturgy of the hours, or we immerse ourselves in social issues to be seen as "authentic street priests", or social priests. As if labels could give an authentic answer to the “need for identity”, strengthening the grace of state.

Loneliness, abandonment, dramatic reduction of the life of prayer, of inner devotion, liturgical and spiritual sloppiness covered by pastoral super-activism, theological and liturgical do-it-yourself, are all effects and causes of the numbness of the received Grace and of the openness to the abyss.

And it is well known: the chasm calls the chasm, which, if it is not filled by God, is filled with every possible filth.

Sometimes the superiors do not look to the good of their priest: the more he "succeed” and is "gifted", and the more they charge him with pastoral commitments; almost thinking that the Kingdom is built on the amount of work that is accomplished.  Forgetting that “the first Kingdom of God” for the Bishop is his priest, and not the things he does. Unfortunately, some Bishops are the first (despite today’s sensitivity in which discernment is rightly highlighted) to fail to discern seriously, not exercising the paternity to which they are called. They are rather unable to speak to their priest like a father to his son. Losing time with him and meeting him with the patience present in the gift received with the imposition of hands. And here again the argument of honour, due to the state, to the “sphraghis”, returns.

It is not very rare to find priests and religious who use their garb as an identitarian flag, without deepening the dimension of service and self-giving. This nourishes the “need for identity” of which we spoke and feeds the delirium that this need, inevitably wounded, carries in itself. The first signs can be easily noticed at the beginning of the seminary or novitiate. Little hints of vanity, of vocational “uniqueness”, of not experiencing themselves as “taken from the people for the service of the people”, as truly subservient, but rather as holders of a role of "domination".

The foundations of the worldliness of clericalism are already there.

Sure, in words you feel and say humble, but in reality, you feel “better”, “elected”, but not in the logic of honour, of who loves to stay on his knees before God and wash his brethren’s feet, but in the logic of the dishonoured-thief typical of Judah of Keriot.

We must pay great attention that “narcissistic structures” are not strengthened in priestly vocation and consecrated life, because they have the appearance of holiness, but they incubate a permanent de-centralization of the person from his true self in Christ. I am a karst river that needs many tears and medicines to heal and be tamed lucidly in grace.

The talents we have received, perhaps substantial, are of no use if they feed on the

“hypocritical veil of giving” a structured pride.

Sooner or later, this pride will emerge, because it follows us like a hound that knows our scent, our steps, in order to bite us and make us fall into despair. Nor should we think that an acclaimed and respected priest, attentive to social or “traditio”, is exempt from this bite; even if he writes in prestigious magazines.

So the laity, in the pay of the vanity of some cleric, and who love the feedback of belonging to a rope team of “apparent service” but are intoxicating their need for identity with vanity, which won’t let you off the hook.

It may happen that one enters in the protectorate logic of the “do ut des”, up to the deformations of affirming “ I grant you the diaconate if.., you have this service if..”; asking in return for favors filled with lust.

Or “... If you do not delete what you have written, I will take away your work with the rope team of the priests”".

Nothing to do with the firmness and assertiveness sometimes necessary in an educational progress but rather with the reflected and returned perception of one’s priesthood as a “power”, not as a kenosis, even in the munus docendi, which, however, must be exercised in a balanced manner on several occasions. In short, the abyss creates the abyss around itself with an unclean coaction to repeat and does not create virtuous circles of good.

It remains truly incomprehensible that certain situations of ephebophilia and other crimes (such as theft of the poor) are sometimes covered up, omitted, making meet a wall of gum in those who seek clarity and truth. Even episcopal rope parties are sometimes uncontrollable. This aspect of the episcopal dimension would merit an in-depth theological and ecclesial reflection which we cannot do now on these pages, but which is necessary because it represents a vulnus in which each Bishop risks behaving, in fact, as a “monad”. Divine, legitimate law is intermingled in a criminal manner, sometimes with human poverty, and we certainly need a quid and a way, not just a personal one, of verifying one's work, fraternally speaking. You never stop being in obedience.

Ceasing of an authentic fraternal life.
Ceasing of healthy and belonging fraternal correction. And this is probably the most serious sore point in the lives of priests and religious, including the bishops.

Coveted assignments, intellectual and pastoral pride, and so, as things go by, one falls into the delirium of no longer belonging to Christ and not even to himself and drags himself to the broken cisterns with ever more insatiable voracity. Made for God, with our hearts carved out by our vocation, as soon as the trial takes place, we find ourselves in a chasm of insatiability that tries desperately to fill itself with the carnality of impudicity.

More and more the axis is shifting from the conscience of guilt to the sense of guilt. Which, as we know, is implacable and completely blunts the gaze of love of Christ and His forgiveness. You become “possessed” without being blatantly owned, and the more you immerse yourself in guilt, the more you feel unworthy and the more you seek compensation. The chain is created, and the person is wrapped in it like in mobile sands. And the more he gets agitated, the more he sinks.

Sin speaks in the heart of the wicked; before his eyes there is no fear of God.

For he deceives himself

looking for his guilt and loathing it. (17)

It is precisely to avoid these situations and, for Grace, to get out of them, that fraternal life is indispensable. Vita communis, mea maxima pœnitentia, recites a well-known adage attributed to St. John Berchmans. Which is always valid; for married as well as virgins. And penance should not be seen as a burden that limits (especially in our highly subjective times) the expression of the self. Rather, as the vehicle necessary for man to be himself and not to be lost.

Because the Scripture reads “it is not good for man to be alone” (18).

Loneliness is against nature and, above all, kills and mortifies nature in vice.

Then it is truly dissonant that one should receive an ecclesial mandate and then does everything to cultivate the self in loneliness and abandonment.

