Courage and mercy

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn
April 15, 2014

http://www.cg.catholic.org.au/news/view_article.cfm?id=714&loadref=16

Archbishop Christopher Prowse has urged his clergy to exercise courage, pastoral prudence and mercy in their “most complex vocation”.

The Archbishop was speaking to a gathering of his priests at St Christopher’s Cathedral for the annual Chrism Mass, during which the sacramental oils to be used during the year are blessed.

He took the chance to offer some words of encouragement to priests whose vocations have been challenged by the royal commission into child sex abuse by Church officials and a “confusing secularist society”.

 “We live out the priesthood in the shadow of the Calvary Cross as always but in a particular manner today.”

From the parishes he had visited so far, Archbishop Prowse said he could see that “your parish people truly love you. More so, you truly love them with the love of Jesus.”

He asked the clergy to be “priestly servants of divine mercy” to their people.

That mercy needed to be expressed in two dimensions, he said – through the sacrament of Reconciliation; and as “a major characteristic of the entire exercise of his priestly ministry”.