Do We Really Need the Priest?

Imagine reading this headline one morning over coffee and a bowl of cereal: “Global Priesticide: 370,425 Catholic shepherds wiped out in a single day.” What difference would it make?

One less obstacle on Sunday morning for Nickelodeon fans, for one thing. Some will say, “The priest adds a nice touch but isn’t absolutely necessary for our spiritual lives. After all, God’s grace is far-reaching.”

St. John Vianney couldn’t disagree more: “If we didn’t have the sacrament of holy orders, we wouldn’t have our Lord.” This isn’t French poetry. Without the priest, who would deliver God’s mercy to us here and now?

We could kneel down in the confessional, but we could not meet Jesus there. We could remember a distant Holy Thursday and drink wine, but the Blood that saves us would be locked up in the past, out of reach. We might gather around the altar and sing glorious hymns, but with no one invested with the sacred power to call Jesus down into the host, our souls would starve.

That’s why the holy Curé from Ars could say in truth, “After God, the priest is everything!”


By Andrew Dalton