Protectorates.
In lobbies, better said, in protectorates, the drama of pederasty is supported by some who, culpably, think it is better to “fall” with young people of the same sex than with adult women, because, in the latter case, you would betray your vocation irreparably. In these rare cases, in the reasoning of these “protectorates”, homosexual practice and pederasty are almost tolerated compared to a fall with an adult woman. As to say: “at least let us keep the facade, without breaking the “social network” of the priestly fraternity” (and calling “fraternity” this circle of vice is already an offense and a dishonour). This is the underlying reasoning: it may even be a double life, but at least you don't leave your cassock!

Reason is gone, and severely demeans the gift of celibacy assumed, which, by its very nature, is a virile and lucid renunciation of conjugality (19).

It is obvious that fidelity is one, and that it is not good, for itself and for our neighbour, and before God, neither to fall into natural and hetero-affective relations nor into homo-sexual relations; and least of all in the most serious sin and the lamentable and infamous crime of abusing children. But the fact of thinking of pederasty as a tolerable form, is truly an abomination in the eyes of God because not only is it seriously lacking in the faithfulness of Christ, in any case, but legitimates as tolerable a very serious disorder of the heart and body that tramples the God’s plan on the flesh and makes vain, even more, being eunuchs for the Kingdom.

For this reason, certain protectorates seek a theological legitimacy of these nefarious acts; otherwise their being “eunuchs for the Kingdom” would prove to be for what it is: a psycho-spiritual escape, foolish and vain; havel havalim, vanity of vanities, a flatus that disappears in the first light of Truth.

Sometimes, in some rare situations, wordliness takes the upper hand, and is grievously mixed with the things of God. Because it is in them that grave sin seeks objective legitimacy to relieve the “conscience of guilt” that the same grace of state and character make vividly present. So, monstrosities are created. Those monstrosities, so dear to the enemy of man and God (which Pope Benedict XVI himself saw in certain situations and which deeply hurt him not only in affection but also in intellect for the blatant contradiction between the grace formally proclaimed, maybe in strictly traditionalist terms, and the sin consumed in an “obscene net”) make slaves of an obsessive compulsion to repeat, creating a deformed second-nature that is totally irrational.

We are not talking about occasional lust and fragility (which is already a very serious thing), but about a legitimate and perpetuated structure.

The devil has succeeded in his intent.

The priest is no longer oriented in the sober exit from self on behalf of his brothers and sisters, but in a sort of delirium, feeling himself as an owner of the body of others, he sows lust, inflicts wound on wound, creates disorder on disorder, and makes evil almost palpable, as if it were a possible ontology.

A shameful deification with the legacy of the Sacrament. The diábolos divided the priest in himself and, transliterating Ratzinger, we could say: “... he’s a priest in the manner of a non-priest”.

Never is one so lost and far from God (and from oneself) as in certain situations of structured hypocrisy.

Only God loves us, despite us, and only brothers, filled with God, can embrace us in our leprosy and shake us with the truly spiritual firmness and patience of those who, behind the blanket of the rotten, can see the image of the son capable of returning to the Father’s House. Although after a strict and careful path of healing and self-awareness and, if there is a crime, of legitimate human justice.

The stages announced by the biblical psychology of ungodly living

The impiety, in seeking our own guilt and detest it that we have mentioned (17), is not only characteristic of pagans but also of neo-pagans, that is those of us who, forgetting the gift received, seek to spiritualize their misery and guilt.

This is the first stage, that does not lack a clear coloration of hypocrisy.

The second stage, linked to this first one, is to make it a flag and to approve those who carry out such nefarious deeds, as the Letter of Paul the Apostle to the Community of Rome recalls:

“That is why God abandoned them in their inmost cravings to filthy practices of dishonouring their own bodies, because they exchanged God's truth for a lie and have worshipped and served the creature instead of the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

That is why God abandoned them to degrading passions: why their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural practices. And the men, in a similar fashion, too, giving up normal relations with women, are consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameful things with men and receiving in themselves due reward for their perversion.  In other words, since they would not consent to acknowledge God, God abandoned them to their unacceptable thoughts and indecent behaviour. And so now they are steeped in all sorts of injustice, rottenness, greed and malice; full of envy, murder, wrangling, treachery and spite, libelers, slanderers, enemies of God, rude, arrogant and boastful, enterprising in evil, rebellious to parents, without brains, honour, love or pity.  They are well aware of God's ordinance: that those who behave like this deserve to die -- yet they not only do it, but even applaud others who do the same.”

(21)

Elevating the wickedness to doctrine with the distorted veil of God’s mercy is nothing more than an objectived, canonized spiritualization in great style.

A decisive blow to the sense of guilt so that it never turns into a conscience of guilt, in that wonderful contrition of the heart that each of us needs:

“When they heard all this, they felt pierced the heart – Ἀκούσαντες δὲ κατενύγησαν τὴν καρδίαν” (22)

Blessed be this piercing which changes everything, and which is priceless to preserve well and make fruitful the gift received:

"He, therefore, that will fully and with true wisdom understand the words of Christ, let him strive to conform his whole life to that mind of Christ. What doth it profit thee to enter into deep discussion concerning the Holy Trinity, if thou lack humility, and be thus displeasing to the Trinity?

For verily it is not deep words that make a man holy and upright; it is a good life which maketh a man dear to God.  I had rather feel contrition than be skilful in the definition thereof.  If thou knewest the whole Bible, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what should all this profit thee without the love and grace of God?  "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" (Qo 1,2), save to love God, and Him only to serve. That is the highest wisdom, to cast the world behind us, and to reach forward to the heavenly kingdom. (23)

The third stage, sclerocardia, is accomplished with omertose silence. Which avoids any form of medicinal purification required:

«…nobody saw, nobody noticed, nobody woke up: everyone slept» (24)

Here sclerocardia becomes “network.” The silent is not only a person who does not speak the truth, in the right ways and in the right times, according to evangelical criteria, but rather a person who chooses to live a lie using the multiple liminal and subliminal levels of “denial.”

With this structured attitude, he really ceases to be a “person” on her way, open to the vivification of the Spirit. Denial, in fact, preserves a balance but opens even more the chasm, preventing the good success and growth of self in the Holy Spirit.

