The problem is urgent, as what worked in the past when there were plenty of priests doesn't work today.

"We cannot expect things to change if we always do the same thing" says Archbishop Luis Argüello.

"To have different results, you have to do different things" he added.

The challenge

• Only 16 percent of people live in rural areas. Over 80 percent of Spanish municipalities are rural. Most people are Catholic. There are churches serving tiny populations everywhere.
• Priestly vocations are declining. Castile's nine dioceses have 1,505 priests, but only 39 seminarians.
• Priests' average age is close to 70 years.
• Rural parish life could become little more than the occasional celebration of the Eucharist when the priest serves several communities.

"It's very tiring, life is hard. How can priests of those ages serve 10 or 15 towns? And some younger ones serve people from as many as 40 small villages" one says.

The priest shortage means one priest celebrates Mass on Sundays in the two or three places he can, then another two or three communities get Mass the next Sunday.

He also travels to villages when people die and for patron saint festivals.

Fr Jorge González Guadalix of the Archdiocese of Madrid says he is more in favour of celebrating the Eucharist once a month in smaller communities than promoting other options such as lay-led liturgies.

González says it doesn't matter if the neighbouring Church is just 4km away - people want their church, with its saints, altarpiece and community.

Forming pastoral teams

Pastoral teams based in somewhat larger towns from which other villages are served are working elsewhere in Spain.

This means that although a priest remains canonically responsible for 30 villages, he isn't managing alone.

The ‘pastoral units'—composed of priests and religious—would care for the little towns and their seasonal population changes.

Castile's expanding dormitory communities would also benefit from the pastoral units. Established close to cities, these communities typically have more young people and migrant populations.

Lay-led Sundays

Increasing lay-or deacon-led Sunday celebrations of the Word is another option.

The Vatican's Dicastery for Clergy and the Congregation for Divine Worship is not keen. It "blurs the figure of the priest and makes people used to living the faith without priests" a priest says.

He says many already feel the church doors are always closed or that there is no contact with the priest. Fewer people participate in the Church's ministry because there is a feeling of abandonment.

Centralising Mass (but it doesn't work)

It is possible to centralise the Mass in regions with slightly larger populations. However Catholics haven't warmed to this idea. They like their local community where they are known and don't want to travel to Mass.

For González, it is a matter of putting his eyes on God first, reaching out to the people and evangelising with all the means available.

Source

• The Pillar

By Saturday afternoon, a fellow theology student and I had cobbled together an order of service complete with that Sunday's readings, hymns and a reflection on the Gospel.

She and I texted a few of our friends and agreed to gather in her Cambridge apartment the following morning.

She presided over our Liturgy of the Word, and I preached.

We planned to continue gathering in our small group until public Masses resumed.

But the following week, restrictions grew stricter and half of us had moved away from the Boston area to shelter in place with family.

So, instead, we met on Zoom.

Our small community has been meeting online every Sunday for our Liturgies in Dispersion (a name borrowed from the Jesuit idea of communitas ad dispersionem).

Together, we finished Lent, observed the sacred Triduum and even held an Easter Vigil liturgy complete with sung Exsultet and all nine Scripture readings.

Each Sunday, there are a few new faces as folks share our Zoom link with their friends.

We have a dedicated cantor, rotating preachers and presiders, and even weekly "parish" announcements.

For me, this quarantine has not been marked primarily by frustration over losing the Mass. Instead, it has been marked by spiritual creativity and a renewed love for lay-led liturgy.

Apart from these Sunday gatherings, I have found myself nestling back into older habits of prayer.

In quarantine, my family and I have been praying the rosary every night.

With my two siblings and I living away from home before the pandemic, we have not had this routine of prayer in nearly a decade.

What once felt like a chore is now an opportunity to share our individual anxieties, fears and hopes with each other.

So when I recently read about prominent U.S. Catholics bragging about attending illicit underground Masses or petitioning bishops to prematurely reopen churches, I was confused.

I could understand the longing for community and sacrament, but I could not understand risking public health and the common good.

I began to realize that, for me, this quarantine has not been marked primarily by frustration over losing the Mass. Instead, it has been marked by spiritual creativity and a renewed love for lay-led liturgy.

Is It Real?

A friend who attended our Easter Vigil liturgy remarked afterward, "That was really nice, but was it real?" In many ways, he asked a valid and multifaceted question:

• Did it count for our Easter Sunday obligation?
• Can Catholic worship look so different from a normal Sunday Mass?

Given that most U.S. Catholic dioceses have dispensed Catholics from their weekly Sunday obligation, I feel unhampered by trying to make my Sunday worship "count."

But as the theology behind the Sunday obligation teaches, Christian faith stirs up a desire to gather in community to celebrate every week.

Many parishes have tried to meet this need by offering live-streamed Masses. But for some, simply watching the Mass happen from their living rooms is not enough.

Christian worship has had to respond to different cultures and situations. In our current culture of social distancing, lay-led worship is just another iteration of liturgy's adaptability.

Lay-led liturgy is not the same thing, but that doesn't mean it isn't real.

My community's Sunday liturgies are different from a live-streamed Mass.

We do not have a priest, and we conclude each service with an act of spiritual communion instead of the Eucharist.

There is time for everyone to offer their own reflections on the Scripture readings and add their own intentions for the community to pray.

These liturgies strive to enact the Second Vatican Council's ideal of full and active participation in worship.

I spoke to John Baldovin, S.J., about whether or not these lay-led liturgies were "real."

Father Baldovin, a professor of liturgy at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, laughed and said, "It's not the same thing, but that doesn't mean it isn't real."

From the early church, he explained, "the liturgy has always been adaptive and creative."

Christian worship has had to respond to different cultures and situations. In our current culture of social distancing, lay-led worship is just another iteration of liturgy's adaptability. Continue reading

A three-day diocesan synod in Limerick was attended by 400 delegates.

More than 90 per cent of delegates backed the lay-led liturgies proposal.

At the synod, Fr Eugene Duffy, a lecturer in theology and religious studies at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, recommended that occasional lay-led liturgies without priests should be introduced on weekdays.

He said this would be a way of preparing for the reality of priests not being available to every parish in the years ahead.

"If we can get used to having lay-led liturgy on weekdays first then people will begin to appreciate it, understand it, grow in their own acceptance of it and see the value of it," he said.

"In the absence of a priest, that's what they will have to do on a Sunday.

"We have to start by doing it on a weekday and then people become familiar with it.

"The foundational thing that people have to do is to gather on a Sunday to worship, however we do it."

Fr Duffy also said that the Catholic Church can learn from the Church of Ireland in this regard.

"The Church of Ireland has readers who look after the liturgy on a Sunday if an ordained minister cannot be present.

"We are going to have to get used to this situation and have no option to prepare for it. Otherwise there is going to be a trauma some Sunday."

Synod delegates also strongly backed a motion to establish a working group to explore and scope out how and where women can play a leadership role in the governance of the Church.

Sources

• Irish Times
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