wished to do so, abolish them entirely. The local Church or diocese, however, is something which human ecclesiastical law did not introduce into the Church, and is, consequently, something which human ecclesiastical law can never destroy. In other words, the Church is essentially a kind of thing in which the fully formed individual local congregations are presided over by men who are really successors of the Apostles.

We come now to the central and essential theological truth about the status of the diocesan priest within the Catholic Church. According to the divine constitution of the Church militant of the New Testament, the bishop, the successor of the Apostles, is meant to be assisted in the government of his local Church by a brotherhood of men in sacerdotal orders, a college or fellowship of men, each one of whom is endowed with the sacramental character empowering him to celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The bishop himself is the only head and leader of this priestly fraternity.

In the traditional terminology of the Catholic Church, this sacerdotal brotherhood is known as the peoßvтépiov or the presbyterium. The diocesan priest is a member of the presbyterium of his own local Church. The diocesan priests of any diocese, under the paternal leadership of the bishop of that diocese, constitute the presbyterium of this local Church. The theology of the diocesan priesthood is nothing more or less than the study of that section of revealed teaching which deals with the presbyterium and its function in the household of the Faith.

We cannot insist too strongly upon the corporate or collegiate nature of the presbyterium. In union with and in subjection to their bishop, the diocesan priests of a local Church constitute a real brotherhood or social unit, in a sense in which the deacons and the other ordained ministers of the local Church do not. These latter are integral and necessary parts of the individual household of the Faith.

The local Church itself is, of course, a brotherhood to which they belong. But by themselves they do not constitute an individual fraternity in anything like the same way that the diocesan priests in union with their bishop make up such an individual fraternity within the framework of the local Church itself.

Thus the diocesan priests of an individual local Church are not to be regarded merely as a group of individuals called to the service of the diocese, but rather as a definite sacerdotal brotherhood or fellowship organized, according to the divine constitution of the Catholic Church itself, to work for the attainment of those very objectives for which the bishop is bound to strive in his direction of his own individual household of the Faith. The members of this presbyterium subject to the bishop form a corporate instrument joined to the apostolic ruler of the completely organized local Church to aid in his salvific work for our Lord and for His people. The presbyterium as a unit has no other purpose. The individual member of this presbyterium, the diocesan priest, has no function within the true Church of Jesus Christ other than to work as a member of this brotherhood for the achievement of that objective for which his bishop is bound to labor.

Changing material circumstances over the course of the centuries have had their effect upon the mode of operation of the presbyterium within the individual local Church. In former times the members of this brotherhood acted for the most part as a unit assisting at the bishop's Mass. Likewise their completely corporate activity seems for a while at least to have submerged, for all intents and purposes, any distinct functioning of the individual members in the service of the local Church. Now, on the other hand, the great numbers of the faithful in the individual diocese and the ever increasing complexity of the labor involved in carrying out the bishop's apostolic commission have made it necessary that the members of the presbyterium do most of their work

for Christ in His Church alone or in smaller groups.

The essential position and function of the members of the presbyterium have not, however, been affected by the change in circumstances. The highly complex work which these men perform is basically and essentially one work, one apostolic activity. Despite the fact that it is quite unusual for all of them to stand around their bishop when he celebrates the sacrifice of the Mass for his people, the members of the diocesan presbyterium remain a distinct and unique fellowship within the Church.

The diocesan priest is essentially the member of a brotherhood. Hence the person who thinks of the diocesan priest as a kind of sacerdotal individualist, in contradistinction to the religious priest, who is considered as essentially a member of a society, has completely misinterpreted the nature of the diocesan priesthood, and, to a certain extent, has misjudged the constitution of the Catholic Church itself.

According to the divine constitution of the Catholic Church, every priest, and, for that matter, every Catholic, is meant to be a member of an individual family or household in Christ, as well as a member of the Church universal. The very force of that charity which acts as a bond of unity within the Church by reason of the Holy Ghost's indwelling in this society makes the existence of these local or individual Christian congregations absolutely necessary. The Christian is essentially a man called upon and privileged to love our Lord, and to manifest and express that love by an abiding affection for his associates within the Church. The direct and immediate act of the Church is the Eucharistic Sacrifice, an essentially social and corporate work. Those members of the Church who dwell in the same neighborhood are bound by loyalty to Christ Himself to love one another, and to have the same Eucharistic Sacrifice. Those who have the same Eucharistic Sacrifice, in the sense that they have an apostolic father in Christ who offers that sacrifice for them, constitute a completely developed local Church. A local

Church in process of formation acts under the direction of a father in Christ who is the delegate or the representative of the Sovereign Pontiff, the visible head of the Church universal. In any event, however, where there are several members of the Catholic Church in the same neighborhood, these persons constitute a more or less perfectly developed local or individual household of the Faith.

There is, it must be remembered, a kind of individual family in Christ distinct in type from the local Church or diocese. The persons who, under the direction of the Church, unite in societies "consecrated unice et ex integro to the acquisition of perfection" actually constitute special and particularly important individual families in Christ.

These societies or religious communities live and act under the directions of their own superiors, men and women chosen for such positions according to the prescriptions of ecclesiastical law. For the attainment of their specific purpose, the acquisition of spiritual perfection by their members, the various religious communities are dedicated to the performance of various works for Christ in His Church. Thus one community is dedicated to the work of prayer, another to that of teaching, and still another to the care of the sick. All, however, pursue their objectives in accordance with the law of the Church universal, and act under apostolic authority, in the sense that the individual religious superior and the individual religious community must work under the direction of the residential bishop, if the community be diocesan in character, or under the direction of the Sovereign Pontiff himself, in the case of an exempt community.

The work to which many of these religious communities have dedicated themselves is such as to demand that some of their members should be priests. Some communities are, as a matter of fact, composed entirely of priests. Thus the individual families in Christ to which these religious priests belong are of a different kind from the ones of which the

diocesan priests are members. The religious priest is primarily a member of a brotherhood devoted unice et ex integro, to use the terminology of the Provida Mater Ecclesia,1 to the acquisition of spiritual perfection. The diocesan priest who is not a religious belongs primarily to his local Church, and to that essentially sacerdotal brotherhood within the local Church which is devoted, by the very nature of the Church, to the work of the bishop within the local Church.

Every priest within the Catholic Church is meant to be a member, not only of the Church universal, but also of some distinct and individual family in Christ within the Church universal. The diocesan priest is a member of that agape which is the local Church,2 and, at the same time, belongs to the presbyterium which, by reason of the divine constitution of Christ's kingdom on earth, is to be found within every fully developed local Church. The religious priest is a member of some brotherhood consecrated by its very nature and in its entire being solely to the acquisition of Christian perfection.

It is quite important that this distinction be recognized in our seminaries today. Where it is not appreciated, men do not see the full beauty of the Church's constitution. Where the candidates for the diocesan priesthood do not know it, they run the risk of entering upon their work within the Church of God without understanding all that God wills they should know about that work. A knowledge of the diocesan priest's place in the divine constitution of the Catholic Church should manifestly be an integral and tre

1 The Provida Mater Ecclesia is an Apostolic Constitution issued by His Holiness Pope Pius XII on Feb. 2, 1947. It dealt with the secular institutes, and described religious communities as consecrated unice et ex integro to the acquisition of perfection. A translation of this document will be found in Bouscaren's Canon Law Digest, Supplement through 1948 (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1949), p. 63 ff.

2 This term was used many times by St. Ignatius of Antioch to designate the local Church. Cf. Fenton, “New Testament Designations of the Church and of Its Members," in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, IX, 3 (July, 1947), P. 303 f.