Confusion twice confounded: On the motu proprio Spiritus Domini

Catholic World Report ^ | January 11, 2020 | Peter M.J. Stravinskas

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Confusion twice confounded: On the motu proprio Spiritus Domini

The underlying problem with this document is that it eviscerates the clear teaching of St. John Paul II in the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici.

Pope Francis’s latest motu proprio, Spiritus Domini, opens up the minor ministries of lector and acolyte to women. On the surface, this can look like much-ado-about nothing since females have been functioning as lectors and acolytes for decades now. Lord knows just about everyone has a grandmother who has been distributing Holy Communion for years on end.¹

However, there is much more that requires consideration here beyond persons performing “functions.”²

The underlying problem with this document is that it eviscerates the clear teaching of St. John Paul II in the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (1988), where we read:

When necessity and expediency in the Church require it, the Pastors, according to established norms from universal law, can entrust to the lay faithful certain offices and roles that are connected to their pastoral ministry but do not require the character of Orders. The Code of Canon Law states: “When the necessity of the Church warrants it and when ministers are lacking, lay persons, even if they are not lectors or acolytes, can also supply for certain of their offices, namely, to exercise the ministry of the word, to preside over liturgical prayers, to confer Baptism, and to distribute Holy Communion in accord with the prescriptions of the law.” However, the exercise of such tasks does not make Pastors of the lay faithful: in fact, a person is not a minister simply in performing a task, but through sacramental ordination. Only the Sacrament of Orders gives the ordained minister a particular participation in the office of Christ, the Shepherd and Head, and in his Eternal Priesthood. The task exercised in virtue of supply takes its legitimacy formally and immediately from the official deputation given by the Pastors, as well as from its concrete exercise under the guidance of ecclesiastical authority. (n. 23)

John Paul continues:

In the same Synod Assembly, however, a critical judgment was voiced along with these positive elements, about a too-indiscriminate use of the word “ministry,” the confusion and the equating of the common priesthood and the ministerial priesthood, the lack of observance of ecclesiastical laws and norms, the arbitrary interpretation of the concept of “supply,” the tendency towards a “clericalization” of the lay faithful and the risk of creating, in reality, an ecclesial structure of parallel service to that founded on the Sacrament of Orders. (n. 23)

It should be stated at the outset that John Paul was not inventing theological categories. Indeed, one cannot point to a single line in the sixteen documents of Vatican II where the word “ministry” or “minister” was applied to the non-ordained. So, let’s see what the careful John Paul is saying and how that squares with what Francis is saying.

First: “in fact, a person is not a minister simply in performing a task, but through sacramental ordination.” Sloppy language has aided and abetted the confusion over the years, so that everyone and his uncle is a minister of something or other (e.g., “music minister,” “minister of hospitality,” “bereavement minister”). Which is why John Paul reminds everyone that in the Synod spawning Christifideles Laici, “a critical judgment was voiced. . . about a too-indiscriminate use of the word ‘ministry.’”

Second: Why is this so? Because it leads to “confusion,” he says, and runs “the risk of creating, in reality, an ecclesial structure of parallel service to that founded on the Sacrament of Orders.” Ten years after Christifideles Laici, eight dicasteries of the Roman Curia took the unprecedented action of co-promulgating a document dealing with these very serious questions: Instruction on Certain Questions Regarding the Collaboration of the Non-Ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of the Priest. In other words, this problem has been festering for a long time. The prelates responsible for that Instruction remind all of the inter-connectedness of issues:

Several times, Francis is at pains to distance this move from giving any quarter to female access to the episcopate, presbyterate or diaconate. Of course, this move does, in fact, give grounds for the false hope that access to the formal ministries of lector and acolyte is indeed a stepping stone to eventual ordination. That is pastorally insensitive and harmful to the souls of those being misled. Or, is this document a sop to those fixated on the female diaconate, giving them a soft landing for a final negative judgment on the female diaconate?

What is equally odd is that Francis, arguably the most anti-clerical Pope in history, has now engaged in that very clericalization that he has so often condemned and that was foreseen by John Paul over thirty years ago.

If Francis thought that this action would placate those pressing the cause of female ordination, he is grossly mistaken. The only effect of this document will be a further alienation of those he has alienated for years.

Endnotes:

¹The near-universal practice in the United States of having recourse to “extraordinary” ministers of Holy Communion is particularly egregious, in violation of Immensae Caritatis, the Code of Canon Law, Inaestimabile Donum, and Redemptionis Sacramentum. “Extraordinary” is, in fact, “ordinary”; sad to say, far more American Catholics receive Holy Communion from a lay person than from a priest or deacon. Why have the bishops not reined in this abuse?

²I have a particular interest (and competence) in this area since my thesis for the licentiate in sacred theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington was precisely on the ministries below diaconate, from Trent to Vatican II.

³In point of fact, Francis is not in any way a man of collegiality and synodality. He doesn’t even consult his own College of Cardinals. His immediate predecessors held meetings of the College in advance of a consistory to create new cardinals, thereby soliciting and receiving their counsel. Francis has done this only the first time around, presumably because either he does not value the insights of the cardinals or he knows that their views might challenge his.

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In point of fact, Francis is not in any way a man of collegiality and synodality. He doesn’t even consult his own College of Cardinals. His immediate predecessors held meetings of the College in advance of a consistory to create new cardinals, thereby soliciting and receiving their counsel. Francis has done this only the first time around, presumably because either he does not value the insights of the cardinals or he knows that their views might challenge his.

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Ping

[Bayard]

““Lay persons of suitable age and with the gifts determined by decree of the Episcopal Conference may be permanently assigned, by means of the established liturgical rite, to the ministries of lectors and acolytes; however, the conferment of such a role does not entitle them to support or remuneration from the Church”.”

The Canonical question is what liturgical rite? There are many different types of liturgical rites from the rites of matrimony to the rite of blessing and enrollment of the scapular.

If the rite includes some form of laying on hands by a Bishop, then its a no no.

I don’t know if that is the ritual they are envisioning.

[Hambone 1934]

Great..the KKK can join the church as “ JOE BIDEN CATHOLICS....Is a good person and helps Planned Parenthood kill black babies....Would any of the pro-abort bishops have a problem with that ????????

[Bigg Red]

Step down, Bergoglio.