It has been clergy week in Rome, with the Jubilees of Seminarians, Priests and  Bishops being celebrated, culminating with the ordination of more than 30 priests from around the world by Pope Leo XIV on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

All reports characterized the mood as upbeat, even euphoric — a fresh breeze accompanying the arrival of a new Pope. Where past years sometimes brought papal criticism of bishops and priests, this week offered encouragement and challenge.

Pope Leo XIV’s addresses included the usual exhortations for such occasions, but two things stood out to me: human attractiveness and magnanimity. 

In part, that was because, earlier this month, I had the grace of witnessing a young man — whom I baptized as an adult, who worked with me in our campus chaplaincy, who was a student in my honors economics seminar — ordained a priest. Dominican Father Basil Burroughs invited me to place the priestly stole and chasuble upon him after Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney concluded the prayer of ordination. Ten years after baptizing and confirming him, I had the joy of vesting him as a priest.

Days before his ordination, I asked him about his hopes for his priestly ministry. He related two things, the first of which was suggested to him and his classmates during their retreat before ordination: “to be an agreeable instrument in the hands of the Lord.”

The retreat master had suggested to them that they be “agreeable” to the designs of Providence. There are plenty of biblical examples of disagreeableness in that regard, at least initially, as was the case, for example, with Moses and Jonah.

Yet I took it a different way — as did Archbishop Fisher when I related the story to him. We both thought that agreeableness was a much-desired quality for priests today, in a world that is very disagreeable. Indeed, the digital world promotes disagreeableness as a perverse good in itself. There are even parts of Catholic discourse that consider agreeableness to be soft and weak, preferring instead harsh denunciation. For Catholics, who belong to a communion of disciples, the challenge is to be agreeable even when disagreement is necessary; all the more so for priests, who have a special duty to promote communion.

Harmony is not the same as communion, and agreeableness does not always promote harmony; but, in general, the agreeable priest attracts others, brings out the good in them, promotes harmony and fosters communion. In that context, the challenges of discipleship — conversion, witness, evangelization — can be proposed more effectively.

Speaking to seminarians on Tuesday, Leo told them that they should manifest “Christ’s gratitude and gratuitousness, the exultation and joy, the tenderness and mercy of His Heart, to practice a style of welcome and closeness, of generous and selfless service, allowing the Holy Spirit to ‘anoint’ their humanity even before ordination.”

An “anointed” humanity would be agreeable and attractive, even amid differences. In his message to priests for today’s solemn feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, also observed as the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests, Leo again presented the picture of a priest whose relatability fosters communion even in a media environment of passing agitations.

“Building unity and peace … calls for the ability to understand and interpret complex situations, and to rise above immediate emotions, fears and the pressure of passing fashions,” the Holy Father wrote. “It means providing pastoral solutions that generate and regenerate faith by building good relationships, bonds of solidarity and communities in which the style of communion shines forth.”

The second thing the soon-to-be Father Basil told me was that he desired to be “magnanimous” in his priesthood, perhaps with some great venture in his native Canada or in Asia (his mother is from Singapore). Perhaps I should have expected as much from a young Dominican, properly schooled in Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas; the latter interprets the former in stating that magnanimity — literally to be “great of soul” — is a virtue.

“There is in man something great which he possesses through the gift of God,” writes St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae, II-II, Q. 129, A. 3, ad. 4). “Accordingly, magnanimity makes a man deem himself worthy of great things in consideration of the gifts he holds from God: thus if his soul is endowed with great virtue, magnanimity makes him tend to perfect works of virtue; and the same is to be said of the use of any other good, such as science or external fortune.”

More colloquially, we think of magnanimity as the man who sees the big picture, who possesses the great vision and courage to achieve it — to do great things for a great cause and to enlist others in the same project. The magnanimous man is not petty, does not seek to lift himself up at the expense of others, but rather to lift up others to achieve worthy goals together.

In his address to bishops on Wednesday, Pope Leo continued a theme from his talk to seminarians, namely the need for “human virtues,” which make a man agreeable as a man, even before he is a Christian disciple.

“The bishop is called to cultivate those human virtues which … are of great help to him in his ministry and in his relationships with others,” the Holy Father said. “They include fairness, sincerity, magnanimity, openness of mind and heart, the ability to rejoice with those who rejoice and to suffer with those who suffer, as well as self-control, delicacy, patience, discretion, great openness to listening and engaging in dialogue, and willingness to serve.”

That list of human virtues came after an even lengthier list of the pastoral qualities a bishop must have. The list of desirable qualities in a bishop or priest is very long. But in an acrimonious, divisive, small-minded time, the priest who is agreeable will attract others to work together for the Kingdom. Biblical vocations were always for great things. In this small and mean era, the priest can lead magnanimously. 

Agreeable magnanimity: a happy aspiration for priests, new and old. Pope Leo would concur.