New at Adoremus Bulletin: Recovering the Baptismal Priesthood
My latest article with Adoremus!
My latest essay is out in the May issue of Adoremus Bulletin: “Recovering the Baptismal Priesthood: Foundation of Active Participation.”
Sixty years after Sacrosanctum Concilium, “active participation” remains one of the most misused phrases in Catholic liturgical discourse. It gets reduced to activism (external busyness), ritualism (mere rubrical compliance), or moralism (ethical performance unhooked from grace). All three miss the point. Authentic participation is sacramentally ordered, rooted in Baptism, and measured by who one becomes in Christ, not by what one does at Mass.
The essay traces the argument through the Fathers (Ignatius, Justin, Augustine), the conciliar texts (SC and LG), Aquinas on the synergy of grace and free will, and Benedict XVI on mystagogy and beauty. The thesis: liturgical renewal depends on recovering the baptismal priesthood as the foundation of everything else, including the laity’s co-offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice in union with the ministerial priest.
If you have ever wondered why decades of liturgical catechesis have produced so little fruit, the answer is probably here. We have catechized about participation without forming the priestly identity that makes participation possible.
Read it here: https://adoremus.org/2026/05/recovering-the-baptismal-priesthood-foundation-of-active-participation/