Bartnik, Czesław S. (Wydawnictwo Towarzystwa Naukowego Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, 1993)
The priesthood as an idea and institution undergoes at present a profound crisis in the whole society, in all religions, and also within the Catholic Church. It is to do first of all with the development of individualism, the claims of unrestrained freedom, also in religion, and with the loss of any authority. There is a need then for a new revision of the theology of the priesthood. This revision consists in a bidicertional agency: from Christ to man (as the individual and as a society) and from man to Christ. This is a participation in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ. Given that this is an agency between personal beings, it alone has to bear a personal character and be subjectivized in the person. In this personalistic view the priest symbolizes Christ's self-message embodied by a concrete person and by the society of persons. The historical self-message of Jesus Christ may be realized only in persons.
