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Priestly Ordination

The theme of our conference, “What were we ordained for?”, was addressed 40 years ago by the Roman Catholic New Testament scholar Raymond Brown, in his booklet Priest and Bishop: Biblical Reflections.  Vatican II had led to very different understandings of what a priest should be, and the tasks the priest should be asked to perform. 

For some the whole goal of the priesthood was summed up in the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, “Do this in commemoration of me.”  Others spoke of the priest as “a man for others.”  Women’s ordination, needless to say, was not envisaged. 

Father Brown anticipated that some readers would be dismayed to discover that traditional ideas about the origin of priesthood were being questioned in the light of historical evidence, and this anticipation turned out to be well founded.  His suggestion that the claim that Jesus instituted the priesthood at the Last Supper would need to be modified led to protests on the part of Roman Catholic clergy that Father Brown had destroyed the basis for their priestly vocation. 

What bearing might his booklet have for us as Anglicans?  The Preface to our ordinal begins with the statement:

“It is evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church: Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.”

If our Roman Catholics colleagues in ministry must admit  that there is no historical evidence that their priesthood was  established at the Last Supper, we Anglicans may have to accept that there is no historical evidence for the apostolic origin of the three-fold ministry. 

None of this should come as a surprise.  If the sacrificing priesthood or the three-fold ministry were clearly attested in the New Testament, we would expect all Christian churches to acknowledge this, and, of course, they don’t. 

However, this does explain the strong attraction felt by many Anglicans since the Oxford Movement to a church which affirms these doctrines simply on its own authority.  When John Henry Newman was beatitified recently in England, the Pope will surely have hoped to encourage present–day Anglicans to imitate Newman’s example via the fast track to Rome which he had offered them, without even first notifying the Archbishop of Canterbury! 

So if there is no solid evidence of the institution of our priesthood in the New Testament, and if we are not going to convert to Rome, what basis do we have?  Father Brown’s booklet suggests to me that something so deeply personal as our priestly vocation cannot depend on probabilities arrived at by academic research. 

For some of us, I think, priesthood is simply in our DNA.  My paternal grandfather and my great uncle were both priests in the Episcopal Church, and my mother had a cousin who was a Jesuit priest, John LaFarge.  I personally have never considered being anything other than a priest. 

But priests exercise a variety of ministries, and not all these ministries require the laying on of hands.  When I was a Jesuit novice, I was attracted to the intellectual apostolate, which the Jesuit General had commended in a letter written in 1952, the year I entered the order.  When Father Brown mentioned to a rabbi that the question was being raised whether teaching was a proper full-time task for a priest, the rabbi exclaimed, “Have you Christians lost to such an extent your roots in Judaism?  Have you forgotten that a person who teaches is performing one of the most sacred of all functions, one that brings him close to God?”  The prophet Malachi writes: “Teaching is to be sought from the mouth of the priest” (2:7-8). 

I was engaged in seminary and university teaching for 30 years, from 1969 to 1998.  But then, contrary to all expectations, my retirement from the university was followed by my rehirement as Priest in Charge of the parish church where I live.  My 13 years at the Church of the Good Shepherd have been the happiest period in my priestly ministry, and I have thought more than once of Jean Vanier, who was also on the Faculty of St. Michael’s College but found fulfillment in his work with the l’Arche community. 

I have moved from the intellectual apostolate to parish ministry; Tim Elliott moved from parish ministry to jazz and vocational counseling.  One of the great advantages of Anglicanism, in my view, is that we can reinvent ourselves professionally as well as theologically without having to leave the denomination.  John Henry Newman did leave the Church of England, but he too reinvented himself, from the savage controversialist of Oriel College and St. Mary’s University Church to the gentle sage of the Birmingham Oratory. 

October 3, 2010

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