Blister pack BU

The Year for Priests (Priesterjahr) was a thematic year of the Catholic Church proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI. It began on 19 June 2009, the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and ended on 11 June 2010. It was intended to focus on the spiritual renewal of priests, their duties in pastoral care and liturgy, and their relationship with the communities. The motto was “Christ’s Faithfulness, the Priest’s Faithfulness”.

The occasion was the 150th anniversary of the death of the French parish priest Jean-Marie Vianney. The clergyman, born in 1786 and deceased in 1859, worked in Ars-sur-Formans near Lyon. He became known above all as a pastor and confessor. He was canonized in 1925 and has been regarded as the patron saint of parish priests since 1929. During the thematic year, his understanding of the priestly office served as a point of reference for reflections on the priestly vocation. Thus, the Year for Priests did not commemorate the introduction of the priesthood or a single historical event, but combined an anniversary with an internal ecclesiastical focus.

The shepherd figure depicted on the coin does not represent a specific historical person. It draws on biblical imagery. In the First Book of Samuel, the young David reports that, as a shepherd, he saved his father’s sheep from the jaws of lions and bears. At the same time, the “good shepherd” is one of the central images of the New Testament: in the Gospel of John, Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. In Church tradition, this image was transferred to the caring and protective role of clergy. The term “pastoral” is also derived from this.

The thematic year also coincided with a period in which cases of sexual abuse by clergy and their institutional handling became increasingly known to the public. At the closing ceremony, Benedict XVI explicitly spoke of the sins of priests and the necessary purification of the Church. The coin issue thus took up a central focus of the Vatican Church Year, whose concerns had gained additional relevance as a result of this crisis.