1. Chapter 13
Holy Orders

2. WHAT DOES HOLY ORDERS CELEBRATE?
 The Ministry of Jesus: Jesus as Priest
– The early Christian communities viewed
Jesus as the one and only high priest
– The image of Jesus as the one true high
priest offering himself in sacrifice on the
cross was linked to Christians’ celebration
of the eucharistic meal

3. WHAT DOES HOLY ORDERS CELEBRATE?
 The Ministry of Jesus: Jesus as Priest
– Celebrating the Eucharist was the central
expression of faith for Christians

4. WHAT DOES HOLY ORDERS CELEBRATE?
 The Ministry of Jesus:
Jesus as Prophet
– someone who unceasingly reminds people about
God and God’s ways
– God’s word was revealed not only in Jesus’
spoken words but in the flesh-and-blood reality of
his life
– Ordained ministers serve as living reminders of
Christ’s prophetic message

5. WHAT DOES HOLY ORDERS CELEBRATE?
 The Ministry of Jesus as Leader
– , Jesus’ disciples had a strong sense that he was
the Messiah, the Anointed One sent by God to
usher in God’s Reign
– But Jesus did not meet the expectations
they had of a messiah-king
– Jesus kind of leadership confounded them

6. WHAT DOES HOLY ORDERS CELEBRATE?
 The Ministry of Jesus as Leader
– Jesus did not terrorize or manipulate people in any way to
get them to follow him but instead he treated them with
compassion and respect, forgave their sins, healed their
wounds, and gave them nourishment for both body and soul

7. WHAT DOES HOLY ORDERS CELEBRATE?
The Ministry of Jesus:
Jesus as Leader Cont
– Jesus turned the disciples’ expectations of him as
a leader upside-down
– Jesus teaches his followers that loving service to
one another is to be the hallmark of Christian life
and leadership

8. The Church: A Priestly People
 New Testament tells us that every person
who has been baptized into the Body of
Christ is called to share in the ministry of
Jesus as a member of a holy and royal
priesthood
 Every Christian can minister in a priestly role,
a prophetic role, and a servant-leader role

9. Ordained Ministers:
Representing Christ
 Apostolic succession – a continuous link
between the authority given the Apostles by
Christ and the authority of validly ordained
bishops through the ages
 Priests and bishops represent Christ and act
in the name of Christ
 Catholic teaching ordain only men and that
the ordination of women is not possible
– Jesus chose men, not women, to be his Apostles

10. The Functions of the Ordained
 Bishops
– United with the pope as a sign of the oneness of the
universal church
– Have the fullness of the Holy Orders and are entrusted with
these key tasks:
 Leading worship and sacraments
 Teaching
 Pastoral governance
 Priests
– Priests are coworkers with the bishop, they share the
responsibility for worship, teaching, and governing
 Deacons
– Directly connected with a bishop, they serve by helping to
carry out tasks

11. Celibacy: The Gift of Self to God
 Catholic priests and bishops are celibate
– They do not marry and they pledge not to have intimate
sexual relationships
 A married man may be ordained to a
permanent deacon but a deacon who is
single may not marry
 The choice of celibacy is a way of giving
oneself entirely to the service of God and
God’s people

12. The Laying On of Hands
 The laying on of hands is one of the main
symbolic action in the sacrament of Holy
Orders
– Seen it in the sacraments of Confirmation, Reconciliation,
and Anointing of the Sick
 It symbolizes and brings about the
candidate’s empowerment by the Spirit
 Collegiality – bishops, priests, and deacons
are part of an order, with shared, interrelated
responsibilities, and they are to collaborate
with one another as brothers

13. The First Century:
Shared Leadership
 The Catholic church traces ordained ministry back to
the Apostles
 The current structure of ordained ministry took time
to evolve in the early church
 From the beginning, leadership in the Christian
churches was a shared ministry
 Early on, it became common to elect either a person
or a group to take the leadership role both in
coordinating the various service activities of local
communities and in presiding at the Eucharist

14. The Second to the Sixth Centuries:
Changes in Roles and Power
 Church leadership roles became more specialized
 The orders of bishops and presbyters (later called
“priests”) gained more prominence
 The power and authority of priests increased
 Bishops delegated more and more responsibility to
priests in order to keep up with the growing number
of church communities
 Priests and bishops acted as judges and counselors
in the Roman government

15. The Sixth Century to the Reformation:
The Class of the clergy
 The influence of monastic life had a great deal to do
with the distinction between bishops and priests
 Some early Christians felt drawn to living apart from
society in an isolated communities called
monasteries
– Through their solitude, they tried to experience Christ in a more
intimate way
 Priesthood began to mirror characteristics of
monastic life
– Priests dressed differently from other people and followed many
of the spiritual practices and prayers of monasticism

16. Reforms with the Council of Trent
 Luther and other reformers protested that
many priests were not well trained and were
careless in their duties and that bishops often
abused their religious authority to gain
political influence
 Responding indirectly to these criticisms, the
Catholic church’s Council of Trent set out to
establish a more better educated clergy than
the existed one during the Middle Ages

17. Since Vatican Council II
 The Second Vatican Council sought to get back to some of the
root traditions of the early church
– Changes in emphasis in the church’s understanding of ordained ministry
– Service was stressed more than power and authority
– Mutual decision making was now called for
 Bishops, priests, and deacons were encouraged to work along
with laypeople in helping to provide for the spiritual need of the
community
 Emphasis in the ordained ministry
– Catholics distributing Communion
– Reading the Scriptures
– Serving as ordained deacons
 Emphasis in the lay ministry
– Many of the functions that’s used to be done by priests are now being
done by laypeople
 Does the changes obscure the distinct and essential role of ordained
ministers?
 No, because by the sacrament of Holy Orders, they are empowered
to teach, to preside at the sacraments, and to govern in the name of