Paths to renewing the Irish Church

Dear Editor, I write as a simple layman, who wishes to respond to the invitation on the front page of The Irish Catholic ( 17/4/14) inviting laypeople to express their views on Church renewal. Father Tom Whelan, Prof. Eamonn Conway and some of our Irish bishops suggest that because of the shortage of priests, laypeople could be trained to lead weekday celebrations of Communion. They think that this is the best pastoral response to the priest shortage. I respectfully disagree. In his encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Pope John Paul II insisited that the Church draws her life from the Eucharist. Fifty years ago, Vatican II described the Eucharist as “the source and summit of the Christian life, containing the Church's entire spiritual wealth; Christ himself, our bread of life”.  At the Last Super, Jesus himself commanded us to “do this in memory of me”.  Quite simply, the Eucharist is our greatest treasure and should never be reduced to a simple Communion service.

Here are a few practical suggestions to respond to the shortage of priests.

1. Invite laicised priests to return to pastoral ministry. There are over 100,000 of these men in the world and many can be found in every Irish parish. Canon law teaches us that they are morally obliged to celebrate the Eucharist if laypeople ask for their help.

2. Make celibacy optional for Catholic priests, as many of them have a vocation to priesthood but none to celibacy. The charism of celibacy cannot be mandated. I would refer your readers and our bishops to an excellent article on Married Priests in the current issue of Reality magazine.

3.  Forget about clustering parishes and lay led Holy Communion services. Instead ordain suitable mature, married men to serve in their local communities.

Pope Francis has said that he would like local bishops' conferences to put forward suggestions for renewal and reform in the Church. Imagine if the Irish bishops conference and conferences all over Europe, America, Africa and others formally asked him for permission to ordain married men in response to the Eucharistic famine that many Churches in both first and third world experience, I have no doubt her would respond positively.

Yours etc.,

Peter Boucher,

Derry,

Northern Ireland.