Chapter III of Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, is entitled “On the Hierarchical Structure of the Church and in Particular of the Episcopate.” It continues as follows:
“28. . . . In virtue of their common sacred ordination and mission, all priests are bound together in intimate brotherhood, which naturally and freely manifests itself in mutual aid, spiritual as well as material, pastoral as well as personal, in their meetings and in communion of life, of labor and charity.
“Let them, as fathers in Christ, take care of the faithful whom they have begotten by baptism and their teaching.(186) Becoming from the heart a pattern to the flock,(187) let them so lead and serve their local community that it may worthily be called by that name, by which the one and entire people of God is signed, namely, the Church of God.(188) Let them remember that by their daily life and interests they are showing the face of a truly sacerdotal and pastoral ministry to the faithful and the infidel, to Catholics and non-Catholics, and that to all they bear witness to the truth and life, and as good shepherds go after those also,(189) who though baptized in the Catholic Church have fallen away from the use of the sacraments, or even from the faith.
“Because the human race today is joining more and more into a civic, economic and social unity, it is that much the more necessary that priests, by combined effort and aid, under the leadership of the bishops and the Supreme Pontiff, wipe out every kind of separateness, so that the whole human race may be brought into the unity of the family of God.”
(186) Cf. 1 Corinthians 4:15; 1 Peter 1:23.
(187) 1 Peter 5:3.
(188) Cf. 1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 1:1.
(189) Cf. Luke 15:4-7.
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