Day 214: Priests and the Presbyterate (2025)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Ascension
4.9 • 10.8K Ratings
🗓️ 2 August 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
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Summary
The Catechism moves on from bishops—the episcopacy—to priests in the presbyterate, who share in the bishop’s ministry “in a subordinate degree”, to be “co-workers”. Fr. Mike dives deep into the service-leadership that priests are called to. “[A priest’s] whole life must be configured and must be conformed to Jesus Christ the high priest.” Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1562-1568.
This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB.
For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy
Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, |
| 0:09.3 | where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture and passed down |
| 0:13.5 | through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by |
| 0:16.7 | Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is Day 214. We are reading paragraphs 1562 to 1568. I am using, as always, the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes a foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism in your year reading plan by visiting |
| 0:41.2 | ascensionpress.com slash CIY. And you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates |
| 0:46.0 | in daily notifications. Yesterday we talked about the bishops, the episcopacy, as it were. Today we're |
| 0:51.9 | talking about the presbyterate or the presbyteracy, the |
| 0:56.1 | priesthood, essentially. And tomorrow, obviously, you can see where we're going with this. Deacons, |
| 1:00.7 | today we recognize that here are the ordination of priests, co-workers of the bishops. And so what is |
| 1:07.6 | the role, I can say it like this, what's the dignity of the priesthood, meaning, |
| 1:11.1 | like, what is its most sacred character? |
| 1:13.3 | That's what we're talking about here. |
| 1:14.5 | What's the most sacred character, the special character of the priesthood? |
| 1:18.0 | And then in many ways, like, how are priests expected in some ways, how are they expected |
| 1:21.9 | to live? |
| 1:22.3 | And we talked about this a couple days ago, that they're expected to exercise the divinely given power in a way that they imitate |
| 1:31.6 | Jesus in everything. How did Jesus live out this priesthood? How did Jesus live out this ministry |
| 1:40.0 | and this mission? Well, you know, he obviously he spoke the truth. He powerfully, he powerfully taught. |
| 1:47.4 | Obviously, he bound up the sick. And so he healed. He had this mission of sanctifying and making |
| 1:53.0 | holy, making whole again. He had a mission of establishing and leading people, right? Jesus from the |
| 1:58.7 | very beginning, he called people to himself and he led them. |
| 2:02.2 | So like we said yesterday with the office of bishop, this triple office, right, the primary office, I don't know if that's going to catch on. |
... |
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