Friday, April 24, 2009

Equal opportunity employer

"...a Church which bears the name of Jesus Christ, hears his word and is sustained by his Spirit can never be identified with a particular class, caste, clique or authority. Like Jesus himself, his Church too addresses itself to the whole people and particularly to the underprivileged. The Church, then, is the whole community of believers in Christ, in which all may regard themselves as people of God, body of Christ, structure of the Spirit. The decisive criterion of this community is not a privilege of birth, state, race, or office. What is decisive is not whether someone has an 'office' in the Church or what office he has, but whether and to what extent he is purely and simply a 'believer': that is, one who believes, obeys, serves, loves, hopes."—Why Priests?, pages 27-28

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