In a Church and a world divided and fractured, priests are called to be witnesses of God’s love and forgiveness, which reconciles people and makes them one community, Pope Leo XIV has told new priests. Source: CNS.
Leading Christian communities not as “lords” but as stewards, “we will rebuild the credibility of a wounded Church sent to a wounded humanity within a wounded creation,” he told the 11 men he was about to ordain to the priesthood on Saturday.
“It is not important to be perfect, but it is necessary to be credible,” the Pope said in his homily at the Mass in St Peter’s Basilica.
The 11 men had been scheduled to be ordained on May 10 by Pope Francis, but the ordination was delayed when the Pope died on April 21.
Seven of the new priests studied at the Rome diocesan seminary while four attended the Rome Redemptoris Mater Seminary, which is run by the diocese and the Neocatechumenal Way.
Pope Leo told the men, who ranged in age from their late 20s to early 40s, “You bear witness to the fact that God has not grown weary of gathering his children, however diverse, and of constituting them into a dynamic unity.”
The ministry of a priest, like that of the Pope and the bishops, is to gather all people in the Church, the Pope told them. “Make room for the faithful and for every creature to whom the Risen One is close and in whom he loves to visit us and amaze us.”
“The people of God are more numerous than we see,” he said. “Let us not define its boundaries.”
God will place many people in their paths, Pope Leo told the new priests. “To them consecrate yourselves, without separating yourselves from them, without isolating yourselves, without making the gift you have received some kind of privilege.”
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Pope asks priests to be signs of reconciliation in the Church and world (By Cindy Wooden, CNS)
