Meeting with Clergy, Religious and Seminarians of El Salvador (6 March 1983)

On Sunday, 6 March 1983, the Holy Father met with the Clergy, Religious and Seminarians of El Salvador, in the Lyceum of the Marist Brothers. The Pope exhorted them, “do not defraud the Lord's poor who ask you for the bread of the Gospel, the solid food of the safe and integral Catholic faith, so that they may know how to discern and choose in the face of other predications and ideologies that are not the message of Jesus Christ and his Church.”

Dear brothers and sisters

1. In this meeting dedicated to priests from El Salvador and the entire area of ​​Central America, and which takes place within the scope of this Blessed Marcellin Champagnat educational center, Salvadoran religious men and women and seminarians who wished to come and see the Pope are also present .

Although I have already addressed myself — or will do so in the coming days — to the sectors of consecrated life in other neighboring nations, I greet you all very cordially and express my deep esteem and gratitude for your extremely important ecclesiastical task. I ask the Lord to give you strength, courage and hope to continue generously in your place. And I bless you all with great affection.

Now I turn to the priests. Following the Master's advice, I come to you, priests of a Church that has suffered and still suffers, as a brother (cf. Mt. 23, 8) and friend (cf. Jn . 15, 14-15); also as a witness to the sufferings of Christ ( 1 Pet . 5, 1).

I would like to greet you one by one, call you by name, listen to your experience, go with each one of you to the place where your ministry takes place among the People of God, in the cities or towns, among the peasants and the workers. Above all, I would like to reiterate to you my deepest affection, the gratitude of the entire Church for your priestly witness, the courage to remain faithful despite difficulties.

2. In this brief and intense moment of priestly communion, I want to entrust you with some reflections that arise from the desire to confirm within you the identity of your priesthood and the commitment to your mission here and now.

In our priestly life we ​​need to constantly revive this grace that was given to us through the laying on of hands (cf. 2 Tim .1, 6), as a flame is fanned among the coals. The memory of priestly grace, which remains in us forever by virtue of character, allows us to renew ourselves in this grace of configuration to Christ and consecration in the Holy Spirit. It is the grace of human and Christian maturity: "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but of power, love and wisdom. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of Our Lord..." ( 2 Tim . 1, 7-8).

Through ordination we are ministers who act "in persona Christi", "in virtute Spiritus Sancti", with a human fullness strengthened by this grace. And this truth expresses the richness of an ecclesiastical service that has as its model Christ, the one sent by the Father, and relies on the strength of the Spirit in its mission. Just thinking about this grace should not scare us about our weakness, our strength should not waver; We must not fear the difficulties that, from experience, you know arise in the exercise of our ministry of grace and reconciliation.

In fact, sometimes the pastoral charity that should animate you and the desire to maintain peace and communion, demand from you the gift of life, offered moment after moment in a daily oblation, or in a complete offering like some of your brothers.

3. Remembering your fidelity to Christ our only Master and to his Gospel, I want to urge you to keep alive and integral the doctrine of the Church's faith, for which it is worth giving oneself up to the point of giving one's life.

It is not worth giving it for an ideology, for a mutilated or instrumentalized Gospel, for a party choice. The priest to whom the Gospel and the riches of the deposit of faith are entrusted must be the first to identify with this doctrinal integrity, in order to be the faithful transmitter of the Church's doctrine, in communion with its magisterium. A transmission of the faith that is not limited to the diocese or country itself, but that must open up to the missionary dimension of the Church.

Therefore, to be an educator of the faith of the people, the priest must bring the Gospel to the feet of the Master in hours of personal prayer, meditation on Scripture, praise to the Lord with the liturgy of the Hours; it must deepen and update the ecclesiastical understanding of the message with assiduous study that requires a commitment to ongoing formation, so necessary today to deepen, perfect and update the knowledge of theology in its various dimensions: dogma, morals, liturgy, pastoral, spirituality. All this supported by authentic biblical theology.

4. Your people, simple and intelligent, expect from you this integral preaching of the Catholic faith, sown heavily in the fertile soil of a traditional and welcoming faith, of a popular piety that, if it always needs to be evangelized, is already field furrowed by the Spirit to receive this evangelization and catechesis. Aren't the painful circumstances that your countries are going through an experience of intensification of this sowing? Don't your people ask for reasons to believe and to hope, reasons to love and to build, which can only come from Christ and his Church?

Therefore, do not defraud the Lord's poor who ask you for the bread of the Gospel, the solid food of the safe and integral Catholic faith, so that they may know how to discern and choose in the face of other predications and ideologies that are not the message of Jesus Christ and his Church. . This ecclesiastical task is your priority task. Remember, my dear brothers, that — as I said to the priests and nuns of Mexico "you are not social leaders, political leaders or employees of a temporal power" ( January 27, 1979 ).

