The president of the Dominican Episcopate and Archbishop of Santiago de los Caballeros, Mons. Héctor Rafael Rodríguez, said that “the world needs holy priests”, at the Mass he presided over by the National Jubilee of the Clergy in the Dominican Republic.
“The world needs holy priests – also the bishops, myself – religious, joyful, close, sensitive and solidarity religious with the pain of others,” said the prelate at the Mass he presided over to hundreds of priests and bishops of the 11 dioceses of the country, in the National Sanctuary Santa Cristo de los Milagros, in Bayaguana, on May 12.
Receive the main news of ACI Press by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social networks. Subscribe to our free channels today:
The day, reports Vatican Newsbegan with a procession from the old to the new sanctuary, and then gave way to a moment of worship to the Blessed Sacrament.
In the homily of the Mass, Transmitted by the Televida channelthe prelate regretted “that a false prudence can lead us to overshadow the prophetic spirit of the priesthood, calculating, then we do not say or do what we have to do and say at the right time”, and warned: “Cowardice cannot be disguised as a healthy prudence, that’s why I speak of a false prudence.”
Mons. Rodríguez then stressed that “the world needs solidarity priests, with the heart of Pastor, in the style of Jesus Christ Good Shepherd, who gave life for his sheep and the best thing he committed all the imprudence of the world that led him to give his life for us on the cross.”
“The world needs priests who do not negotiate with the truth or sell their identity,” said the Dominican prelate.
The archbishop encouraged those present to be “signs of hope in this wounded and confusing world, that this jubilee one more, that renews us inside and is not just an external celebration and drives us to a life more delivered to the Gospel.”
The mission of Pope Leo XIV: “Being Pedro de Hoy”
The Dominican prelate also urged the priests to “thank the Lord for so many gifts that gives his church, through each of you, of each of us. We must thank him! To thank the Lord, especially for the new successor of Peter, Pope Leo Leo XIV.”
“His choice,” he said, “has been a light sign that the good shepherd continues to lead her flock with wisdom and fidelity.”
After highlighting that “God makes no exception of people and the Church must be open to all,” the prelate questioned: “Is this the mission of Pope Leo XIV? Continue taking the Church to all corners, even those who do not believe? Being Peter today, that is the Pope’s mission.”
This mission, he said, “reminds us that the Church cannot close in itself, that it must be guided, first of all, by the Holy Spirit and not because of human interests; and that it must go to the peripheries, where the hunger of God cries in silence.”
The Archbishop finally stressed that “the choice of this new Pope invites us to be a more missionary church, more fraternal, more open to the novelty of the Spirit. It is not that it is not, but this is always a challenge, it is a call of God.”
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.