Don't feel superior, Pope warns priests and religious in Ecuador

July 08, 2015

Priests and religious should be grateful for their vocations, and never forget where they came from, Pope Francis said in an address at the Marian shrine of El Quinche in Ecuador. “Do not feel superior to the faith you received from your mother and father,” the Pope told priests. He insisted that priests should have a sense of service, rather than an attitude of entitlement.

Entry into priestly ministry or religious life should never be seen as a “promotion,” Pope Francis reminded his audience. He encouraged priests and religious to see their vocations as “a gift from Jesus: the most beautiful of our lives.”

"What you have received freely, give freely,” the Pope said. “It is so ugly when one begins to lose this sense of gratitude."

Pope Francis said that he himself “too often” forgets to be grateful for his ministry, and asked the faithful to pray for him. He repeated that the role of the priest is to serve rather than to be served. The same is true for bishops, he said. “The shepherds not only walks in front, but also in the middle and behind their flock,” he said.

The Pope had arrived at the meeting with priests and religious with a prepared address. But after flourishing the text, he set it aside to speak off the cuff, saying that “I don’t feel like reading.”

 

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Further information:

• Pope Francis: Priests, Religious should have gratitude (Vatican Radio)
• Pope Francis: Address to Clergy, Religious, and Seminarians (Vatican Radio)