Today on "Kresta in the Afternoon" - April 5, 2012

Talking about the "things that matter most" on April 5, 2012

HOLY THURSDAY SPECIAL PROGRAMMING

4:00 – Why the All-Male Priesthood
As we examine the priesthood on this Holy Thursday, we ask the question – why an all-male priesthood. It was 17 years ago now that the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a document which said that the Church’s teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved solely to men could not be considered “open to debate” and neither could one attribute to the decision of the Church “a merely disciplinary force.” We look at the impact of this document and the roots of the teaching with Fr. John Riccardo.

4:30 – Meditations on the Catholic Priesthood
On this anniversary of the founding of the priesthood, we take time to look at the theology, the history, and the glory of the Catholic priesthood. At ordination, a priest becomes another person, commissioned not simply to act in the name of Christ, but to be another Christ, an alter Christus. This teaching was not an original insight of the Second Vatican Council. It is the traditional teaching of the Church. In his book, Meditations on the Catholic Priesthood, Father Charles Connor helps the priest to see once again, in fresh terms, that this is truly the essence of the priesthood. He shows how, in the Eucharist the priest finds his raison d'être for being a priest, the source of all his strength in the ministry, the summit of all his prayers. The role of the Cross and suffering in the life of a priest is one of the highlights of this book. Yet the suffering of a priest is tinged with joy because he suffers along with Christ, bolstered by Jesus himself. Fr. Connor joins us.

5:00 – Kresta Comments: Holy Thursday, Priesthood and the Eucharist