Liverpool doesn't have enough priests?
Evidently the Archdiocese of Liverpool has the priests, but there are more funerals than they can handle... therefore lay people are being trained to officiate at funerals - which means no funeral Mass. That is the whole point of a Catholic funeral - right? A Mass? When people are denied a Catholic funeral* - most people think that only then are they buried without a Mass. You can appoint anyone to say the prayers - but it's neither a priest's blessing nor a Mass. The Mass is THE preeminent prayer for the dead. This is such a shame.
"In some of our parishes in the diocese priests are being asked to celebrate over 120 funerals each year," Archbishop Kelly wrote.Really? Well what are priests for? Writing blogs? Let them say Mass and let someone else go to the cemetery then. In my parish if there is a funeral, daily Mass is not celebrated that day.
"That does not neatly work out at two or three times a week," he wrote. "Some weeks there can be six or seven."
Archbishop Kelly said that the lay ministers -- some of whom are drawn from the roster of Eucharistic ministers, catechists and religious sisters -- would receive continuing support and training to ensure that the service they provide is "of the best quality" and was not seen by Catholics as "second-class." - US Catholic
It doesn't make sense. I can understand in areas where there are no priests at all - but if you have the priests it seems to me they can handle it. Imagine if St. John Vianney didn't show up for Mass or confessions because it was just him and he'd already had too many.
Maybe if priests were actually ordained for ministry there wouldn't be this problem. (Think a few celebrity priests - with or without secular jobs... just saying.)
*Like Teddy Kennedy. What?
Strange times, indeed. I doubt that God has blessed us with less vocations. My bet is that we in the West (Liverpool included)aborted some of them, refused to properly catechize more of them, and turned the rest away at the seminary doors.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, we reap what we sowed. For fifty years we've sown confusion and kowtowed to Modernism. Hence, few priests. I hope that the nail technician down the street isn't the one presiding at my funeral.