Elizabeth Brown on the Dutch Dominicans

MOJ-friend and University of St. Thomas law prof Elizabeth Brown has this to contribute to the discussion of what the Dutch Dominicans are recommending:

Everyone is relying on the description by The Tablet of what "Kerk en Ambt" says.  If one goes to the Dutch Dominicans website (here), one might realize that The Tablet's summary is a bit flawed.  I don't speak Dutch.  So the following comments are based on a very rough translation of the news release into English.  I have not read "Kerk en Ambt" because it is not available online.  One can buy it from the publisher, www.valkhofpers.nl

The news release explains that they drafted "Kerk en Ambt" to begin a discussion about allowing more communion services led by lay ministers in the Netherlands because of the severe priest shortage.  The news release notes that, even with the closure of many parishes in the Netherlands, Dutch priests frequently have to say Mass at multiple parishes.  As a result, the priests are frustrated because they are viewed as outsiders by the parishioners because the parishioners so rarely see them.  The news release seems to indicate that, even with priests saying Masses at multiple parishes, some parishes still lack priests to say Mass on Sunday.

The news release indicates that the Dominicans are proposing that a lay minister or lay ministers  (voorganger, which means anyone entitled to lead a religious service) be choosen by a congregation and then APPROVED BY THE BISHOP.  The news release states that these lay ministers would not need to be limited to only those who meet the requirements for being a priest and gives the example that the lay ministers wouldn't need to be celibate.  In The Tablet article, it seems to quote from "Kerk en Ambt" on the same point with a statement that indicates that the lay ministers could be men or women, homosexual or heterosexual, married or single as long as they were faithful Catholics.  What the Dominicans are proposing appears to me to be the same as the current standards for a lay minister set forth in the guidelines issued by the Catholic Church for "Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest."

These lay ministers would be allowed to lead the congregation in a communion service only when NO PRIEST was available.  The news release indicated that some parishes in the Netherlands already hold communion services, which are led by someone appointed by the bishop or by a volunteer, but that such services are discouraged in the Netherlands.

It is not clear to me (perhaps because the translation is so rough) to what extent, if any, the types of services that the Dominicans are proposing would differ from the types of communion services led by lay ministers already being done in the Netherlands.  From what I can tell, the only "radical" part of their proposal is that communion services led by a lay minister should be used much more widely in the Netherlands then they currently are.

It seems like what the Dominicans are proposing is what was done when I lived in Saudi Arabia.  The complete absence of priests to say Mass on Sunday was the normal condition for Catholics in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s and early 1980s when my parents and I lived there. Saudi Arabia did not and still does not allow Christians to openly practice their religion. When we lived there, a Filipino priest, who pretended to be an ordinary laborer to get a visa, would visit once every 3-4 months. He would leave enough consecrated hosts so that the local Catholics could meet on Sunday, read the Mass prayers, and receive Communion from the hosts already consecrated by the priest. (Keeping the consecrated hosts for 3-4 months did create a dilemma about whether it was OK to put them in the refrigerator or freezer so that they would not go stale or moldy in the Saudi heat.)

This type of service strikes me as little different from what the Dominican booklet is proposing from the description in the Dominicans press release.  In both cases, the congregation would only be taking these steps because no priests were available to say Mass. The major difference between the two circumstances is the reason for the lack of priests.  In Saudi Arabia, the government banned priests from the country and in the Netherlands, the lack of vocations and, perhaps Dutch limits on foreign immigration, have led to a severe shortage of priests that is forcing the closing of parishes
throughout the country.

Given my experiences in Saudi Arabia, I don't think allowing lay congregations to say the Mass prayers when no priest is available is such an outrageous suggestion as long as one is also doing what one can to address the causes of the priest shortage.