The role of the priest.

Several years ago I wrote a rave review of a book on Thomas Aquinas by Fr. Robert Barron (Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master). I said it was the best book I had read on Aquinas. My initially favorable impression of his writing, therefore, did not prepare me for the disappointment I experienced when I read his article on celibacy ("Why Celibacy Makes Sense," August 12).

Vatican II's decree on priests happily moves away from the almost exclusive focus on the priest as a cultic figure. Priests, it says, "have as their primary duty the proclamation of the gospel of God to all." Barron, in his defense of mandatory celibacy, comes perilously close to the cultic vision when he describes the priest as someone whose very identity comes from his celebration of the Eucharist. He writes: "All that a priest is radiates from his unique capacity, acting in the person of Christ, to transform the eucharistic elements into the body and blood of Jesus." I am unhappy with his description of priestly identity. I was ordained sixty-two years ago and it has long been my belief that all that I am radiates from my baptism. Baptism gave the disciples of Jesus their identity. There is no greater, no different identity for any of us.

I am also puzzled by what Barron describes as the "unique capacity" of the priest "to transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus." And all these years I have been asking the Holy Spirit to do that! Have I misunderstood the words of the Eucharistic Prayer: "Lord, let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ"?

Celibacy, Barron tells us, "is a form of life adopted by people in love with Jesus Christ." The exclusivity implied by these words is disturbing. Isn't married love likewise a form of life adopted by people in love with Jesus Christ? Isn't there a transcendent dimension to all true human love? Barron concedes that the only argument he can offer for compulsory celibacy is "from fittingness," not from necessity. In the present situation--in which the scarcity of priests and the equal scarcity of candidates for the celibate priesthood endanger the right of God's people to participate in the Eucharist--an argument from fittingness must yield to the necessity of new and more creative ways of viewing priesthood.

(MSGR.) WILLIAM H. SHANNON

Rochester, N.Y.