A Priest Forever

by Carter Heyward

published by Harper & Row, 1976, pp. 141-143.
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions

Appendix (16)

Commenting upon The Canterbury Statement’s(17) assessment of the ordained priesthood, J. Robert Wright calls our attention to a piece of the backdrop of the Statement.(18) He notes that a Dominican scholar, commissioned by The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, suggests that there are at least five “sorts” of “priesthood” that must be considered in the formulation of any doctrine on the nature of the ordained priesthood. One is the Old Testament’s Levitical priesthood. The second is the priesthood of Christ, about which the book of Hebrews speaks most explicitly. The third is the priesthood of the Church (which I have called the priesthood of all believers). The fourth is the ordained ministry: a presbyterate-priesthood, comprised originally of “elders” appointed by the early Church for what seem to have been functional leadership roles. And the fifth is also the ordained priesthood, conceptualized as something of a “blending” of the second and the fourth sorts of priesthood: the priesthood of Christ and the priesthood of the presbyter/elder. Wright notes that the first three types of priesthood—Levitical, Christ’s priesthood, and the priesthood of the church—all derive their meaning from the same Greek work: hiereus, which in Hebrew translates kohen. The word means “priest” and in all three contexts implies a “holiness of life” and a sacrificial function, although in each of the three cases the sacrificial offering is of a different sort.

The fourth type of priesthood—that of ordained people—is different from the first three. The Canterbury Statement reads: “[Ordained priesthood] is not an extension of the common Christian priesthood but belongs to another realm of the gifts of the Spirit.” Wright suggests that this distinction is rooted in an early hermeneutic: Whereas the first three sorts of priesthood derive from the Greek and Hebrew words meaning “priest,” the fourth sort of priesthood derives from the Greek word presbyteros, meaning “elder.” The implication here is that the earliest leaders of the Christian community, commissioned by the “priesthood of the Church” for functional roles, were neither called nor considered “priests,” but rather were commissioned to hold offices within the Church as “elders,” presumably involved in “another realm of the gifts of the Spirit.”

Yet, by the time of the Church Fathers—writing in the first several centuries A.D.—both presbyteroi/elders and episcopoi/"overseers" had begun to take on connotations from the first three sorts of priesthood: added to their functional roles within the community were the qualities of “holiness” and “sacrifice.” It was from this linguistic, functional, and ontological merger that the fifth mode of priesthood apparently developed—that within which the presbyteros/hiereus, or elder/priest, is seen as not only functionally distinct from the priesthood of all believers, but also as sharing in some special way in the Great High Priesthood of Christ himself.

Thanks to the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission and to such careful inquirers as Professor Wright and Professor Raymond Brown,(19) we have some idea as to what an ordained priest is in the Catholic tradition: a holy person, certainly functionally distinct from the priesthood of the Church, called to be servant, sent forth as apostle, commissioned to manage the affairs of the household of faith (if bishop, to oversee), and authorized to preside at the Holy Eucharist; furthermore, seen historically—from the late second century—to share in some way in, or reflect, Christ’s priesthood, specifically in the Eucharistic sacrifice.

The distinction between priests and laypeople was unknown to the New Testament. In fact the concept of an ordained Christian priest was unknown to the New Testament. I do not believe, however, that ordination in itself, or priesthood in itself, stands as contradictory to the New Testament. What does stand as contradictory to the New Testament is the priestly caste that evolved, in no small part undoubtedly because Church Fathers were inclined to link function with ontology—specifically, to link the presbyteroi with the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ.

I suggest that the ordained ministry of the Catholic Church is a functional ministry, and that the ordained priest is set apart from laypeople in a functional way, much in the same way that a doctor, or a janitor, or a rabbi is set apart from people who have not been “called” to his or her particular profession. In speaking of function in this way, I speak also of sacrament. What may appear as contradiction is simply paradox. Ordination is, for me, a sacramental matter. The call, the education, the examination, the vows, the laying on of hands, the participation of community, the charge, together comprise a profoundly sacramental reality—outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace. It is by God’s extraordinary grace that something happens in an ordination: the reality of a person’s professional presence within the community as priest is “signed, sealed, delivered,” as it were—a functional matter; a holy matter. From that day on both the new priest (or deacon, or bishop) and her community of faith are, in some mysterious ways, changed.

I reject the concept of the priest’s unique and singular participation in Christ’s Great High Priesthood—whether it be representative, iconographic, or a matter of identification. The identification of the priest with Christ is a doctrine perpetuated in order to maintain Priesthood as a caste: arrogant and closed, both to new kinds of members and to new theology. Any church doctrine built, maintained and employed to facilitate exclusion and separation rather than inclusion and unity is a doctrine unworthy of the name Jesus Christ. Perhaps a time will come when women and men, clergy and laity, can agree that, sacramentally speaking, all people are symbolic, representative, even iconographic, of Christ in his priestly sacrifice and otherwise (much as the New Testament, especially the Fourth Gospel, suggests). To such a doctrine I would say Amen.

Notes

17. The “Canterbury Statement,” a paper on “ministry,” was produced in 1973 by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. Its significance will lie in its ecumenical effects. The Canterbury Statement makes no mention of women.

18. J. Robert Wright, “The Canterbury Statement: Background and New Dynamics,” Address given April 1, 1974, at Graymoor Conference on Anglican-Roman Catholic Relations.

19. Raymond Brown, S.S., explicates biblical foundations for functions of ordained priesthood and episcopate in Priest and Bishop: Biblical Reflections (New York: Paulist Press, 1970).

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