Who will celebrate?: celibacy and the Eucharist

It is well known that the age profile of serving Catholic priests is such that a dwindling and often exhausted clergy are serving multiple churches in administrative areas that might have been served by half a dozen priests 50 years ago.  The arrival of missionary priests from other parts of the globe is helping but nowhere at the scale and pace required to replace priests. Those who have retired have not, in many cases, really retired as they are on call on a regular basis. Things we took for granted in the past such as school chaplains, hospital chaplains and availability of weekday masses are becoming increasingly scarce on the ground.

The question of clerical celibacy has been raised as a possible barrier to recovering priestly vocations. Along the question of women’s ordination which I have explored in earlier blogs this year (Women’s ordination – weighing up the arguments ), these ‘hot button’ issues have been the subject of debate in Ireland and elsewhere. The Synodal process has generated much discussion and many questions, but as yet it remains unclear what practical changes, if any, may emerge regarding these matters. 

Questions of inter-communion

The question of who can receive Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic Church has raised much debate and, at times, conflict. The great sacrament of communion, which is the Eucharist, has, in the context of Christian division, been the occasion of exclusion and much suffering, especially, but not exclusively, among family members from different Christian traditions.

The Roman Catholic Church understands itself as the Church in which the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church professed in the Nicene Creed subsists. It does not simply state that it is that Church in an exclusive sense, but rather that the Church of Christ fully ‘subsists in’ the Roman Catholic Church, whose visible head is the Pope, the Bishop of Rome and successor of Saint Peter (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 8).

How might our parish churches look like in 2050? #3

 

What is the first thing that catches your eye when you enter a Roman Catholic church? For many, it is the altar—and often the tabernacle. In older churches these were usually aligned on the same visual axis, the altar built into a retable that housed the tabernacle. Since the late 1960s, however, altars have been brought forward so the priest can stand behind them facing the people. In some churches the tabernacle was also moved, either to a side altar or to another clearly visible and dignified location. Where this happened, the altar naturally became the dominant feature on entering the church.

How might our parish churches look like in 2050? #1

 

In this and following blogs I explore some possible ideas for making better use of existing spaces in our churches. 

A word by way of context: as we are only painfully aware, Mass attendance is in freefall over recent decades, priests are ageing but here and there a few little green shoots of hope are sprouting up, unexpectedly.