Ordo Praedicatorum

Fr. David L. Toups is currently the Associate Director at the USCCB’s Secretariat for Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations. An ocassional visitor at the House of Studies in Washington, D.C., he is a priest of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida, and recently completed his Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum — the Pontifical Univerisy in Rome run by the Dominicans. Fr. David’s doctoral thesis, written under the direction of Father Robert Christian, O.P. (with Fr. Luke Buckles, O.P. as second reader), is about the importance of the ontological character imparted to a man at ordination to the priesthood. The doctoral dissertation became the basis for an important new book: Reclaiming Our Priestly Character. The book is selling very well.

For the book aims at nothing less than a renewal of the priesthood. The key to such a renewal, Fr. David claims, is the Church’s teaching on the character or “seal” imparted to a man through ordination to the priesthood. The path to the renewal of the priesthood lies in each and every priest learning to acknowledge and live out this invisible yet indelible character and all of its implications. In order to bring to light the fact, nature, and implications of priestly character, Fr. David’s book has three parts.

The first part is a review of the places in Scripture and monuments of Tradition that put forward, with increasing clarity over time, the Church’s teaching on priestly character. Beginning with  the New Testament, Fr. David takes the readers through the earliest Apostolic and post-Apostolic Fathers (of both east and west), then the theologians of the medieval and modern times, and ends with Vatican II, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. Fr. David shows how the Church has continuously taught that in priestly ordination a special, permanent, and indelible character is imparted to the very being of the priest. While reading Fr. David’s review of the sources of revelation, it became clear to me how erroneous it is to say that the Church’s current teaching on priestly character is a medieval invention. What became clear is that medieval theologians simply gave a more detailed, metaphysical analysis of a doctrine that from the time of St. Paul was taught in more general and pastoral terms. The terms of the medieval analysis became the terms in which numerous later Councils and Popes presented the teaching of the Apostles as handed on by the Fathers.

The second part of the book is an account of post-Conciliar confusion about priestly character. Many seminarians of the post-Conciliar period were never taught anything significant about the character imparted in ordination, and others in the Church have consciously insisted on downplaying the teaching on priestly character as excessively “cultic.” The second part of the book is full of quotes, from various quarters of the Church, that show the range of opinions out there. Particularly interesting is the account of current tensions between older priests who never learned about, or perhaps never wished to emphasize, their priestly character, and younger piests who know about priestly character and are intent upon consciously living it. Although some people like to describe the situation as a conflict between a “servant model” and “cultic model” of the priesthood, Fr. David does not buy into the false dichotomy. Refusing to do so allows him both to present the range of opinions with great fairness as well as to drive home the point that the teaching on priestly character is not merely a matter of opinion. It is, after all, the Church’s teaching. As a certain teaching, the notion of priestly character serves as the basis for the last part of the book.

The third part of the book is an extended study of the meaning and identity of the priest. In light of six foundational principles, Fr. David writes about the priest as spouse, as father, as preacher, as shepherd, as healer, as someone who acts ”in persona Christi” and “in persona Ecclesiae,” as a man who is supernaturally sensitive, and prayerfully grounded. Here are ancient and rich themes in priestly spirituality presented anew with clarity and vigor thanks to their solid basis in the permanent and indelible character imparted in ordination. Fr. David’s priest is recognizable as a priest. All throughout the third part, Fr. David also includes many practical points that will assist priests, seminarians, and those discerning a vocation. Reflecting, perhaps, the influence of Dominicans on the book, Fr. David also writes about the importance of consecrated study in living out one’s priestly character. He thereby shows how the Domincan religious life as religious life supplies something absolutely essential to the priest as a priest.

The late Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. praised Fr. David’s book saying that “if the priesthood is to be renewed — and it surely must be — the renewal must take the form described by Fr. Toups.” Perhaps the reason Fr. David’s book is selling so well is because Cardinal Dulles spoke the truth. The renewal of the priesthood will come when the ontological character imparted to a man in ordination, far from being dismissed as a “medieval” invention and “cultic” fiction, is embraced for what it really is — a grace. It is a grace and a source of grace both for the priest and for the people.

We owe much thanks to Fr. David (and dare I add his Dominican dissertation advisors at the Angelicum) for bringing to light the riches of God’s grace towards His priests and His people.

The book also comes with high praise from Archbishop Edwin O’Brien and Archbishop Timothy Dolan. It is a great way for men discerning a call to the priesthood to spend those Christmas gift cards.

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