Priestly Life and Ministry Update

The Committee has just held its first gathering as a new committee. During this gathering we had the opportunity to bring together representatives of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate as well as the Life Cycle Institute of the Catholic University of America to share with us relevant data on the Catholic priesthood in the United States today. From this discussion the Committee plans to identify issues of special interest or concern as we reflect upon the ministry and life of our priests.

The Committee is interested in the life and ministry of our international priests. We will be consulting with the Life Cycle Institute at the Catholic University on its planned study of these priests. We will also explore ways in which to strengthen our interaction with the centers for acculturation for priests and seminarians who come to the U.S. to serve in pastoral ministry.

During our recent committee meeting we explored further collaboration with several other conference committees. One area of collaboration was with the “Priest as Inviter” project sponsored by the Committee on Vocations. Another area of collaboration is with the Committees on international and domestic policy, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the other appeals, as well as Priestly Formation, and the Deaconate on ways to help promote greater awareness and understanding of our priests of Catholic Social Teaching.

The Committee also took the opportunity to review the John Jay Report. We are interested in exploring ways to support priests as we move into the future. We are interested in what can be done to help promote the unity of our presbyterates. We are interested in the spiritual renewal of our priests in light of events revealed over these past few years. We met with the director and associate director of the Office for Child and Youth Protection to explore ways in which priests can better understand their important role in the promotion of safe environments and the protection of children.

Finally, we intend to review and suggest revisions to our 1980 document Fulfilled I Your Hearing. This document has been a well used tool for preachers. We would like to bring it up to date and into conformity with the new General Instruction.

Most Rev. Timothy M. Dolan
Chairman
February 19, 2004