Priesthood is a vocation, not a career, Pope says at ordinations in Rome
June 21, 2010
As he ordained 14 new priests for the Rome diocese, in a June 20 ceremony at the Vatican basilica, Pope Benedict XVI issued a stern warning that the priesthood is not a career.
“Anyone who aspires to the priesthood in order to increase his personal prestige and power has radically misunderstood the significance of this ministry,” the Pope said. Anyone whose main goal is to realize an ambition of his own, to achieve success, will always be a slave to himself and to public opinion.”
To be effective, the Pope explained, a priest must have “an intimate relationship with the Lord,” so that the Lord can use him as an instrument. Priests who become “immersed” in the will of God, he said, “increasingly enter into the truth of our being and our ministry.”
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