Thanks for this, Paul. Do you agree that the sacrament of Holy Orders needs some re-thinking? Is Dr. Prusak in a position to move any bishops to address the institutional causes of our problems? We have so many wonderful thinkers who could get together with strategists and activists to make some reforms happen.
I don’t think the sacrament needs to be rethought, but I think seminary formation and the institutional governing authority that we give priests ought to be rethought.
I'm thinking about what qualifies a person to be ordained leader of a Eucharistic community. It is the whole community that is a sign to the world of God present, wouldn't you say? We were discussing it on SC under the question of whose job it is to connect up the people in the pews with the vision/worldview/mission of the Church. Maybe I should have said the role of the Eucharistic community leader needs to be thought out. Thanks for your work, Paul.
In his document for the Amazon, the pope said that it was the Eucharist and Confession that were exclusive to the priesthood. Now he didn’t directly say, but I think can be implied, that therefore everything else a priest usually does isn’t necessarily exclusive to priestly ministry. With that in mind, I don’t think being the community leader is necessary to the sacrament of Holy Orders.
It helps me to see how everything fits together, so I am thinking of the presider at the Eucharistic liturgy as the community leader. That person's job is to draw the people together around the whole point of their being present and what it means.So it isn't just one ministry among many in the parish. All the ministries serve the mission and lay people can lead most of them. I am in dire need of coherence, Paul, so I may be overemphasizing the Eucharistic leadership role. Can you see how I am envisioning it? I suppose we could have a lay person with the leadership role and an ordained person to preside at the sacramental liturgies, but separates the two roles. Some parishes in my diocese do it like that. The lay leader is an administrator and the sacramental minister is hired to come in on weekends. Changes the dynamic.
Thanks for this, Paul. Do you agree that the sacrament of Holy Orders needs some re-thinking? Is Dr. Prusak in a position to move any bishops to address the institutional causes of our problems? We have so many wonderful thinkers who could get together with strategists and activists to make some reforms happen.
I don’t think the sacrament needs to be rethought, but I think seminary formation and the institutional governing authority that we give priests ought to be rethought.
I'm thinking about what qualifies a person to be ordained leader of a Eucharistic community. It is the whole community that is a sign to the world of God present, wouldn't you say? We were discussing it on SC under the question of whose job it is to connect up the people in the pews with the vision/worldview/mission of the Church. Maybe I should have said the role of the Eucharistic community leader needs to be thought out. Thanks for your work, Paul.
In his document for the Amazon, the pope said that it was the Eucharist and Confession that were exclusive to the priesthood. Now he didn’t directly say, but I think can be implied, that therefore everything else a priest usually does isn’t necessarily exclusive to priestly ministry. With that in mind, I don’t think being the community leader is necessary to the sacrament of Holy Orders.
It helps me to see how everything fits together, so I am thinking of the presider at the Eucharistic liturgy as the community leader. That person's job is to draw the people together around the whole point of their being present and what it means.So it isn't just one ministry among many in the parish. All the ministries serve the mission and lay people can lead most of them. I am in dire need of coherence, Paul, so I may be overemphasizing the Eucharistic leadership role. Can you see how I am envisioning it? I suppose we could have a lay person with the leadership role and an ordained person to preside at the sacramental liturgies, but separates the two roles. Some parishes in my diocese do it like that. The lay leader is an administrator and the sacramental minister is hired to come in on weekends. Changes the dynamic.