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Everything that the priesthood of the Old Covenant prefigured finds its fulfillment in Christ Jesus, the "one mediator between God and men" [2 Tim 2:5]. The Christian tradition considers Melchizedek, "priest of God Most High," as a prefiguration of the priesthood of Christ, the unique "high priest after the order of Melchizedek"; [Heb 5:10; 6:20; Gen 14:18] "holy, blameless, unstained," [Heb 7:26] "by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified," [Heb 10:14] that is, by the unique sacrifice of the cross (CCC1544). In the priesthood of Aaron and the service of the Levites, as in the institution of the seventy elders, [Num 11:24-25] a prefiguring of the ordained ministry of the New Covenant (CCC1541). A special rite consecrated the beginnings of the priesthood of the Old Covenant. The priests are "appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins" [Heb 5:1; Ex 29:1-30; Lev 8] (CCC1539).
The Whole Church Is A Priestly People
Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church "a kingdom, priests for his God and Father" [Rev 1:6; Rev 5:9-10; 1 Pet 2:5, 9]. The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ's mission as priest, prophet, and king (CCC1546). For in the Church there is diversity of ministry but unity of mission. To the apostles and their successors Christ has entrusted the office of teaching, sanctifying and governing in his name and by his power. But the laity are made to share in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly office of Christ; they have therefore, in the Church and in the world, their own assignment in the mission of the whole People of God (CCC873).
The whole Church is a priestly people. Through Baptism all the faithful share in the priesthood of Christ. This participation is called the "common priesthood of the faithful" (CCC1591). On entering the People of God through faith and Baptism, one receives a share in this people's unique, priestly vocation: "Christ the Lord, high priest taken from among men, has made this new people 'a kingdom of priests to God, his Father.' The baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated to be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood" [Heb 5:1-5; Rev 1:6] (CCC784). The baptized have become "living stones" to be "built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood" [1 Pet 2:5]. By Baptism they share in the priesthood of Christ, in his prophetic and royal mission. They are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that [they] may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [them] out of darkness into his marvelous light" [1 Pet 2:9]. Baptism gives a share in the common priesthood of all believers (CCC1268).
Through the sacrament of Holy Orders priests share in the universal dimensions of the mission that Christ entrusted to the apostles. The spiritual gift they have received in ordination prepares them, not for a limited and restricted mission, but for the fullest, in fact the universal mission of salvation 'to the end of the earth,' [Acts 1:8] prepared in spirit to preach the Gospel everywhere (CCC1565). Holy Orders communicates a "sacred power" which is none other than that of Christ (CCC1551). Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time: thus it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry. It includes three degrees: episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate (CCC1536). Since the sacrament of Holy Orders is the sacrament of the apostolic ministry, it is for the bishops as the successors of the apostles to hand on the "gift of the Spirit," the "apostolic line." Validly ordained bishops, i.e., those who are in the line of apostolic succession, validly confer the three degrees of the sacrament of Holy Orders (CCC1576). The Lord Jesus chose men (viri) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry [Mk 3:14-19; Lk 6:12-16; 1 Tim 3:1-13; 2 Tim 1:6; Titus 1:5-9] (CCC1577).
No one has a right to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. Indeed no one claims this office for himself; he is called to it by God [Heb 5:4] Anyone who thinks he recognizes the signs of God's call to the ordained ministry must humbly submit his desire to the authority of the Church, who has the responsibility and right to call someone to receive orders. Like every grace this sacrament can be received only as an unmerited gift (CCC1578). Integration into one of these bodies in the Church was accomplished by a rite called ordinatio, a religious and liturgical act which was a consecration, a blessing or a sacrament. Today the word "ordination" is reserved for the sacramental act which integrates a man into the order of bishops, presbyters, or deacons, and goes beyond a simple election, designation, delegation, or institution by the community, for it confers a gift of the Holy Spirit that permits the exercise of a "sacred power" (sacra potestas) which can come only from Christ himself through his Church. Ordination is also called consecratio, for it is a setting apart and an investiture by Christ himself for his Church. The laying on of hands by the bishop, with the consecratory prayer, constitutes the visible sign of this ordination (CCC1538).
The divinely instituted ecclesiastical ministry is exercised in different degrees by those who even from ancient times have been called bishops, priests, and deacons. There are two degrees of ministerial participation in the priesthood of Christ: the episcopacy and the presbyterate. The diaconate is intended to help and serve them. The degrees of priestly participation (episcopate and presbyterate) and the degree of service (diaconate) are all three conferred by a sacramental act called "ordination," that is, by the sacrament of Holy Orders (CCC1554). Christ, whom the Father hallowed and sent into the world, has, through his apostles, made their successors, the bishops namely, sharers in his consecration and mission; and these, in their turn, duly entrusted in varying degrees various members of the Church with the office of their ministry [Jn 10:36]. The function of the bishops' ministry was handed over in a subordinate degree to priests so that they might be appointed in the order of the priesthood and be co- workers of the episcopal order for the proper fulfillment of the apostolic mission that had been entrusted to it by Christ (CCC1562).
