Presbyterorum Ordinis

Presbyterorum Ordinis, the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, is one of the documents produced by the Second Vatican Council. On 7 December 1965 the document was promulgated by Pope Paul VI, after an approval vote of 2,390 to 4 among the assembled bishops. The title means "Order of Priests" in Latin. As is customary for such documents in the Catholic Church, it is taken from the first line of the decree (its incipit).

Agitation among the Council Fathers for a separate and distinct conciliar decree on the priesthood began in the second session of the Council (1963), in the course of the discussions about the drafts concerning the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium).Presbyterorum Ordinis has come to be one of the defining documents on the role and duties of the priesthood in the modern era.

The ministry of the priest derives from what is completely unique to priests, that is, the “sacred power of orders to offer sacrifice and to forgive sins.” The document was intended to emphasize the special sacramental consecration of priests. Chapter Two, on the "Ministry of Priests", recognized the benefit of some type of communal contact among priests.

...in order that priests may find mutual assistance in the development of their spiritual and intellectual life, that they may be able to cooperate more effectively in their ministry and be saved from the dangers of loneliness which may arise, it is necessary that some kind of common life or some sharing of common life be encouraged among priests. This, however, may take many forms, according to different personal or pastoral needs, such as living together where this is possible, or having a common table, or at least by frequent and periodic meetings."

Chapter three addresses practical considerations such as fair compensation, vacation time and health care.

As a priest dispenses the mysteries of God, he can see himself in the man who sowed his field, of whom the Lord said: "then sleep and rise, night and day, and the seed should sprout without his knowing" (Mk 4:27).

The period that followed the promulgation of Presbyterorum Ordinis was marked by a severe drop in the number of priestly vocations in the Western World. Church leaders argued age-old secularization was to blame and that it was not directly related to the documents of the Council. Historians also pointed to the damage caused in 1968, by the sexual revolution, and the strong backlash over Humanae vitae. Yet, other authors asserted the drop in vocations was at least partly deliberate as part of an attempt to de-clericalize the Church and allow for a more pluralistic clergy. In 1995, according to the Congregation for the Clergy, in recent years, "despite various persistent difficulties, there is a positive quantitative and qualitative recovery which makes one hope for a priestly second spring."

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