Holy Orders Comparison

The table below sets the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Council of Trent on the ordained priesthood beside the teaching of Scripture. Sproul calls penance and the Lord’s Supper “the real difference” between Rome and the Reformation, and both depend on the priest: his two special powers, he says, are “the power of absolution and the power of consecration.”1

Table RCC15
Roman Catholic Church Scripture
Two Priesthoods. Rome recognizes a common priesthood of all the baptized and, in addition, a separate ministerial or hierarchical priesthood conferred only by ordination [§941, §1141, §1142, §1546, §1547, §1591, §1592].2 Every believer is “an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices” and “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5, 9); Christ “hath made us kings and priests unto God” (Revelation 1:6). The New Testament draws no line between a common and a hierarchical priesthood.
Ordination. A man enters the ministerial priesthood by the laying on of hands by a bishop in the sacrament of Holy Orders, which configures him to Christ the Head so that he is “able to act in the person of Christ the head” [§1548, §1573, §1597].2 The apostles “ordained them elders in every church” (Acts 14:23), and Titus was to “ordain elders in every city” (Titus 1:5). The New Testament ordains elders (presbuteroi), not priests.
Powers. Ordination confers the power to consecrate the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ and the power to forgive sins in the sacrament of penance [§1411, §1461, §1566].2 “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Christ, “after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12).
Permanence. Ordination imprints an indelible character, so that a priest is a priest forever, as Christ is a priest in the line of Melchizedek [§1582; cf. Trent, sess. 7, Sacraments can. 9].3 Melchizedek’s priesthood is “after the power of an endless life” (Hebrews 7:16), and Christ alone, “because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood” (Hebrews 7:24).
Institution. Rome teaches that Christ established the ministerial priesthood at the Last Supper, when He told the apostles to do this in remembrance of Him [§611, §1337].2 “This do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19) says nothing of ordination or of a priesthood.
Priests in Translation. The Douay-Rheims Bible renders the Greek presbuteros (“elder”) as “priest” in Acts 14:22, Titus 1:5, and James 5:14 (Douay numbering).4 The Greek is presbuteros: “ordained them elders in every church” (Acts 14:23); “ordain elders in every city” (Titus 1:5); “call for the elders of the church” (James 5:14). The New Testament word for priest, hiereus, is used of none of these men.
Celibacy. In the Latin Church, candidates for the priesthood are normally unmarried and committed to a celibate life, a discipline of the Latin Church rather than a dogma [§1599].2 A bishop is to be “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2); “Marriage is honourable in all” (Hebrews 13:4); and Peter was a married man (Matthew 8:14; 1 Corinthians 9:5).

The Seven Sacraments   The Mass

Notes

  1. R. C. Sproul, Are We Together? A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism (Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2012), 71–72. ↩
  2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997). Section numbers (§) in the table link to the online text at vatican.va. The groupings of references follow James G. McCarthy, The Gospel according to Rome, ch. 7. ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
  3. Theodore Alois Buckley, trans., The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (London: Routledge, 1851), session 7, “Canons on the Sacraments in General.” ↩
  4. James G. McCarthy, The Gospel according to Rome: Comparing Catholic Tradition and the Word of God (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1995), ch. 7, on the Douay-Rheims renderings of presbuteros. ↩
  5. Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.