This is how the most serious crime is carried out: entering in desperation and not seizing the hope of a possible return to God, who does everything, with a medicinal path.

The dimension of the gravely messy

When it comes to the gravely messy, as in the case of homosexual tendencies and intrinsically disordered homosexual acts, one incurs, nowadays, because of a reading filtered by a strong subjectivism (even in the universities, not immune to the spirit of the world), in an undoubted fatigue of reason and the most disparate and tendentious theological hypotheses flourish.

The question is the following.

The homosexual person – whom I prefer to call homo-affective for the reasons already mentioned in a previous reflection (16) – is facing a deep conflict. The Catechism, rightly, in a wise sense, speaks of “trial”:

“This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial.  They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.  Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.  These persons are called to fulfil God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. (25)

The trial, so to speak, is not accidental and occasional, but profound and affects the emotional life and balance of the person himself. Sometimes, such a trial is disruptive and becomes present with overbearance in the life of the person with this tendency. This “experience” conveyed by the daily dogma of “I feel” and of the “right to happiness” slave to liminal, and not profound consciousness, is intended to pilot the term “homosexual person” – which in the CCC is not prone to misunderstandings – to assume the value of “third sexual pole”.

This anthropological vision in the common language has sought the support of the APA and of the WHO to present homosexuality as “natural”, which is not only contrary to biblical revelation but to any metaphysical and rational approach.

This manipulation that goes from “feeling” to rationalizing in “costume” and “culture”, in the Catholic context is even supported by some theologians, commentators and even bishops, who, in the moral sphere, tend to place conditions on the “intrinsece malum. ”

Moral reflection, in the merit, also in this case needs a separate dedication, but the difficulties in front of the intrinsece malum arise essentially from having abandoned the metaphysical dimension of moral evil to reduce everything to the subject who does such evil, and to touch its relational dimension.

Here, too, it is a difficulty that arises from a twisted living and theology, that struggle to welcome the evil “in itself” of certain acts, which, however, have no ontological value but potential and experiential value, and try to violate not only the data revealed but also the needs that reason itself must accept in mystery certain conditions that cannot, for now, explain. If reason wants to be reasonable.

It is legitimate to make critical reflections in the theological field, provided that they arise from a humble heart that does not extinguish “devotion and prayer”, as the Holy Poverello of Assisi teaches us perennially. Otherwise, more than listening to the revealed datum, and using recta ratio, is easy to trespass into manipulative behaviour, without implementing healthy “reforms”, and for sure without setting in motion that path of growth of theological reflection.

The “common theological good” is therefore undermined.

In a certain way, any lack of humility in theology - including moral theology - and in its research, prevents the Lord's Spirit to unfold and reveal himself. A sort of “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” that cannot be forgiven because it undermines in itself the objective conditions for receiving God's forgiveness and growing in it.

This, among other things, is the characteristic of every heresy in the history of the Church.

All this is part of a crumbling of the common sense of ethics that previously had a clear foundation in metaphysics in which action follows being (Agere sequitur esse). The contributions of Lévinas, Mounier, Ricœur, Buber as a personalistic philosophy, which seeks to combine the objective dignity of the person and his relationship context are certainly important but, in my opinion, they lend too much the flank to the subjectivism that they want to “correct”. There is also an objective, experimental, palpable dimension of what is “natural”, finalized, and at the same time of what the classical doctrine calls “original sin”; these are aspects that a personalistic reflection cannot fail to take into account.

Otherwise, in seeking a re-foundation of anthropology or, in any case, in finding a universal and common language, we do nothing more than make a leap that we might call self-referential and delusional “religiosity”.

Such an attitude is very clear in chapter 11 of Genesis and cyclically repeats itself.

There is therefore an urgent need of an “et-et”, joining the classical metaphysics with the inescapable relationship dimension of man and his fragility, anytime present.

It must be said, however, that the founding prodromes of this orchestrated anthropological vision are all present in the Church; they only need to be renewed in a proper systematization and in a suitable presentation. But they are inescapable for pastoral care; also for the situations we are talking about, and the resulting discernment.

The mundanization of sense of guilt, the embarrassment towards Judah of Keriot

And it is precisely when it comes to discernment that we need to take into account every genuine approach that “psychological science” can provide. We remember he instruction already mentioned:

“Different, however, would be the case in which one were dealing with homosexual tendencies that were only the expression of a transitory problem - for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded. Nevertheless, such tendencies must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate.” (26)

Yet, despite the public proclamations of “recovery”, in front of the events of homosexual ephebophilia, which call for a psychological crackdown on candidates, I repeat that a psychological approach is not only insufficient, but risks to remain at the surface.

Even if it's deep psychology.

Of course, Freudian approach, systemic psychology, transactional analysis and behavioural approach are welcome, but they are not enough.

I come back to propose the psychological categories of spiritual theology that I have provided on the three basic needs (need for identity, need to be loved and need to love), categories that deserve to be investigated and that go to the core of the problem by allowing Grace to reach the deepest depth of the human heart.

They are therefore fundamental for vocational discernment in the broader sense: not only for the priesthood: but also for family life.

Reducing the intrapsychic life to a “bundle of energy” in a deterministic or semi-deterministic way does not help to transform affective-sexual life with the renunciation, lucid and by gift, of genital life linked to the sexual affective dimension.

The categories and studies, some of which scientifically weighted, of modern psychology, are certainly important and significant and must be taken into account in order to know the liminal and subliminal needs, but the deep, the Heart, the biblical Leb (לב) should be better and better touched by the instruments of Grace.

It is precisely here that, personally, I identify the psychological categories of the three basic needs according to spiritual theology. This is where the three Needs gain a transformation of natura into supra natura. It is precisely here that Gratia supponit naturam et extendit eam.

This supra-natura is not a value mythized by superhumans, but the fullness of humanity thought, seen, tasted, nourished in the flesh of Christ.

