Bishop Javier Echevarría, prelate of Opus Dei, conferred priestly ordination during a ceremony Saturday in the Basilica of St. Eugene.
“The priest is for the Eucharist in the Church and at the service of the Church,” Bishop Echevarría explained in his homily.
“Without full communion with the Roman Pontiff and one’s ordinary, the priest cannot carry out a true ecclesial service,” the 72-year-old prelate said.
The bishop recalled the manifestation of communion that was evident in Rome and worldwide during the past weeks. “From an affective and effective compact communion of Catholics around the Vicar of Christ will follow necessarily great goods for the Church and for the whole world,” he predicted.
In his address to the new priests — 28 of whom came from Europe, 11 from the Americas, two from Asia and one from Africa — Bishop Echevarría urged them to be “forgers of communion in the Church” and to give themselves “joyfully to the ministry of reconciliation.”