A generous youth, who no longer believes in the easy promises of a capitalist society or who sometimes succumbs to the illusion of a revolutionary commitment that seeks to change things and structures, even resorting to violence, awaits your faithful and authoritative word. Aren't many young people also waiting for this announcement of a Christ who saves and liberates, who transforms the heart and provokes a peaceful but decisive revolution, the fruit of Christian love? And if other leaders fascinate them, isn't it because Christ was not presented to them properly, without distortions?

5. You are priests with a serious responsibility in this hour of the Church in your nations. In your hands I place a necessary task of communion and dialogue.

The priest, in fact, is the servant of ecclesiastical communion. It is up to him to bring together the Christian community to experience the Eucharist in a way that is a celebration of the mystery of Jesus, the source and school of community life. Therefore, his place is above all at the altar; to preach the word and celebrate the sacraments; to offer the sacrifice and distribute the bread of life.

The faithful who need a word of advice and comfort want to see you available and easily identifiable, also by your way of dressing; All who need the grace of forgiveness and reconciliation hope that it will be easy for them to find the priest in the exercise of this indispensable ministry of salvation, where personal contact facilitates the growth and maturation of Christians. 

Today more than ever, faced with the shortage of priests and the serious needs of the ecclesial community, the priest is called to an intelligent mission of promoting the laity, of animating the community, so that the faithful take responsibility for these ministries that are their responsibility in virtue of his baptism.

What joy the minister of Christ can feel when he sees a mature community forming around him, where different ministries of catechesis, charity and promotion emerge! What a joy, especially when you are able to collaborate with God's grace, so that new priestly vocations ensure continuity in the Christian community! Allow me to insist on this duty that must concern the heart of every priest: to be an instrument of vocation promotion with his word and prayer, with his example, with the testimony of a life consecrated totally to the service of Christ and his brothers.

6. The priest must be the man of dialogue. In his role as mediator, he must courageously take the risk of bridging different trends, of fostering harmony, of seeking fair solutions in the face of difficult situations.

The choice of the Christian and even more so that of the priest is sometimes dramatic. Although he is intransigent with error, he cannot be against anyone, as we are all brothers or, at the most, enemies that he must love according to the Gospel; he must embrace everyone, because they are all children of God, and give his life, if necessary, for all his brothers. Here is often the drama of the priest, driven by different trends, pursued by party choices.

Called to make a preferential option for the poor, he cannot ignore that there is a radical poverty where God does not live in the heart of man enslaved by power, pleasure, money and violence. His mission must also be extended to these poor people.

Therefore, the priest is a disseminator of God's mercy and not just a preacher of justice. He must make the message of conversion resonate for everyone, announce reconciliation in Christ Jesus, who is our Peace and breaks down every wall of division between men (cf. Eph . 2:14). This ministry of priests acquires special importance within the framework of the Holy Year of Redemption, which I wished to proclaim to be celebrated in the universal Church.

Be you, dear priests, witnesses of this universal redemption. Proclaim with me: "Open wide the doors to Christ the Redeemer". It is as if the Lord wanted to offer us the opportunity to renew perhaps forgotten aspects of our priestly ministry: the preaching of conversion to Christ, necessary for everyone, open to everyone; the call to reconciliation, urgent for humanity, at all levels. Converted and reconciled, let us stand before men, witnesses and ministers of Christ's redemption, willing to give our lives, if necessary, for this reconciliation of our brothers.

7. The life of the priest, like that of Christ, is a service of love. The greatest testimony of a radical option for Christ and the Gospel consists in being able to truly say these words of the Church's prayer: "let us not live for ourselves, but for him, who died for us and rose again" ( Eucharistic Prayer IV).Living for He is to live like Him, and His word is peremptory: "Whoever wants to become great among you, let him be your servant. In the same way, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life for rescue of many" (Mt,20, 27-28).

Your simplicity, your poverty and affability will be a clear sign of your consecration to the Gospel; with your availability to listen, welcome, help your brothers materially and spiritually, you will be witnesses to the one who did not come to be served; but to serve. In the purity of the intention of your service, in the detachment from material things you will find the freedom to be witnesses to the one who came to us as the Servant of the Lord and gave himself to us completely, as he gave his life for us.

8. My dear priests: I hope the dream of that day of your priestly ordination is renewed in you, with this meeting, now enriched with the experience of a faithful love for Christ and your people.

Stay united. Think that in unity lies the strength of the Church. Always maintain communion with your Pastors, all the more necessary the more difficult the circumstances in which a particular Church lives. In the strength of unity you will even have the guarantee of moral weight in society, the possibility of making a presence and effectively defending the cause of those most in need. On the other hand, those who want to exploit your ministry would take advantage of your divisions.

As Successor of Peter, I want to assure you of the love and support of the universal Church, which contemplates you with the hope of seeing peace confirmed in your nations, reconciled in justice with all the children of the Salvadoran and Central American people.

I commend you to the Virgin, Queen of Peace, as you invoke her on this earth. She is the Mother of all, an example of a commitment to God's will and the history of his people. May she help you in your ministry of reconciliation, in your evangelizing mission, so that you may be, with your commitment, authentic disciples of Christ. So be it.

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