The ministerial priesthood differs in essence from the common priesthood of the faithful because it confers a sacred power for the service of the faithful. The ordained ministers exercise their service for the People of God by teaching (munus docendi), divine worship (munus liturgicum) and pastoral governance (munus regendi) (CCC1592). The ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of bishops and priests, and the common priesthood of all the faithful participate, "each in its own proper way, in the one priesthood of Christ." The ministerial priesthood is a means by which Christ unceasingly builds up and leads his Church. For this reason it is transmitted by its own sacrament, the sacrament of Holy Orders (CCC1547).
The one priesthood of Christ is made present through the ministerial priesthood without diminishing the uniqueness of Christ's priesthood: Only Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers (CCC1545). In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth. This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis. It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi). Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ (CCC1548).
The ordained ministry or ministerial priesthood is at the service of the baptismal priesthood. The ordained priesthood guarantees that it really is Christ who acts in the sacraments through the Holy Spirit for the Church. The saving mission entrusted by the Father to his incarnate Son was committed to the apostles and through them to their successors: they receive the Spirit of Jesus to act in his name and in his person. [Jn 20:21-23; Lk 24:47; Mt 28:18-20] The ordained minister is the sacramental bond that ties the liturgical action to what the apostles said and did and, through them, to the words and actions of Christ, the source and foundation of the sacraments (CCC1120). Only priests (bishops and presbyters) are ministers of the Anointing of the Sick (CCC1516). "Is any among you sick? Let him call for the presbyters of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven" (Jas 5:14-15) (CCC1526).
Jesus Christ, the one priest of the new and eternal Covenant, "entered, not into a sanctuary made by human hands... but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf" [Heb 9:24]. There Christ permanently exercises his priesthood, for he "always lives to make intercession" for "those who draw near to God through him" [Heb 7:25]. As "high priest of the good things to come" he is the centre and the principal actor of the liturgy that honours the Father in heaven [Heb 9:11; Rev 4:6-11] (CCC662). But "the members do not all have the same function" [Rom 12:4]. Certain members are called by God, in and through the Church, to a special service of the community. These servants are chosen and consecrated by the sacrament of Holy Orders, by which the Holy Spirit enables them to act in the person of Christ the head, for the service of all the members of the Church. The ordained minister is, as it were, an "icon" of Christ the priest (CCC1142).
Christ entrusted the exercise of the power of absolution to the apostolic ministry which he charged with the "ministry of reconciliation" [2Cor 5:18]. The apostle is sent out "on behalf of Christ" with "God making his appeal" through him and pleading: "Be reconciled to God" [2 Cor 5:20] (CCC1442). Since Christ entrusted to his apostles the ministry of reconciliation, [Jn 20:23; 2Cor 5:18] bishops who are their successors, and priests, the bishops' collaborators, continue to exercise this ministry. Indeed bishops and priests, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, have the power to forgive all sins "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"(CCC1461). Only priests who have received the faculty of absolving from the authority of the Church can forgive sins in the name of Christ (CCC1495).
Only God forgives sins [Mk 2:7]. Since he is the Son of God, Jesus says of himself, "The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" and exercises this divine power: "Your sins are forgiven" [Mk 2:5, 10; Lk 7:48]. Further, by virtue of his divine authority he gives this power to men to exercise in his name [Jn 20:21-23] (CCC1441). "On the evening of that day, the first day of the week," Jesus showed himself to his apostles. "He breathed on them, and said to them: 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained"' (Jn 20:19, 22-23) (CCC1485). The risen Christ, by giving the Holy Spirit to the apostles, entrusted to them his power of sanctifying [Jn 20:21-23] they became sacramental signs of Christ. By the power of the same Holy Spirit they entrusted this power to their successors (CCC1312).
By Christ's will, the Church possesses the power to forgive the sins of the baptized and exercises it through bishops and priests normally in the sacrament of Penance (CCC986). Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion (CCC1446). The sacrament of Penance is a whole consisting in three actions of the penitent and the priest's absolution. The penitent's acts are repentance, confession or disclosure of sins to the priest, and the intention to make reparation and do works of reparation (CCC1491). The confession (or disclosure) of sins, even from a simply human point of view, frees us and facilitates our reconciliation with others. Through such an admission man looks squarely at the sins he is guilty of, takes responsibility for them, and thereby opens himself again to God and to the communion of the Church in order to make a new future possible (CCC1445).
In imparting to his apostles his own power to forgive sins the Lord also gives them the authority to reconcile sinners with the Church. This ecclesial dimension of their task is expressed most notably in Christ's solemn words to Simon Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" [Mt 16:19; Mt 18:18; 28:16-20]. The office of binding and loosing which was given to Peter was also assigned to the college of the apostles united to its head (CCC1444). The words bind and loose mean: whomever you exclude from your communion, will be excluded from communion with God; whomever you receive anew into your communion, God will welcome back into his. Reconciliation with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God (CCC1445).