Madam, - Shane Halpin's letter of July 8th and David Rice's excellent report on the lesson we might learn from the Catholic Church in France ( Rite and Reason, same date) could be a wake-up call for Ireland.
Forty years after the Second Vatican Council our church here is still very much a clerical church. Before describing how the church was hierarchically organised, that council (the highest teaching authority in the church) stressed that the essential definition of the church was "the People of God".
Because of our clerical history in Ireland, even the laity still subconsciously think of the church in terms of bishops and priests. A little bit of theology and history might shake us free of that straitjacket to enable us to see some more radical solutions to current problems. "Radical" is used here in its sense of "going back to our roots" as a Christian church.
The Vatican recently ordered bishops around the world to appoint a priest to organise special prayer meetings and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to pray for vocations. We have been praying for decades for more priests in Latin America and now in our home countries, but we fail to see that perhaps God has already answered our prayers: that God is not interested in "more of the same". God is asking us to use our God-given reason and common sense to search for new answers.
There is no need to close or sell the church building. We could ordain a working man or woman or a recently retired person to celebrate the Eucharist and bring the sacraments to the sick and dying. Everything else can be taken care of by a well organised Christian community of lay people with their various gifts, as they are doing brilliantly in France. The "official" church may not be ready yet for married priests and women priests, but they will come in God's good time.
For the first hundred years after the death of Jesus, Christianity was not recognised as a religion and there were no churches. The Eucharist was celebrated in private houses and the leader was somebody appointed by an apostle or a man elected by the community. More often the leader of the celebration would be the owners of the house, who could be a married couple or a rich widow. Only later was the leader prayed over by the laying on of hands, and only very slowly did our present notion of priesthood develop.
Many people imagine that at the Last Supper Jesus ordained the 11 apostles as priests, giving them everything except Roman collars. But in fact there is nothing in the gospels to show that Jesus consciously founded the Church, or even a church. Nor did he ever ordain anyone a priest in the modern sense, or even think of a cultic priesthood.
Inspired by the early history of our Christian communities and the division of ministries, we should be free to devise a healthy and human re-organisation that could revitalise our parishes. - Yours, etc,
Fr SEAN FAGAN SM,
Lower Leeson Street,
Dublin 2.
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Madam, - The "crisis" caused by a shortage of priests ( Rite and Reason, July 8th) is by no means universal in France.
Since I began visiting the Abbey of Lagrasse last year, four young men have received the habit of the Canons Regular of the Mother of God, an order formed only 40 years ago (see website www.lagrassecanons.com). Other young men are testing their vocation with the order, which works closely with the Diocese of Carcassonne in providing an apostolate to families and young people.
The big difference between this order (and many like it in France) and the parishes of which David Rice writes is that the Canons of Lagrasse use the extraordinary form of the Mass, a rite 400 years older than the Carolingian abbey they are currently restoring to a vibrant new life. - Is mise,
KIERON WOOD,
Grange Wood,
Dublin 16.
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Madam, - When the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin recently advertised for parish pastoral workers there was such a massive response that many well-qualified applicants had to be turned away. But then, unlike the priesthood, these posts were not restricted to male celibates.
The current Eucharistic famine is entirely man-made in that some men made the rules which are causing it, and they are intent on preserving these rules at all costs.
The current clerical equivalent of "Let them eat cake" is: "Let them have the Tridentine Mass!" A very far cry from Jesus's compassion for the people. - Yours, etc,
SOLINE HUMBERT,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.