‘Men of God’

Abstract Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI’s theology of the priesthood sought to address the crisis of the priesthood that erupted after Vatican II. This crisis, Benedict believed, stemmed from a flawed scriptural hermeneutic that broke the inner unity of the Old and New Testaments, giving rise to a deficient theology of the liturgy and calls for the sacral priesthood to be replaced by functional ministry. Although Benedict showed some sympathy for this view in his early work, he opposed it in his mature theology, arguing that Christ fulfilled and transformed, rather than abolished, Temple sacrifice and priesthood. Benedict proposed the model of priest as apostle, which integrated the priest’s duties to proclaim the Word and to serve the community within a sacramental-ontological understanding of the priesthood. His spiritual counsel to priests encouraged them to be ‘men of God’.