“I realized that I can no longer be a priest and therefore be alone.” With these words, a few days ago, Don Giovanni Gattoa fifty-one-year-old priest from a hamlet of L’Aquila but originally from Montebelluna, in the Treviso area, announced to the Pope and the bishop of the Abruzzo capital his decision to abandon the cassock. Maybe it wasn’t him who responded directly yesterday, Leonein a letter to the Presbytery of the Archdiocese of Madrid. And maybe, not even ad Alberto Ravagnanithe don influencer, known for his social debates with Fedezwho, on the eve of the publication of his book, gave up his cassock, citing doubts about doctrine and celibacy. However, the words that Robert Francis Prevost he addressed to the “sons” in Spain who help to straighten the bar, after the slip-ups that play into the hands of the secularist crusade.
“No one”, wrote the pontiff, speaking of those who have taken the vows, “should feel exposed or alone in the exercise of the ministry: resist together the individualism that impoverishes the heart and weakens the mission!”.
The Pope was clear: «It is not a question», he warned, «of inventing new models nor of redefining the identity we have received, but of returning to propose, with renewed intensity, the priesthood in its most authentic core – being old Christ – letting Him shape our lives, unify our hearts and give shape to a ministry lived starting from intimacy with God, faithful dedication to the Church and concrete service to the people who have been entrusted to us”. It is in this perspective that, also according to Leone XIVcelibacy must be defended, together with the requirements of poverty and obedience: «Not as a denial of life, but as the concrete form that allows the priest to belong entirely to God without ceasing to walk among men». “Being in the world, but without being of the world”, as the Gospel prescribes. Because – someone should have noted it – “the priest does not live to show off, but neither does he live to hide”. “His whole life,” he observed Prevost“is called to refer to God and to accompany the passage towards the Mystery, without usurping its place”. The priest points and, in doing so, shows himself; and therefore he wants the faithful’s attention to be then directed to the greater reality that he presents. He remains on the “threshold”: he is among others, as a sign of the transcendent.
They are, after all, arguments similar to those of the famous text by Benedict XVI which was released as a preface to the cardinal’s book Robert Sarahcreated a small editorial scandal in the Vatican: at the beginning of 2020, the theses of Joseph Ratzinger were interpreted as a theological reprimand a Francescoat the time in which the Argentine was considering relaxing the celibacy rule, at least in some extreme cases, such as the Amazon context. The idea of the pontiff emeritus, however, was that celibacy served the priest to dedicate himself totally to God and the Church, but that it was also an eschatological sign: a sort of anticipation of the Kingdom of Heaven, where – he warned Jesus – «one neither takes a wife nor a husband». The crisis of vocations, second Ratzingercould not be resolved with a bureaucratic-administrative reform; it did not depend on functional reasons, but on a question of faith. It is the true faith that must be restored; it is useless to soften the principles to run after the fashions and pressures of single nihilistic thought.
In fact, even in the Holy Father’s letter to the Madrid Presbytery there is a diagnosis of the anti-religious tendencies of the time, not new in the magisterium of Leone. «In many environments», the Pope thus observed, «we observe advanced processes of secularization, a growing polarization of public discourse and the tendency to reduce the complexity of the human person, interpreting it starting from partial and insufficient ideologies or categories. In this context, faith runs the risk of being exploited, trivialized or relegated to the realm of the irrelevant, while forms of coexistence that ignore any transcendent reference are strengthened.” To complete the picture, “the progressive disappearance of common references” contributes, which has complicated “the transmission of the Christian message”: “The Gospel”, he noted Prevost«is not only confronted with indifference, but also with a different cultural horizon, in which words no longer mean the same».
But the pontiff’s resignation is not fatalistic. On the contrary, Leone he sees that, “in the hearts of quite a few people, especially young people, a new restlessness is being born today”, resulting from the betrayal of promises based on the “absolutization of well-being”, on “freedom freed from truth”, on “material progress”. And it is this openness to “a more honest and authentic search”, this thirst for meaning, ultimately, that opens spaces for an encounter with Christ which must be mediated by the priest. For the man of God, the current one “is not a time of retreat or resignation, but of faithful presence and generous availability”. As long as, as San puts it Paolodecide to fight the “good fight”. Which is not to be applauded by the progressive media, or to get a few more likes. Jesus he does not think by algorithms.
date:2026-02-10 23:08:00