We could say that the supra natura to which God calls us is already present in natura as a seed, only waiting to enter the Paschal Mystery in order to be able to sprinkle the nature itself and make it take the necessary leap in healing wounds and re-balance them in the daily miracle of habitus.

The instruments of self-knowledge, alongside the spiritual and liturgical heritage of the Church, open to deep healing and renewal of the faithful, especially if they are priests, especially if they are wounded. God works these wonders.

Too many times I have seen it with my own eyes!

The dimension of the prayer of the heart and of adoration is substantial, accompanied by self-knowledge and self-offering, which self-knowledge entails, together with the discernment of spirits.

Another decisive aspect not to be overlooked, in order to properly live the emotional dimension in the priesthood, is fraternal life savoured as an evangelical place of giving oneself, of growth, of limit, of warmth and belonging, as we have already outlined.

This is why the sense of guilt that we carry for the original wound, and at the same time singular and unique, in our person, is guided by the conscience of guilt, responsibly assumed:

“Atta ha ish, thou art that man” (27), yes my Lord, I am that man, “I have sinned against thee” (28), give me thy forgiveness, “raise up again the walls of Jerusalem!” (29)

Here comes continuous conversion as a motion, so powerful and discreet that it is truly a re-creation, because “what is impossible for men is possible for God”". (30)

And so the Manichean and mundane dimensions are brought down even towards the sinner. The relentless and forgiving attitude that the Christian community has toward those who betray.

The reaction to the story of Judah of Keriot is emblematic.

For sure, nothing to reproach had the Immolated Lamb, nor even the apostles, probably. However, the struggle to metabolize the betrayal to grasp a constant memento for everyone, in a way, persists.

We have previously spoken of “nets of sin” about the priest who falls into these crimes. The responsibility is not only, gravely and obviously, of the guilty, but also of the network which, silently, in a code of silence, does not put into effect the behaviours that the “burden” of God's grace and glory calls for. Not only in terms of making truth and doing justice, but in terms of establishing objective elements of healing. The community can communicate code of silence, but also healing, if it is honest and well-oriented in Mercy. Let us beware of seeking the scapegoat of sin structures. Too comfortable, too Manichean and too projective.

When the Church does this to her “convicted of sin and guilt” she fails her educational task and is “worldly”, that is to say she responds to the pagan instance to remove sin from herself and project it outside.

 
  This is a dramatic inconsistency.

Social and clericalized structures are condemned, but this is done by means of an attitude which is similar, even if it does not fall into the same blame. That is, speaking in behavioural terms, inappropriate patterns of responsibility in front of the evil are strengthened.

Precisely the opposite of King David, who, despite his threefold sin of lust, lies and murder, remains the man of God.

I remember clearly that, in front of the facts of child abuse that broke out a few decades ago, St John Paul II said: “I am ashamed!”, as if he himself had committed those crimes. It is obvious that he had not done them himself, neither in action nor in condescension and omission, but he took on it as a shepherd of a wounded humanity.

Indeed, there is a system that needs renewal and needs to recover its roots. In a field hospital, we suffer together. We do not bury the injured and the injuries; we treat them. All of them. With the honour we have been talking about since the beginning of our reflection.

If remains true the saying attributed to Hippocrates, which says: “Before healing a man ask him if he is willing to give up the things that made him sick”, it is even truer that, in a community of “sinners” who have experienced forgiveness in the joyful dimension of the return to the Father, is extremely motivating for the guilty to seek and find what can heal him and to break, decisively, with what kills him.

I remember an emblematic fact about a priest who, oppressed by guilt for his falls, had taken his own life. None of the confreres went to take that body, laden with bodily fluids, hanging from a lamp post; without any piety of their own and of other priests. Nobody went and drew him down, but a priest who was not his confrere, but acted in the stenght of priestly ontology, standing close to the priests in difficulty.

As long as we are unable to embrace the leper without accepting his plague, we are a long way from the honour that has been given to us through the imposition of hands in holy Ordination.

Evidently, we have not yet understood that “the delivery to satan” (31) of a member of the body must not extinguish Charity towards him but must keep Charity alive under the aspect of the medical remedy. Here, too, there can be “the smell of sheep” on these “poor” and “little” who have fallen into disgrace and despair, not least because of their wretched and ill will, and their criminal and sinful behaviour.

The beauty of celibacy

A few years ago, together with lay people and priests, as an Association, we published a very brief note on the beauty of celibacy as a gift. (32)

The foundations are Christological as Paul VI's encyclical Sacerdotalis Cælibatus recalls:

Christ, the only Son of the Father, by the power of the Incarnation itself was made Mediator between heaven and earth, between the Father and the human race.  Wholly in accord with this mission, Christ remained throughout His whole life in the state of celibacy, which signified His total dedication to the service of God and men.  This deep concern between celibacy and the priesthood of Christ is reflected in those whose fortune it is to share in the dignity and mission of the Mediator and eternal Priest; this sharing will be more perfect the freer the sacred minister is from the bonds of flesh and blood. (33)

We repeat the above mentioned by the Presbyterorum Ordinis of the CVII:

This holy synod asks not only priests but all the faithful that they might receive this precious gift of priestly celibacy in their hearts and ask of God that he will always bestow this gift upon his Church.” (3)

So let us repeat what has already been said and that despite some traditions of “married first and then ordained”, typical of the Eastern Church (and not “married priests” as commentators, priests and “christian” magazines are used to say erroneously), continence for the Kingdom and the celibacy are fundamental to living the priesthood to the fullness.

The Church, who cares for herself, should be able to cultivate these two polarities with great care: that of family life and that of virgin life, in the various possibilities that it offers, including celibate for priests.

Both polarities retain a foretaste of the future condition that awaits us, both conditions are a symbol of it, and both support and feed each other, towards Eternity.

Don't forget that, as the CCC says at No. 1534

“Order and Marriage are ordained to the salvation of others. If they also contribute to personal salvation, this happens through the service to others. They confer a particular mission in the Church and serve to the edification of the people of God.”

