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Too Many Eucharistic Ministers

VATICAN DOCUMENT SEEKS TO QUASH LITURGICAL ABUSES

By Peter Wei Trang

The Vatican released a document on November 13 titled Instruction on Certain Questions Regarding the Collaboration of the Non-Ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priest. To reinforce the distinction between clergy and laity, the instruction set sharp limits on abuses involving the use of lay pastoral assistants, lay preachers, Eucharistic ministers, and Sunday celebrations without a priest.

For an appraisal of the document, the Mission contacted James Akin of the San Diego apologetics group Catholic Answers. Akin is the author of a new book, Mass Confusion: The Do's and Don'ts of Catholic Worship, which deals with liturgical abuses.

How significant is the new document?

Very significant. It is the most important, public liturgical document that the Holy See has released in years.

Why do you say it's the most important public one?

Because there has recently been at least one privately circulated document that rivals the instruction on collaboration in importance. That document was the Holy See's guidelines for translation in light of the current gender-revisionist or "inclusive language" movement. The guidelines were initially circulated to a very small number of people and then to the U. S. bishops. At that time, they were leaked to the National Catholic Reporter, which published them. They are significant because they essentially ban attempts to gender-revise Sacred Scripture.

Why is this new document so significant?

There are a number of reasons. One is that the heads of eight different dicasteries signed it. Those were the congregations for clergy, the doctrine of the faith, divine worship and sacraments, bishops, evangelization of peoples, institutes of consecrated life, plus the pontifical councils for the laity and the interpretation of legislative texts.

Why so many?

Because the Holy See wanted to indicate that it is serious about having the abuses stopped. Having that number of dicasteries sign a document is totally unprecedented, and it is meant to send a clear signal that the Holy See is serious. In fact, the whole tone of the document has a "we're really fed up, and we're not going to take it any more; you guys had better get your act together" tone. In speaking of the abuses it is concerned with, the instruction uses verbs like "eliminate" and "eradicate."

Why else is the document significant?

The single most important reason -- even beyond the number of dicasteries involved -- is the kind of papal approval the document received. Normally, when a dicastery issues a document, the pope approves it in forma generalis, which means that the pope gave it the go-ahead, but it only carries the authority of the dicastery that issued it. For the instruction on collaboration, the pope approved it in forma specifica, which means that it carries the same weight of law as if the pope had personally issued it. It carries so much weight that, if it had modified something in the Code of Canon Law, that change would take precedence even over the Code itself.

What kind of concerns would prompt the Vatican to issue a document with this much authority?

For years the Holy See has been deluged with questions from bewildered laity about the roles they see other lay persons assuming in their parishes. The instruction states that it is, in part, a response to these questions, and its principal concern is to reinforce the proper distinction between the roles of the clergy and the laity. For years it has been a strategy in the dissident community to use the artificial shortage of priests to de-clericalize the Church by having the laity gradually assume the functions of priests. This strikes at the hierarchical structure of the Church as established by Christ, so the Holy See has drawn the line.

What is the danger of having the laity assuming functions that are more proper to the priesthood, so long as these functions are ones the laity are capable of performing?

People begin to see the priest not as a person entrusted with a sacred ministry by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, but simply as a person who performs certain functions. The instruction wants to return people to a sacramental understanding of the priesthood, rather than a purely functional one. Dissidents have tried to use the functional understanding to dismember the office of priest by peeling off the priest's functions one by one and handing them over to the laity. An extreme case of this is holding Masses where the priest only says those parts of the Eucharistic prayer necessary to ensure validity -- basically, the words of consecration -- and having lay persons "quasi-preside" by saying all the remaining parts. The document explicitly condemns this as a grave abuse.

But is that type of thing going on in the Los Angeles diocese?

No. Normally that kind of stuff is either done very quietly -- not at parish Masses -- or at the big liturgy conferences put on by highly dissident groups.

One issue that the document singles out for special attention is the use of "Eucharistic ministers."

Yes, the instruction states that the habitual use of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion is a practice that is to be "eliminated" -- the document's word. It states that they only should be used when there are not enough priests and deacons who can distribute Communion.

But almost every parish I've attended in the last 15 years has at least several extraordinary ministers assisting at every Sunday Mass. What does "habitual use" mean?

That unless other clergy are genuinely impeded, they should be used rather than extraordinary ministers.

Well, take a typical Mass in a typical parish.

That's pretty broad.

Okay, say 300 people, six extraordinary ministers. I don't think that's unusual.

I would venture to say that, before the advent of extraordinary ministers, seven priests were not needed to distribute Communion at Masses that size. One could claim that Communion would be "unduly prolonged" without that many people, but this would be a purely subjective assertion. Is an eight-minute Communion actually an unreasonably long time compared to a five-minute time? Historically, the Church hasn't thought so.

After the document has dealt with a wide range of abuses, its conclusion states: "All particular laws, customs and faculties conceded by the Holy See...or other ecclesiastical authorities which are contrary to the foregoing norms are hereby revoked."

Right. In other words, it doesn't matter what has been said in the past, whether by offices in the Holy See, by a national conference of bishops, or by an individual bishop. The Holy Father has personally revoked anything contrary to the norms of the instruction.

So priests can no longer say to their parishioners, "Our bishop gave permission for us to do this, so it's okay." The pope has, in essence, yanked all such permissions.

That is correct.

Does your forthcoming book include information from the instruction?

Yes. It was released just before we went to press, and so we delayed printing in order to include new material from the instruction. Catholic Answers is now be releasing the book in February 1998.

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