Occasionally we feel we have to remind you of the simple and universally applicable formula for allowing the Flock to receive the Eucharist, where there no or few members of the Tridentine priesthood available;
(a) Ordained celebrants elected by a parish
(b) obviously celibacy is irrelevant.
(c) no preaching; sermons from the orders
(d) church property as now under episcopal control
(e) the Sacrament of Reconciliation by General Absolution
(f) the entire process possible in one year.
Point (f) There will obviously be no five or six years of theological education. This can safely be left to the orders. In any case, it was difficult to see the relevance of this to the provision of the Eucharist. The number of people who went to a particular church to hear an elaborate theological disquisition must have been very limited, and it is still available from the Orders if required. The cynical might say this lengthy period of theological education was devised as a test of maintaining celibacy ; the even more cynical that it was devised to add lustre to the profession of the priesthood. We will add only that neither seems relevant in 2016.
This lengthy spell of education might have had occasional relevance to a particular penitent, but General Absolution eliminates this necessity. Again, where a scrupulous penitent feels his case requires careful individual consideration, the Orders are still available.
Obviously the clergy who experienced – or suffered- this lengthy theological education must feel a sense of being by-passed . They genuinely have our sympathy , but it is tempered for those of us who have had our life’s work supplanted by a change in business methods, by a new scientific discovery which makes our life’s work outdated overnight, by unworthy promotion of well-connected juniors by a board room coup d’etat or by more efficient foreign competition.
These things happen. But the Eucharist must be provided.