Cathal BarryWeekday Communion services in the absence of Mass should be discouraged
The Church is being urged to introduce new rules that will restrict Communion services replacing weekday Masses in parishes where a priest is unavailable.
The practice of ‘priestless’ services led by a layperson or religious has grown up in recent years in some Irish parishes due to a shortage of priests. However, advisers to Church leaders are now calling for guidelines that would restrict Communion services in favour of other solutions where Holy Communion is not distributed.
Fr Tom Whelan, who advises the Irish bishops’ conference on liturgy, told The Irish Catholic that weekday Communion services in the absence of Mass should be “discouraged, rather than encouraged”.
“It is difficult to envisage a parish situation in Ireland that would justify the distribution of Communion outside of Mass on a weekday morning,” Fr Whelan said.
Instead, he called on the Church to recommend that laypeople lead “alternative weekday celebrations”. Such celebrations could include the Liturgy of the Word, morning and evening prayer and short exposition of the Blessed Sacrament with prayers, he suggested. However, a Communion service would be suitable in the context of a nursing home if a priest were not available to say Mass.
Dissappoint
The proposal will disappoint some laypeople who have taken on the role of leading Communion services in parishes where priests are unavailable.
Fr Michael Mullaney, professor of canon law at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, said he hoped the Irish bishops would consider adopting norms so that parishioners would be clearer on when a weekday Communion service without a priest might be appropriate.
He noted that, while the Church might permit suc services on a number of occasions, “the competence to decide this matter is the responsibility of the diocesan bishop”.
If the bishop does permit Holy Communion to be distributed at these celebrations, Fr Mullaney said that general and particular norms must be laid down regulate such gatherings. “The diocesan bishop must issue general or particular diocesan norms or implement the norms of the Episcopal Conference, if they exist,” he said.
Justify
Prof. Mullaney said the conditions which would justify having weekday Communion services currently did not exist in Ireland”, based on the law and documents of the Church, but he hoped their publication would be considered.
“Any such weekday celebration in Ireland at this time would be contrary to good pastoral practice,” the canon lawyer said.
Fr Whelan said: “The most appropriate short-term pastoral solution is not to be found in the distribution of Communion on weekdays.
“The best pastoral practice would be to assist communities to understand the difference between this form of service and Eucharistic celebration, and to do all that can be done to facilitate communities to become places of communal prayer daily,” he said.