Priestless parishes/administrators

Katieee

I am writing an essay onthe topic of how the problem of priestless parishes should be tackled. I think in the future there will be more people administrating, leaving the PP to do his actual role. I also believe that in the future the Church will have to consider the possibility of ordaining women, as there is no actual evidence that Jesus himself only wanted men ordained.
I would really appreciate some interested/educated opinions on this topic please.
Many thanks

ISAW

Katieee wrote: »

I am writing an essay onthe topic of how the problem of priestless parishes should be tackled. I think in the future there will be more people administrating, leaving the PP to do his actual role. I also believe that in the future the Church will have to consider the possibility of ordaining women, as there is no actual evidence that Jesus himself only wanted men ordained.
I would really appreciate some interested/educated opinions on this topic please.
Many thanks

Excellent question.

I believe in regions where demographics dictate it the Roman Church are already planning t for the dearth of priests and how to culturally accomodate that.

while much of the following applies to other denominations e.g. orthodox or to other countries e.g. France Ill confine it to roman Catholics and to Ireland

There are theological and dogmatic elements -e.g. priests are men which wont be changed
One could argue about women deacons which would be giving Holy Orders to women. there is biblical and other argument about women deacons.
the main issue is how priests are different. They are different because only they can say Mass and Hear confessions. Everything else can be done by other people.
This means in terms of administration that offices like cardinal -a temporal office -coul in theory be given to a non priest (it has in the past) or to a woman.
there is an argument that the administrator of a diocese could be a woman or lay person but a bishop would have to be a priest and therefore a man.

The administrative work can be done by lay people. Look at any parish. It probably has about 50 parish groups doing all sorts of things from faith development to choir to looking after the old to youth clubs to bereavement support or relationship counseling or child rearing. even flower arranging bridge or cooking. It requires management, finance, child protection policies etc. All usually done by parishioners.

Much of the other theological work _ Mass readings, preparing the church, religious instruction in schools, funeral rites , weddings , baptisms , calling on the sick or new parishoners etc. can be dodn by non priests -but one might ask what then becomes the pastoral role of the priest?

AAs for Mass. If a parish has no priest or the priest is sick ther may be consecrated hosts in the tabernacle or brought to it. All of the liturgy can be covered by non priests except the eucharistic prayer. the consectation is then skipped and the consecrates hosts distributed as communion.

Another reform is permanent deacons. In the past amm priests were ordained deacons and then later ordained priests. But today ther are people who become deacons and then stop at that. they can do everything the priest does except the two above things.
Take a group of three or four parishes. in the past there might have been three or four priests per parish. This could be replaced by up to four priests and say six permanent deacons per parish.

Benny_Cake

Katieee wrote: »

I am writing an essay onthe topic of how the problem of priestless parishes should be tackled. I think in the future there will be more people administrating, leaving the PP to do his actual role. I also believe that in the future the Church will have to consider the possibility of ordaining women, as there is no actual evidence that Jesus himself only wanted men ordained.
I would really appreciate some interested/educated opinions on this topic please.
Many thanks

My opinion is far from educated, but I think what we'll see emerging are teams of priests who serve a particular group of parishes. They may ultimately share a house together, and they would circulate among parishes saying Mass and hearing confessions and so on. The bulk of the remaining pastoral work could be done by lay people or deacons - I could be wrong but I think deacons can perform weddings (provided the ceremony isn't a wedding Mass). Ultimately this is a good thing, lay people will get more involved in the life of a parish and a stronger sense of community will emerge. The one drawback I can think of is that this may be less than satisfying for priests, I'm sure many enjoyed doing the type of work in the past which they will no longer have enough time for.

I tend to agree with you about women priests, but that is a completely different can of worms and best saved for another thread! I'm not sure whether it is the silver bullet in terms of the shortage of vocations either.

gimmebroadband

I would imagine that priests will be exported from other countries to take up the slack where there is very few.

Administration duties should be left to the laity to perform, to free up priest to do their ministry.

Our local priest serves two parishes, and in our dioscese there are cluster parishes where the priest can be called from any one parish to assist with another!

There have been endless discussions on priestesses in the CC, it will NEVER happen. Jesus promised that his Church will prevail until the end of time, and we should trust him that he will not leave us short of ministers!

mikemac1

Where once Ireland exported priests to Africa and Latin America will we ever see this reversed?

As I understand those regions are where the Church is seeing most growth.

If a priest from Mayo could serve in Brazil it doesn't seem mad to me we may someday see a priest from Brazil serving in Mayo
Might be a decade or more away but could it happen?

Katieee

gimmebroadband wrote: »

Jesus promised that his Church will prevail until the end of time, and we should trust him that he will not leave us short of ministers!

I don't want to oopen up a can of worms here, but actually, I fail to see why that means we can't have priestesses? There is no evidence to say that Jesus only wanted males ordained. His apostles were men yes. This is because women were not seen as equal when Jesus lived. That was the society in which Jesus lived...not us! Why after all these years would we still follow the rules and norms of a Jewish society 20/30 BC? When society has clearly moved on in every sense!
To keep the church alive we need to open up doors like this. It can't be only the extremist whose view is taken seriously on this matter.

ISAW- thank you very much for your post, I found it very helpful.

NIMAN

If they were to let priests marry it might have a big effect ... in many different ways.

gimmebroadband

Katieee wrote: »

I don't want to oopen up a can of worms here, but actually, I fail to see why that means we can't have priestesses? There is no evidence to say that Jesus only wanted males ordained. His apostles were men yes. This is because women were not seen as equal when Jesus lived. That was the society in which Jesus lived...not us! Why after all these years would we still follow the rules and norms of a Jewish society 20/30 BC? When society has clearly moved on in every sense!
To keep the church alive we need to open up doors like this. It can't be only the extremist whose view is taken seriously on this matter.

