Truth and the Mission of the Catholic Priest

Dear all,

Please find attached the first talk from the Rome Conference (13–17 January 2025), delivered to the priests of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy. This is Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s address, Truth and the Mission of the Catholic Priest (14 January 2025). I hope this text will be a valuable contribution to our formation in the parish.

I listened to it attentively when it was given at the Conference, reflecting on the people with whom I live and those to whom I minister, especially as a parish priest. Now, I am glad to share it with you, hoping it will enrich our spiritual and intellectual formation. But why formation? In what way?

Because all of us are learning anew how to engage authentically with one another in the Church. We are doing so at a time when human relationships have become imbalanced—superficial, trivialized, distant, or at times overly close. In many cases, they are nonexistent due to a lack of meaningful time spent together. Families struggle to cultivate basic communication rooted in real presence. We bring these struggles into the Church, into our local parish, often unconsciously projecting our own small worlds onto others. Let me stress, then, that our horizontal dimension of relationships needs just as much careful attention as the vertical one.

In fact, we risk getting lost—not only in our prayer life but also in our spiritual and natural expectations, as well as in our need for mutual acceptance. We may become either fearful or overly bold, clumsy in our attempts to cooperate, or reduced to simply performing tasks and moving on. Too often, we wound others and are wounded ourselves.

Amid all of this, an important question arises: What is the role of the priest in the parish? We enter into relationships, both as priests and as laity, unprepared, lacking the right examples to follow. And so, we unconsciously adapt to one another’s worlds, shaped by unfulfilled desires for meaning, importance, and belonging. Yet, despite our brokenness, we are learning together what it truly means to be Catholics in a world of wounded children, fathers, mothers, wives, daughters, and sons.

With this in mind, Cardinal Müller’s talk, though more theological, can help us see our parish community in all its interactions. For example, at one point, he states:“The Church was not founded by Christ in order to pursue her own worldly interests but rather for the sake of the unique interest that God has in each one of his creatures.”

These words alone contain profound messages about our attitudes, expectations, and focus. They invite us to reflect:
• What is the true purpose of the Church?
• What happens when people in the Church put their own interests first?
• How can we help one another remain faithful to the Church’s mission?

I would love to hear your thoughts, not in the form of lengthy reflections on WhatsApp, but rather through meaningful, personal conversations.

Fr. Stan