The priesthood is traditionally understood to entail descending dimensions of mediation,

by which the priest conveys spiritual goods to us, and ascending mediations by which the priest helps lead us to God by his example and love of God.

I'd like to speak in this essay about each of these internal to a historical narrative.

The first part of the narrative begins in the Reformation and the second in our own.

Each is about crisis in the priesthood, and they come together in the consideration of the sanctification of the priesthood for our own historical moment.

Part one, then, descending mediations.

To say this is to construct a new and different church, distinct from the Church of Jesus Christ,

Hoc enem es novam ecclesiam construere.

These words were spoken by Thomas DeVio Cajeton in October of 1518 in the course of a public

debate with the young Martin Luther, at a time when the Augustinian monk was still in communion

with the Catholic Church.

Earlier that year, Pope Leo X had sent Cajeton as his representative from Rome to the

Diet of Augsburg, from which he was dispatched

for theological dispute with the aspiring reformer. Now Cajeton at the time was the master of the

Dominican order, a cardinal of the Catholic Church, and Archbishop of Palermo. He was a vocal

promoter of reform within the clergy and the curia advocating for

clerical asceticism and learning, himself pioneering scholastic commentary on Aquinas, while also

favoring the emergence of Renaissance biblical studies. He and Luther shared a common concern

for the reform of the church.

The debate took place October 12th through 15th, approximately one year after Luther's

promulgation of the 95 Theses and two years before the publication of the Babylonian

captivity of the church, which was to mark a more definitive break with Rome.

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