 
Celibacy, with the resulting continence, is also a very delicate gift that deserves to be preserved with great subjective care and with some objective measures that protect it from the inevitable fragilities and solitudes of the Priestly Ministry.

Subjectively, life of prayer, adoration, a giving heart and full of charity are indispensable orchestration.

Objectively, fraternal life, spiritual direction, healthy relationships in the community, are a decisive help. The authentic value of the friendship experienced by some holy priests also bears witness to this.

The indications of the new CJC regarding, for example, “Parroci in solidum” are, for sure, an important way of supporting celibacy.

The Code of Canon Law says:

Can. 517 - §1. When circumstances require it, the pastoral care of a parish or of different parishes together can be entrusted to several priests in solidum, with the requirement, however, that in exercising pastoral care one of them must be the moderator, namely, the one who is to direct the joint action and to answer for it to the bishop.

A nourished fraternal life is indispensable to enhance and make stable and fruitful the gift of Celibacy and Virginity.
Another point to clear up in order to support the importance and beauty of celibacy, a gift for the whole Church, is that already with the Epistles to Timothy and Titus the Church came to exclusively favour a form of priestly continence, namely celibacy, which was already present and recommended by the Apostles, within the general discipline laid down by them; it is not, therefore, “a creation” of the Council of Trent, which council, it is good to reiterate this, has been not a “counter-reform” but a reform in the etymological sense of the term, that is, one clarification and a return to the origins of the “semper reformanda”, well before the Vatican II.

Ecclesial reform is not an adaptation to the worldly, on the contrary, it is a permanent healthy return to the origins and content of the origins, in the development, according to the Holy Spirit, of the same origins.

As recalls the Vatican Council:

"...every renewal of the Church consists essentially in a greater fidelity to her vocation, it is undoubtedly the reason for the movement toward unity.

“The pilgrim Church is called by Christ to this continuous reform (perennis reformatio) which, as a human and earthly institution, it always needs" (34)

This to reaffirm that self-reform, that is, renewal in the Holy Spirit, is constitutive in the Church. This is far beyond her ecumenical tension. This movement of reform/renewal is constitutive so that the Church may be herself. Also with regard to the subject we are dealing with.
Celibacy, therefore, is not a static or outdated subject, but a living subject, to be vivified, for the good of the Church and the priesthood. It is certainly the task of the legitimate pastors to coordinate them, to confirm and to reaffirm them, but it is the task of all of us to value and love celibacy as a gift for the ecclesial community.

The community is therefore called to a responsible maturity of belonging, both toward the gift of the Family and toward the gift of Virginity and also of the Priestly Celibacy.

The active contemplation of the Holy Family and the Virginity of Christ are therefore emblematic and paradigmatic. For a healthy reform and a continuous renewal in the Holy Spirit as the joining of the original seed with the eschatological completion (35).

We speak of contemplation because they are two precious and inescapable gems that illuminate and sustain the presence in the world of the Church and project it into Eternity. They are two solid seeds planted and renewed by Christ, in a particular and complementary way. And it is precisely of the Holy Spirit, if invoked, sought, cultivated, to renew the best of what is present in the Church. Despite us.

You don't choose virginity, celibacy, to enter the Kingdom, to save yourself. And the same we could say about the Marriage. The Vocation is welcomed because the Kingdom has entered you, has lived in you and has enabled you with a Word. It's in you with that Word deployed in your history. He chose you and you feel the need to remain free of all ties to answer this call, or, in marriage, you feel that your freedom for the Kingdom is the bond with your spouse in the fertility proper of the marriage.

These two polarities express well the beauty of re-creation in Christ. As God rejoices in what he has done, the “very good” of creation in Genesis, and, in particular, in the creation of man and woman, as a family that mirrors the Trinitarian family, so God rejoices in seeing the beauty fulfilled in virginity and celibacy, both religious and priestly as an image of donation directed towards eternity and rendered vivid in the person of Christ the Priest, Bridegroom, Virgin and Celibate.

Respect for “mediocre” priests

I like to recall a statement that I witnessed while doing nursing care to the psychologist F. Agostino Lundin, about 30 years ago. Father Agostino was a Swedish psychiatrist converted first to Catholicism and later became a Franciscan. Founder of the Nordic Ecumenical Center, and then forced by a serious illness to be confined to bed, he had entered into a unique spiritual condition. He told me that he had become Catholic, and then Franciscan, not so much looking at the many exemplary friars present in the Province of Umbra, but rather participating in the morning Lauds in San Damiano, where there was a friar, not young, who often fell asleep in the choir.

This beautiful, fragile humanity had moved the Swedish psychologist, who did not hesitate to convert to Catholicism and then become a Franciscan and continue, as he could (given the illness in the lower limbs, obesity, and subsequent complications), the relentless work of the Nordic Ecumenical Center.

To him we owe the confessio of Frere Roger Schultz, founder of the Taizé Community, in the 1960s:

Roger Schutz came to Assisi in the 1960s and visited Father Agostino Lundin, a Swedish psychiatrist who became a Catholic and Franciscan, who then headed the Centre. To Father Augustine's question: «I have converted to Catholicism: will you of Taizé do it too?», Roger Schütz replied smiling: "We went to Pope John XXIII expressing our doubts and uncertainties, but he strongly recommended that we remain Protestant and never make any conversion, because we and he are already one soul. We confide this to you, but for the moment it would be not appropriate to disclose it' (36)

Anyway, I recall this episode of the conversion of Father Augustine to stress that not only the virtues lived in a heroic way and ordinarily by so many holy priests who do not like the spotlight and nourish the Kingdom but also so many of their beautiful and very human fragilities that make the grace they have received more vibrant for the common good of the people of God.

A river of good that is infinitely larger and more torrential than the deformations and scandalous atrocities of the very few, which, however, we take charge with all the love we can.

Take charge

How important is the “virtuous network” of prayer, fasting and mortification in support of the “grace of state”, both matrimonial and priestly.

