Cardinal Lazzaro Young-Sik, prefect of the Dicasterio for the clergy in the Vatican, said that “a happy priest is the best announcement of the Gospel.”
This was indicated by the Purpurado South Korean in an interview with Vatican Newswithin the framework of the International Meeting that will be held on Thursday, June 26 at the Auditorium Coniliazione in Rome, on the occasion of the jubilee of the priests, which will be attended by Pope Leo XIV. The motto of the event is “Happy priests – I have called them friends” (Jn 15,15).
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“We want to reaffirm that a happy priest is the best announcement of the Gospel, because with his life he testifies the beauty of following Christ,” said the prefect in the interview.
The cardinal also stressed that “friendship with Jesus, expressed in the verse that gives title to the encounter, is the key to rediscovering the deep sense of vocation and living the ministry with gratitude and enthusiasm. Happy priests is not a simple sloganbut an invitation to live the ministry with fullness, gratitude and evangelizing passion. ”
“The true joy of the priest is born from friendship with Christ and, at the same time, of fraternal communion among presbyters, with his bishop and with the faithful. That is the joy that hearts touches and renews the hope of God’s people,” he said.
Crisis of priestly vocations in the Catholic Church?
When asked if there is a crisis of vocations in the Catholic Church, the Prefect said that “it is true, in some countries, the figures show a decrease, but we cannot reduce everything to statistics. Reality is much deeper. Even in very secularized contexts, many young people express a thirst for authenticity, of a life delivered.”
“When they find credible, happy, consistent priests, their hearts open. Young people follow who, with their lives, shows that serving Christ and testifying to him is the most beautiful thing that can be done,” said the cardinal.
“The real problem is not the lack of ‘calls’, but the quality of our testimony. From there everything can be reborn,” he said.
Take care of priests with gratitude and fraternal love
As for what the priests expect and seek currently, Cardinal You commented that “the priests look for paths to renew their life and bear fruit, even in the midst of difficulties. They intuit that it is vital to always return to the sources of their vocation, recover the joy of the first ‘yes’.”
The presbyters, he continued, “feel the need for a formation that prepares them to exercise the ministry in a deeply transformed society, they need support in difficult times, they want fraternal relationships. And above all, they ask not to be left alone.”
In that sense, the Jubileo de la Esperanza 2025 “is an occasion of grace, a great opportunity to look at the future with confidence: the priests, along with deacons and bishops, in every corner of the world, are really ‘pilgrims of hope’, because every day, in silence and with faithfulness, they continue to take Christ to Christ.”
“Our task as a church,” he said, “is to take care of them, with gratitude and fraternal love.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.