Wanted: new kinds of priests
Cardinal Sarah’s letter
The coronavirus pandemic, deadly
though it is, has taught humanity many lessons, not least the importance
for human wellbeing of connectedness and interdependence. Zoom, Team,
Hangout, Skype and so on are valuable software tools for communication
and interaction. But they lack something – the “real presence” of other
people, for which there is no substitute. And there is a close parallel
here to the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, especially
in the celebration of Mass. Catholics the world over have felt the
absence of that sense of closeness to God that comes from being actually
and really present. It affects and deepens the experience of prayer in
mysterious ways. Watching a screen is not the same as being there.
This
is a theological point borne out by guidance issued by Cardinal Robert
Sarah, the Vatican’s senior liturgical authority, on the importance of
returning as soon as possible to the normal practice of Sunday Mass
attendance. He acknowledges the value of Masses and other services being
streamed over the internet, but as soon as circumstances permit, he
says, “it is necessary and urgent to return to the normality of
Christian life, which has the church building as its home and the
celebration of the liturgy, especially the Eucharist, as the summit
towards which the activity of the Church is directed; and at the same
time it is the font from which all her power flows.”
His letter to Catholic bishops follows the unsettling finding, in a poll by Catholic Voices reported in The Tablet, that only 61 per cent of Catholics who were previously regular Mass attenders said they intended to resume that practice when it is possible to do so. That figure may represent a lingering fear of contracting or unwittingly transmitting the coronavirus. Present practice is for congregations at Mass to be much smaller in order for social distancing rules to be observed, and many parishes have been using an online booking system to keep numbers under control. This has meant that probably rather fewer than 61 per cent of practising Catholics have been able to keep up weekly attendance. If there was a 100 per cent return, while social distancing rules still applied, parishes would have to provide many more Masses and would quickly find that there were not enough priests to cope with the demand.
Maybe the coronavirus is telling the Church something. Cardinal Sarah has reminded us of the vital importance of the “real presence” of the Eucharist. Might it follow that the pool from which new priests are recruited is too narrowly defined? Catholics in many parts of the world are already deprived of regular access to the Eucharist. It cannot be assumed that the coronavirus will one day go away. The Church may have to adapt to life where the virus’ continuing presence, and the resulting changes in human behaviour because of it, are the new normal. The Church must look again at the case for ordaining married men – and start to take more seriously the debate about ordaining women.
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