The same way it is sometimes present a “sinful net” that legitimizes with its silence, secrecy, and omission of fraternal correction, so it’s important the “virtuous net of good” that “excites” and vivifies the “grace of vocational state” in a way that is sometimes unimaginable and that awakens sleeping and dead bodies making the blood of Grace - that all sprinkles - flow into the stiff limbs and unties the Grace of State and the received Vocational Grace. The energy invested in this network of good and grace can never be too much.

Charity heals and accomplishes the gift received

In attentive, dynamic and truthful Charity the heavens are opened up, that is, the “grace received”, the “priestly sphraghis”, the grace of state, not only sprinkles those who are close to the priest but heals and transforms the priest's heart, breaking every vanity, illuminating every dark area of the heart, by christifying the priest's heart.

The Word enlightens us:

"In all truth, I say to you: you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending over the Son of man" (Jn. 1,51)

"We are well aware that we have passed over from death to life, because we love our brothers. Whoever does not love, remains in death. Anyone who hates their brother is a murderer, and you are well aware that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.

This is the proof of love, that he laid down his life for us; and we too ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone is well-off in wordly possessions and sees his brother in need, but his heart to him, how can the love of God be remaining in him? Children, our love must be not just words or mere talk, but something active and genuine." (1Jn. 3,14-18)

“...and we too ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” the term “ought to” is translated from the greek ὀφείλομεν, which means, precisely, that we can and must, for inner debt and out for respect for our deep nature.

Here is fulfilled the third need, the Need to Love, giving our life for brothers.

This is not an external duty, a command not already in your heart, abiding in you. To you, who wait to be “untied” and revived in your sore heart.

If you fulfil this inner drive, this possibility, this duty in the Holy Spirit, you will be able to see heaven open.

Therefore, it is in living and real Charity, similar to that of Christ, that you perform and live every liturgical act and enter "into the work of God".

To take care of the Sacred Liturgy, as the second Vatican Council recalls, is to take care of Love, and to take care of Love is to have understood the Sacred Liturgy and to enter with full hands "into the open Heavens" in the Work of God.

I am not here to list the ordinary opportunities of authentic charity and forgiveness that can cure the priest, in his three basic needs that we have mentioned, and which are part of his ministry, but also the non-ordinary opportunities that can be experienced by staying with old, sick and disabled people.

What a gift from Divine Providence, when this happens! Here in the capitulation of “pastoral efficiency” the very concrete mysticism of the “open heaven” is fulfilled. Here the priest can find – like any faithful – a river of healing and authentic salvation, especially in the order of affective life.

In the beginning, it was Joy

It is precisely the liturgy of today, Epiphany of the Lord, the day on which I present this reflection, that illuminates the profound motivations of the vocation, of every vocation and, in our case, of the foundations of the priestly vocation. The Gospel of today reads:

"When they saw the star, they felt a great joy." (Mt. 2,10. With great dryness in the liturgy,

and our immense superficiality, the most joyful passage of the whole Holy Scripture, which in Greek sounds like a firework feast, tends to slip away:

ἐχάρησαν χαρὰν μεγάλην σφόδρα

Joyful in overly great joy

Greek borrows, so to speak, the semitic rhetoric structure to indicate an absolute superlative made even more complete in Genesis with “very good”,

Tov Meod (מאֹוד טֹוב), said at the completion of Creation. Not only “beautiful” and “very good,” but “more than beautiful”: the "perfectly accomplished."

Here the literal artifice does not describe the "mood" of God the Creator, but the bursting bliss in the creature, a pagan creature, in the encounter with the King of the Kings, the "Child", the "smallest in the Kingdom of Heaven",

the Life, the Truth, the Light, the Way, the unrestrainable and unutterable source of Joy. It's a prelude to Heaven.

This joy creates discernment in order to cease evil and not to take the tortuous paths, the disordered "places" of Herod.

The Joy of seeing the "Child" creates the ecstatic motion of conversion.

The close bond between Grace and Joy explains the third Stichwort

  Gratia supponit gratiam et profectum in ea

It is thanks to Joy that Grace is given and grows with profit and continued transcendence.

Joy is the driving force behind the call to the “undivided heart” and also the deep and healthy overcoming of every crisis that touches the roots of the heart, as they come to the surface and need to be illuminated, warmed, healed, rebuilt, divinized and therefore humanized.

Not a “coarse” joy, not a begging “cracked cisterns” (37), but the centering of Joy in contemplating the Child who has been given to us and in unbinding the ancient and deep chains that we have in the crying that all washes and that really makes us grateful and adoring.

It is a sober Joy, but no less powerful and radical than a real death, for only those who die can see God (38) and only the dying of joy in the Child make us humble and true, capable of Love and structured in Vocational Grace and in human fullness, by fulfilling the three fundamental needs of which we have spoken.

Irregular situations: a hope for them too, from the maternal and paternal heart of the Church

Thanks to the sensitivity of the holy Popes of the previous and present century, the Church increasingly sees that there must be a space for everyone in the people of God in perpetual conversion and in perpetual donation.

A space for all which is not a concession of benevolence and tolerance of objective situations of sin or situations that lead to binary and dissolute lives, but which, through presence in the community and service, pushes for continuous conversion of each member and the whole body.

Even the irregular situations, that is, those reduced to the secular state and all the more those that have received the “priestly dispensation” (which, let us remember, is a grace granted by the Holy Father to the individual priest), should find in the community a space of humble and curative service, in order to seek conversion together with the faithful who live more “regular” situations and priests, parish priests, who have not incurred in (terribly) wounded situations.

The situations are manifold and unique. They should be dealt with individually, using the scruple of genuine discernment.

But, if towards the situations of the declaration of matrimonial nullity, a strict process takes place – except in some ecclesial movements in which in the years it has sometimes been a little sloppy – precisely thanks to the contribution of St John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and now Pope Francis, with regard to priestly formation and the causes of dispensation there is a strong and legitimate rigor.

