CNS

A reader brought my attention to a Catholic News Service article on the Dutch Dominicans by Carol Glatz. In this highly sympathetic article (almost a press release) you would basically have no idea how wrong the proposals are. In fact the only negative reactions are phrases such as:

The general curia of the Dominicans expressed surprise over a booklet..

and

while they "laud the concern of our brothers" over the shortage of priests, they did not believe "the solutions that they have proposed are beneficial to the church nor in harmony with its tradition."

By that would you have any idea that the booklet proposed male and female lay presiders for the Mass? My readers informs me that Carol Glatz has also done questionable pieces for the U.S. Bishops news service.

Here is some of the worst Eucharistic theology I have ever read.

Because of the priest shortage in the Netherlands, local church officials advise Catholics to drive to a nearby parish that has a priest, and some parishes have a Liturgy of the Word and a Communion service with preconsecrated hosts.

But Father Lascaris said a eucharistic service with preconsecrated hosts is like receiving “bread and wine from someone else’s table.”

He said to imagine going to a restaurant, “and you sit down and they bring you food from another restaurant” from a city far away.

Parishioners also want to celebrate together with a presider from their own community since a leader or priest is a member and “a servant of the community,” he said.

He said Mass should not be “a method of power; we see it as a method of celebrating.”

Ironic though since only progressives see the priesthood as a method of power in the first place. Though this someone else’s/another city analogy really angers me for describing the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus as being somehow lesser if not consecrated at that specific Mass. As if his sacramental presence in the Eucharist can become stale and needs a "Consecrated on" date to ensure Eucharistic freshness.

"Parishioners also want to celebrate together with a presider from their own community" is also so much nonsense. If people have a visiting priest do they stand up and demand that he go away? So much for the priest being In Persona Christi – In the Person of Christ. So much for one baptism, one faith – that guy is a stranger — drive him out in favor of somebody else. Stone him he isn’t from our parish.