There are two kinds of priests in the Church: diocesan and religious. Religious priests serve a religious order and make three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Diocesan priests commit to serve a diocese and make two promises of celibacy and obedience.
Priests serve in parishes as well as chaplains of hospitals, prisons, and schools. They celebrate the sacraments and visit the sick. Some serve in administrative positions in the Church.
All priests are required to complete a Master of Divinity degree and spend several years in a formation program before ordination. Many complete bachelor's degrees in philosophy before the graduate program, though some get degrees in other disciplines.
The bishop alone can ordain men to the priesthood. They are the bishop's co-workers and receive their assignments from him. Priests celebrate the Eucharist, hear confessions, witness marriages, anoint the sick, and baptize. They can also be delegated by the bishop to celebrate confirmations.
Through the sacrament of Holy Orders priests share in the universal dimensions of the mission that Christ entrusted to the apostles. The spiritual gift they have received in ordination prepares them, not for a limited and restricted mission, but for the fullest, in fact the universal mission of salvation to the end of the earth, prepared in spirit to preach the Gospel everywhere."
It is in the Eucharistic cult or in the Eucharistic assembly of the faithful (synaxis) that they exercise in a supreme degree their sacred office; there, acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming his mystery, they unite the votive offerings of the faithful to the sacrifice of Christ their head, and in the sacrifice of the Mass they make present again and apply, until the coming of the Lord, the unique sacrifice of the New Testament, that namely of Christ offering himself once for all a spotless victim to the Father. From this unique sacrifice their whole priestly ministry draws its strength.
The priests, prudent cooperators of the episcopal college and its support and instrument, called to the service of the People of God, constitute, together with their bishop, a unique sacerdotal college (presbyterium) dedicated, it is true, to a variety of distinct duties. In each local assembly of the faithful they represent, in a certain sense, the bishop, with whom they are associated in all trust and generosity; in part they take upon themselves his duties and solicitude and in their daily toils discharge them."51 Priests can exercise their ministry only in dependence on the bishop and in communion with him. The promise of obedience they make to the bishop at the moment of ordination and the kiss of peace from him at the end of the ordination liturgy mean that the bishop considers them his co-workers, his sons, his brothers and his friends, and that they in return owe him love and obedience.
Paragraphs 1565-1567