Some situations of Priestly Dispensation, however, are the only means available to the Church for certain cases, since it cannot be adequately demonstrated that ordinations are null and void in essence. This is because of the candidate’s objective, strong and dissonant immaturity, revealed in the course of time. Both for some untreatable homo-affective situations, and for the objective boost to marriage present in some. With regard to this last case, it is indeed difficult to think, even if it cannot be ruled out in the absolute sense, that there may be candidates who really have a vocation to the priesthood and at the same time clearly have a vocation to marriage.

God is ordinarily simple and does not complicate people's lives so dramatically and therefore, even in the ordinary and necessary virility, provides a call to celibacy.

If, under acute discernment, this would not be the case, they would find themselves divided between two co-existing calls. On this point, the grace of God will help the candidate, with severe ecclesial discernment, to choose the path that is least dramatic and that constitutes an acceptable balance. Hoping that this will happen before priestly ordination...

However, on these situations of apparent, rare and sometimes unique, vocational co-existence we should practice a suspension of judgment and pray a lot. Here is still true the logic of the “brachio extento”, where the “outstretched lying” re-evoked in the period preceding the Holy Christmas, plunges into the mystery of Easter.

Your outstretched arm, oh Lord, in certain humanly impossible situations, announces the arm extended on the Cross, where all Your Omnipotence and Your Wisdom are expressed:

“Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (39)

However, for each situation, especially those relating to priestly dispensation, the Church should be able to give a careful contribution in the Holy Spirit that does not impoverish the unique and inseparable bond between celibacy and priesthood but, taking into account the pastoral exceptions, can wisely emphasize its perennial beauty. Especially in our times of subjectivism, conditioned as they are by “I feel”, “I like”, etc.

The Church should be able to give each person an answer of genuine mercy that does not evade the medicinal and conversion aspects, but that recalls that there are many ways of service and that, at the same time, exceptions do not invalidate the principle but confirm and strengthen it.

Finally, if the exceptions are weighed and careful, they help us to enter into the common movement of conversion that all the faithful of the people of God need. No one excluded.

Proposals to the dioceses

I sincerely hope that this reflection will be perceived in the appropriate seats by February 2019 in order to bring the benefit of the “renewal and development” into the Holy Spirit as it will seem appropriate to our pastors.

I would like to complete this extensive reflection with some suggestions for the Dioceses:

1  - Discernment by psychological means and the three categories of spiritual psychology that I have provided for the good of the candidate.

The first Kingdom of God is the candidate.

We must place side by side the scientific competence of the “deep”, the competence of spiritual theology, with the three needs I mentioned. Let us recall the Pastores Dabo Vobis exhortation at nº 72

"In this bond between the Lord Jesus and the priest, an ontological and psychological bond, a sacramental and moral bond, is the foundation and likewise the power for that "life according to the Spirit" and that "radicalism of the Gospel" to which every priest is called today and which is fostered by ongoing formation in its spiritual aspect. " (41)

2  - I invite the seminars that are responsible for formation to the priesthood to cultivate, with harmony, the orchestrated triad of Metaphysics, Anthropological deepening and spiritual Theology.

Even if Metaphysics is of particular concern to me, thinking about it in an abstract, nominal way, disconnected from the question of anthropology and spiritual theology (which I mention here and in reflections brought in note) would fall into a kind of abstraction of thought, of no use for anybody, especially at this juncture.

We risk not being understood and, worse still, falling back into the lack of Charity which makes of us a deaf tintinnabulum, and not joyful and vivifying one.

There is a strong need, for so many reasons and for so many fears (sometimes ghosts), in our wounded humanity, for a "center of gravity" that was somehow present in the "fullness of time" and has now become a little clouded.

The history followed precise providential coordinates: the reflection of thought on the foundations and principles, also of "pagan" and "pre-Christian" nature, was accomplished/enlightened by the Incarnation and then by the Redemption; the Kerygma, in Spirit and Power, has had effects precisely in illuminating the deepest of human:

“In Your Light we see the light” (42)

Today, therefore, there is a need for a renewed harmony between these three aspects listed for the formation of seminars and for the inescapable and subsequent continuing formation.

3  - The fraternal life of the seminary and of the clerics should be able to continue in the permanent formation of the priest and the religious as a place of permanent conversion and enjoyment of the extraordinary things that God accomplishes in the life of each person. The sense of belonging, nourished and guarded, not only prevents “loneliness” but helps to live to the full the “loneliness” that is inevitably linked to the priest’s ontology. That is where healing passes; especially in situations involving wounds and heart diseases, which are sometimes transient and necessary.

4  - Popular missions between Dioceses. This extraordinary and simple instrument of evangelization, usually carried out by religious, but also by some diocesan seminarians, can be lived with more dispossession by involving a large part of the diocesan clergy and also the Bishop of a Diocese himself. Temporarily impoverish the priestly presence in a Diocese (for a dozen of days) and to ensure that it, even by men of laity and religious, proclaim the Gospel sine glossa, in Spirit and with Power, in another part of Italy, is joyful and therapeutic.

Both for those who evangelize and for those who receive the announcement.

But also for the whole Diocese which, in that period of “scarcity” of ad-intra services, with the prayer made by the laity and the religious communities remaining in the Diocese, supports those who are simply and joyfully proclaiming the Gospel, his Bishop, part of the Clergy, part of the religious and part of the laity.

The missions to the people also made by the bishops on other dioceses, home staying with families, with modest hospitality and daily inconveniences, in that handful of days of simple capillary announcement, are a moment of great grace not to be undervalued.

The prior organization, made by a dedicated committee, can only be done on the basis of daily adoration.

I believe that this instrument of evangelization, at the pastoral level and at the anthropological level, is a valuable way to go. Because, as St John Paul II recalled, "faith is strengthened by giving it", especially when it is given “naked and undressed”, separating us from daily service.