ISAW- thank you very much for your post, I found it very helpful.

The priest represents Jesus IN PERSONA CHRISTI!

Mark 16:9; Luke 7: 37-50; John 8:3-11 - Jesus allowed women to uniquely join in His mission, exalting them above cultural norms. His decision not to ordain women had nothing to do with culture. The Gospel writers are also clear that women participated in Jesus' ministry and, unlike men, never betrayed Jesus. Women have always been held with the highest regard in the Church (e.g., the Church's greatest saint and model of faith is a woman; the Church's constant teaching on the dignity of motherhood; the Church's understanding of humanity as being the Bride united to Christ, etc.).

http://www.scripturecatholic.com/the_priesthood.html

Katieee

gimmebroadband wrote: »

The priest represents Jesus IN PERSONA CHRISTI!

Mark 16:9; Luke 7: 37-50; John 8:3-11 - Jesus allowed women to uniquely join in His mission, exalting them above cultural norms. His decision not to ordain women had nothing to do with culture. The Gospel writers are also clear that women participated in Jesus' ministry and, unlike men, never betrayed Jesus. Women have always been held with the highest regard in the Church (e.g., the Church's greatest saint and model of faith is a woman; the Church's constant teaching on the dignity of motherhood; the Church's understanding of humanity as being the Bride united to Christ, etc.).

While it is true that the priest represents Jesus, why could a woman not REPRESENT Jesus. We know that our priest is not actually Jesus, so why should it matter whether that representive is male or female?

Pwpane

Katieee wrote: »

While it is true that the priest represents Jesus, why could a woman not REPRESENT Jesus. We know that our priest is not actually Jesus, so why should it matter whether that representive is male or female?

Also, God is neither male nor female. He created humans both male and female in His likeness. How come only one sex is suitable for being His priest? Christ could not be both male and female. If Jesus had been born female, would it have been correct to restrict the priesthood to just women?

Pwpane

gimmebroadband wrote: »

The priest represents Jesus IN PERSONA CHRISTI!

Mark 16:9; Luke 7: 37-50; John 8:3-11 - Jesus allowed women to uniquely join in His mission, exalting them above cultural norms. His decision not to ordain women had nothing to do with culture. The Gospel writers are also clear that women participated in Jesus' ministry and, unlike men, never betrayed Jesus. Women have always been held with the highest regard in the Church (e.g., the Church's greatest saint and model of faith is a woman; the Church's constant teaching on the dignity of motherhood; the Church's understanding of humanity as being the Bride united to Christ, etc.).

http://www.scripturecatholic.com/the_priesthood.html

The person of Christ:

If God the Father is neither male nor female, then the Son of God in reality is neither male nor female also. Father, Son etc - this language is used in the same sense as 'mankind' representing both male and female. Jesus could not be both male and female, he could only be one - but one that represented 'man' i.e. male and female.

It's a bit patronising to say that 'Jesus allowed women to uniquely join in his mission'. Jesus is for all humans, not just for one sex only with the others let in if they're good...:D

tommy2bad

"for this is my body which will be given up for you."
I think the image and the words would lead me to believe that the sacrament would work better with a female celebrant.

prinz

mikemac1 wrote: »

Where once Ireland exported priests to Africa and Latin America will we ever see this reversed?
Might be a decade or more away but could it happen?

It's already happening.

gimmebroadband

According to this latest report, it looks like the numbers of priests are increasing worldwide!

http://www.zenit.org/article-34441?l=english

Like I already said, priests from other countries will probably be sent to places where there is a shortage!

Cossax

gimmebroadband wrote: »

According to this latest report, it looks like the numbers of priests are increasing worldwide!

http://www.zenit.org/article-34441?l=english

Like I already said, priests from other countries will probably be sent to places where there is a shortage!

Slight tangent but how do they count the number of Catholics, does anyone know? They do mention baptised Catholics but it's unclear if that's the only measure.

Peregrinus

Cossax wrote: »

Slight tangent but how do they count the number of Catholics, does anyone know? They do mention baptised Catholics but it's unclear if that's the only measure.

Every diocese is supposed to report to Rome each year, giving the number of Catholics in the diocese. The total number of Catholics in the world is simply the sum of all these reports.

Couple of points:

The dioceses don’t count the number of Catholics they have; they estimate it. Which means they don’t make decisions about individuals; you can never say that they are (or are not) counting Cossax, or Peregrinus, as a Catholic in their estimate.

It’s up to each diocese to decide how to do this. The methodology used varies from place to place.

The general presumption is that, once someone is baptized a Catholic, they are considered to remain Catholic unless there is some reason to think that they have ceased to be Catholic. The typical methodology will involve looking at the number of people baptized in the diocese, and then making adjustments, based either on data or on assumptions, to reflect
- Catholics dying
- Catholics moving out of the diocese
- Catholics leaving the church
- Catholics moving into the diocese
- Non-Catholics joining the church
- Etc.

Some of the figures, frankly, are pretty rubbery. It’s not unknown for diocesan estimates to be suspiciously round (“we have 150,000 Catholics”) and to remain unchanged for years and years, until suddenly there is a large step-change when someone in the diocesan office decides the figure is wildly out of line with reality, and a fresh estimate is needed.

Other estimates seem to be quite robust. The estimates from the Irish dioceses, for example, at least in aggregate, tally pretty closely with the Republic of Ireland and Nothern Ireland census figures for the number of people in Ireland who identify themselves as Catholics. (It remains to be seen whether this will still be true when the full results of the 2011 census are published. My guess would be that the rate at which people leave the church and cease to identify as Catholics has stepped up since 2006, and estimation techniques may not reflect this yet.)