The duality of institution and event, or institution and charism, immediately suggests itself as a basic model for resolving the question. But if we try to elucidate the two concepts, in order to arrive at valid rules for defining their mutual relationship, something unexpected happens. The concept of «institution» falls to bits in our hands as soon as we try to give it a precise theological connotation. For what, after all, are the fundamental institutional factors that characterise the Church as the permanent organizational structure of her life? The answer is, of course, the sacramental ministry in its different degrees: bishop, priest, deacon. The sacrament, that, significantly, bears the name «Ordo», is, in the last analysis, the sole permanent and binding structure that forms so to say the fixed order of the Church. It is the sacrament that constitutes the Church as an «institution». But it was not until this century that it became customary, presumably for reasons of ecumenical expediency, to designate the sacrament of Ordo simply as «ministry», with the result that it is viewed entirely in the framework of the institution and the institutional. But this ministry is a sacrament, and hence clearly transcends the usual sociological understanding of institutions. That this structural element of the Church, the only enduring one, is a «sacrament», means at the same time that it must be perpetually created anew by God. It is not something that the Church can dispose of herself; it is simply not there. It is not something that can be determined by the Church on her own initiative. Only secondarily is the sacrament realised through a call on the part of the Church. But primarily it comes into being by God's call, that is to say, only at the charismatic and pneumatological level. It can only be accepted and lived by virtue of the newness of the vocation and by the freedom of the pneuma. Since that is so, and since the Church cannot simply appoint «officials» by herself, but must await the call from God, it follows for the same reason —and for that reason alone— that there may be a shortage of priests in the Church. That is why it has been clear from the very beginning that this ministry cannot be produced by the institution, but can only be invoked in prayer from God. From the very beginning, what Jesus said has remained true: «The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few, pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers to his harvest» (Mt 9:37-38). This also explains why the calling of the Twelve was the fruit of a whole night spent by Jesus in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12-16).

The Latin Church has expressly underscored this strictly charismatic character of the service of the priest by linking it —in conformity with ancient ecclesial tradition— with celibacy, which is clearly to be understood only as a personal charism, and not simply as a qualification of office [2]. The demand that the two —priesthood and celibacy— be decoupled ultimately rests on the notion that the priesthood should not be considered charismatically, but as an office that the institution itself can fill in order to guarantee its own security and the satisfaction of its own needs. If priesthood be understood as wholly subordinated to the Church's own administrative machine and her own security as an institution, then the charismatic bond implied by the requirement of celibacy is a scandal that has to be removed as quickly as possible. But in that case the Church as a whole would be understood as a purely human organization, and the security that is supposed to be obtained by these means would fail to achieve precisely what it is meant to deliver. That the Church is not our institution, but the irruption of something else, that it is intrinsically «iuris divini», has as its consequence that we can never create the Church ourselves. It means that we can never apply purely institutional criteria to her; and that the Church is entirely herself only where the criteria and methods of human institutions are transcended.

To be sure, alongside this fundamental principle on which the institutional structure of the Church rests —the sacrament—, there are also institutions of purely human right in the Church. These institutions serve various roles of administration, organization and co-ordination, and each can  and must  develop  according to the needs  of the times. But it must be said that, while the Church does indeed need such self-created institutions, if they become too numerous and too powerful, they jeopardise the order and vitality of her spiritual reality.

The Church must continuously examine her own institutional structure to make sure that it does not become top-heavy, to prevent it from hardening into a suit of armour that stifles her real spiritual life. Of course, it is understandable that the Church, if priestly vocations are denied to her over a longer period of time, should succumb to the temptation to create for herself what one might call a sustitutive clergy of purely human right [3]. The Church must also create emergency structures in cases of need, and has successfully done so time and again in the missions or in mission-like situations. To all those who have served and continue to serve the Church as spiritual leaders and evangelists in such situations of emergency we can only be grateful. But if the prayer for vocations to the sacrament is neglected as a result, if the Church gradually begins here and there to be satisfied with what she herself can do, if she makes herself, as it were, independent of God's gift, she would be acting like Saul, who, hard pressed by the Philistines, waited long for Samuel, but when Samuel failed to appear and the people began to disperse, lost his patience and made the burnt offering himself. He, who had thought that, given the urgency of the situation, no other course of action lay open to him and that he had no other choice but to take in hand the cause of God, was then rebuked for doing just that; he had thereby thrown everything away: to God «obedience is better than sacrifice» (cf. 1 Sam 13:8-14; 15:22).

Let us return to our question: How are we to characterise the relationship between the permanent structures of Church order and ever new charismatic irruptions? The dialectic between institution and charism is unable to provide any answer to this question, because the antithesis between the two terms gives no satisfactory description of the reality of the Church. Nonetheless we can deduce a few initial guidelines from what has been said so far:

a. It is important that the sacred ministry, the priesthood itself, be charismatically understood and lived. The priest himself should be a «pneumatic», a homo spiritualis, a man aroused and impelled by the Holy Spirit. It is the Church's task to make sure that this character of the sacrament be seen and accepted. Out of zeal for the survival of her institutions the Church should not place numbers in the foreground and lower her spiritual needs. She would travesty the meaning of the priesthood itself by doing so; a poorly performed service does more harm than good. It stands in the way of the priesthood and the faith. The Church must keep faith and acknowledge the Lord as her creator and sustainer. And she must do everything she can to help those called to the priesthood to preserve their faith beyond the initial enthusiasm, and not get slowly bogged down in routine. She must help them increasingly to become truly spiritual men.

b. Where the sacred ministry is lived pneumatically and charismatically in this way, no institutional hardening takes place: what exists, instead, is an inner responsiveness to the charism, a kind of instinct for the Holy Spirit and his action. And so the charism too can once again recognise its own origin in the holder of the ministry, and ways will be found for fruitful collaboration in the discernment of spirits.

c. The Church must create emergency structures in situations of hardship. But these structures must understand themselves as intrinsically open to the sacrament; they must strive towards it, not lead away from it. As a general rule, the number of administrative structures the Church herself has created must be kept as small as possible. The Church must not over institutionalise herself. She must always remain open to the calls of the Lord, which remain unpredictable and for which no plans can be laid in advance.