5  - Fruitful contacts between Vocations. Propose fraternal seminars of encounter between priests and families as equal fruition of the respective gifts received. By allowing not only the expression of the Munus Docendi of priests toward families - legitimate and due - but also the witness, the enjoyment of the goods granted by conjugacy and in the family toward the priests. Moments of mutual formation and fruitful celebration in the Lord.

6  - Prepare priests for Charity. It is essential to propose, in the pre-ordination training period and in the ongoing formation, moments of humble service to the elderly, the sick and the disabled. The constant contact with these brothers and sisters allows the heart of those in formation and in the call to celibacy to enter with full hands into the non-returnable donation, typical of the “undivided heart” and the “chastity” imprinted with the sacrament of Baptism. It lowers the mountains of clerical pride and raises the humble, human and superhuman areas present, by gift, in our hearts.

Bibliographic notes

1. Franciscan sources, 220

2. Franciscan sources, 132

3. Presbyterorum Ordinis, 16

  4.  “Udienza ai Vescovi partecipanti al Corso promosso dalla Congregazione per i Vescovi”, 13 settembre 2018

5.  “Letter to the people of God”, 20 August 2018

6.  1st Week of the Psalter, Thursday, Morning Lauds

7.  F. Nietzsche, Beyond good and evil

  8.  “L’amore di sé e i tre #bisogni fondamentali”, La Croce Quotidiano e ilcattolico.it, 8 settembre 2016

9.  “Se non fossi tuo mio Cristo, mi sentirei creatura finita”, su ilcattolico.it, 9 marzo 2015

 10.  “Serie di riflessioni sui Bisogni fondamentali e la Filautia”, “Fuit mira mutatione commotus”, “Tu sei il Fariseo”, on ilcattolico.it 

11. Is. 43,19

12. 1Cor.10,12

  13.  Chiesa in Germania: presentato lo studio sugli abusi, Radio Vaticana, 25 settembre 2018

  14.  Details of the studies (3rd October) of the Swiss Church, relaunched by Bishop Marian Eleganti“Sexueller Mißbrauch in der Kirche: Täter sind vorwiegend homosexuell”

15.  Mark 10,43

16.  “Omosessualità e Bibbia” and “Chiesa e omosessualità. Fare chiarezza nella carità”, on the website ilcattolico.it

17. Psalm 36,2-3
18. Gen. 2,18

  19.  “Instruction of the Congregation for Catholic Education on the criteria of vocational discernment with regard to persons with homosexual tendencies with a view to their admission to the Seminary and Sacred Orders”, 4 November 2005.

 20.  “È per il demone della tristezza che ci sbraniamo”, La Croce Quotidiano and ilcattolico.it, 22 luglio 2017

21. Rm. 1,24-32 

22. At 2,37

23. Imitation of Christ, I 24. 1 Sam 26,12

25. CCC 2358

26. “Istruzione della Congregazione per l'Educazione Cattolica circa i criteri di discernimento vocazionale riguardo alle persone con tendenze omosessuali in vista della loro ammissione al Seminario e agli Ordini sacri”, 4 novembre 2005, cap II

27. 2 Sam 12,7

28. 2 Sam 12,13

29. Psalm 51,20 30. Luke 1,26-38 31. 1Tim. 1,20

  32.  Celibacy is a gift to the Church and to those who welcome it, on ilcattolico.it, https://www.ilcattolico.it/catechesi/chiesa/il-celibato-e-un-dono-per-la-chiesa-e-per-chi-lo- accoglie.html

33.  Paul VI, Sacerdotalis Coelibatus, n.

34.  Vatican Council II, Decree on Ecumenism, Chap. 2: 6: 6.

  35.  “Ecclesia est, qualis nunc est; ubi autem illud solum erit, Ecclesia est, qualis tunc erit, quando malus in ea non erit. - It is the Church as it now is, but where only the one shall exist, it is the Church as it is destined to be when no wicked person shall be in her.” (S. Augustin, De Civitate Dei, book XX, cap 9,74)

  36.  G. Mario Trippolini, co-founder of The Nordisk Ecumenisk Centrum in Assisi 37. Ger. 2,13

38. "But you will not see my face, for no man can see me and stay alive", Es. 33,20 

39. 1Cor. 1,25

40.  “Il dono di Scienza”, ilcattolico.it, sez. catechesi, cat. Ruah

41.  Pastores Dabo Vobis, 72

  42.  Psalm 36,10 43. At, 15,28 44. Lk.5,4

See also these sources

https://www.ilcattolico.it/catechesi/documenti-catechesi/sacerdotalis-caelibatus.html

https://www.ilcattolico.it/catechesi/chiesa/il-celibato-ecclesiastico-nella-dottrina-e-nella- storia-della-chiesa.html

https://www.ilcattolico.it/rassegna-stampa-cattolica/formazione-e-catechesi/celibato-dei- preti-ecco-le-ragioni-del-si.html

PASTORES DABO VOBIS

Giovanni Paolo II e la "Pastores dabo vobis"

LETTERA CIRCOLARE per aiutare le Conferenze Episcopali nel preparare Linee guida per il trattamento dei casi di abuso sessuale nei confronti di minori da parte di chierici

Il vero significato della legge sul celibato sacerdotale

https://www.ilcattolico.it/rassegna-stampa-cattolica/formazione-e-catechesi/documento-su- psicologia-e-formazione-dei-presbiteri.html

Discorsi ai Pastori di S. Agostino Vescovo e dottore della Chiesa (discorsi n° 46 e 47) https://www.augustinus.it/italiano/discorsi/discorso_057_testo.htm

https://www.augustinus.it/italiano/discorsi/discorso_058_testo.htm

Lettera del Santo Padre Francesco ai Vescovi statunitensi che partecipano agli Esercizi Spirituali presso il Seminario di Mundelein a Chicago

https://www.ilcattolico.it/recensioni/spiritualita-e-meditativa/il-sacrificio-altare.html

https://www.ilcattolico.it/recensioni/spiritualita-e-meditativa/generati-dallo-spirito.html