TOPIC: NO MORE LAY PREACHING

I subscribe to an "e-letter," an edition of which arrived sometime this week (I'm tearing-out-my-hair-busy, no idea when...)
IIRC, (although nothing is more probable than that all of my recollections are INcorrect,) it happened because i wanted to register on some site so that I could also mouth off and share my opinions...
Anyway, the appropriateness or otherwise of lay preaching interests me.
As does the way a bishop can affect his diocese for good or ill.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis now has a new spiritual leader. John Nienstedt took over as archbishop on May 2. He previously had been bishop of New Ulm, Minnesota, and in 2007 he was appointed coadjutor of St. Paul-Minneapolis.
In not a few cases the appointment of a coadjutor--a bishop with a right of succession--is a sign of the Vatican’s disapproval of how the current bishop has been doing. I have not followed the situation in St. Paul-Minneapolis closely enough to know whether that was the case there (the fact that Flynn requested a coadjutor is not dispositive of the question), but, given an article published May 7 in the online version of “The Catholic Spirit,” I would not be surprised if it were.
My only personal acquaintance with Flynn was when he was the bishop of Lafayette, Louisiana; I met him when I gave a parish seminar there more than fifteen years ago. In 1995 he was appointed to St. Paul-Minneapolis, and in the years following not a few conservative commentators began to complain about him. Some liberal commentators complained too, after he refused Communion to people wearing “rainbow sashes.”
The article in “The Catholic Spirit” is titled “Directive from Archbishop Flynn Ends Lay Preaching at Mass.” It explains that lay preachers have been used at 29 parishes in the archdiocese for about 25 years. Many of these preachers were trained by an organization, set up by lay people, called Partners in Preaching. While the article does not explicit says so, it appears that most of these lay preachers have been women.
In general, the preaching seems to have been in place of the priest’s homily. For example, the article starts off with an account of how the pastor at St. Joseph’s parish in New Hope finished reading the Gospel, stepped away from the ambo, and blessed a woman who then preached to the congregation. The priest did not give his own homily.
Patricia Hughes Baumer, who co-founded Partners in Preaching, claims that lay preaching differs from a homily and is called instead “lectionary-based liturgical preaching.” Inasmuch as a homily is “lectionary-based liturgical preaching,” you legitimately might wonder what the difference is. She says that homilies are reserved to priests and deacons. When homilies are given by lay people, then, they are not called homilies, even though in form, functioning, and timing they are the same as the remarks given by priests and deacons.
Why the dissimulation? Because homilies really are reserved to priests and deacons (and to bishops, of course). Lay people are not permitted to give homilies--no matter what misleading term may be used instead of “homily.”
In his directive--which was sent to pastors in January and which asked that parishes have in place, by the date of Flynn’s retirement a “pastoral plan” to end lay preaching--Flynn acknowledged that lay preaching is a liturgical abuse, as is suggested by the weasel words that Baumer used to describe it.
“Why now?” asks the article. Why, as his parting shot, did Flynn call for an end to lay preaching, something that had been going on widely and persistently during his 13-year tenure? That I have no answer to. The article brings up the speculation that Flynn wanted to “clean house” before John Nienstedt took over, “but Archbishop Flynn said this is not the case.”
Those who back lay preaching make a specious appeal to canon law. This is how the article introduces the issue:
“Lay preaching was prohibited by canon law until 1983, when a revised Code of Canon law was promulgated. Canon 766 addresses lay preaching, saying ‘lay persons can be permitted to preach in a church or oratory, if necessity requires it in certain circumstances or it seems advantageous in particular cases,’ Baumer said.”
(Baumer seems to be motivated by a grievance. She says that “The suppression of lay preaching is simultaneously the suppression of female voices, because no matter how God has gifted a lay woman to break open the Word, the community will not have access to that word as it gathers on Sunday.”)
Let’s look at the canon law provisions that apply here, to see if they permit lay preaching. We begin with the complete text of canon 766:
“Lay persons can be permitted to preach in a church or oratory, if necessity requires it in certain circumstances or it seems advantageous in particular cases, according to the prescripts of the conferences of bishops and without prejudice to canon 767 section 1.”
The first thing one ought to ask is “What is preaching?” It includes giving a homily based on the readings for a Mass, but it goes beyond that. Canon 762 refers more widely to “the proclamation of the gospel of God to all,” and in the Code of Canon Law the canons dealing with preaching fall under the subtitle “The Preaching of the Word of God.” This is pretty broad and, I think, can be construed as referring to any sort of public speaking that teaches or explains the faith.
If I am right in that, then I have been a lay preacher. On numerous occasions I have given talks at parishes. Sometimes they have been in the parish hall, but more commonly they have been in the church proper--but not during Mass. Usually the talks have been in the evening, outside of the context of Mass.
I have stood at the ambo (because it has a microphone), and my audience has been in the pews, and I have given a “proclamation of the gospel of God to all,” even if my proclamation concerned only a small slice of that gospel. So I guess I have served as a lay preacher, but I never have been a lay homilist, and that is really the question in St. Paul-Minneapolis.
Let’s return to the provisions of canon law. The first section of canon 767 is key. It says, “Among the forms of preaching, the homily, which is part of the liturgy itself and is reserved to a priest or deacon, is preeminent; in the homily the mysteries of faith and the norms of Christian life are to be explained from the sacred text during the course of the liturgical year.”
So the homily takes its cue from the readings of the day, and the homily is to be given only by the priest or deacon. It seems clear to me that any talk during Mass that construes the readings is a homily, even if it is given some other title. Thus any such talk may be given only by a priest or deacon.
This means that when priests, such as the pastor at St. Joseph’s parish, turn over the ambo to a lay person, whether man or woman, and when that person gives a reflection on the readings, a liturgical abuse occurs. What is more, the priest shirks his own duties.
Section 2 of canon 767 says that “a homily must be given at all Masses on Sundays and holy days of obligation which are celebrated with a congregation, and it cannot be omitted except for a grave cause.”
In other words, priests have to prepare a homily each week . . . unless, of course, they find a way to pass that duty along to a team of lay preachers.
Preparing a good homily isn’t easy. Although I never have had to prepare a homily, I have had to prepare plenty of lectures, and the process is not fun.
You might think lectures are harder to prepare. Not necessarily. In a 45-minute lecture you have the liberty to speak discursively, to stretch out your thoughts, to take a winding path to your conclusion. In a 5-minute homily you have to get right to the point.
It’s much like writing an E-Letter. These 1,700 words take me less time to write than would a 200-word commentary. The latter requires a lot more editing.
A conscientious priest, such as my own pastor, may spend 20 hours preparing his homily: studying next Sunday’s readings, doing ancillary research, praying deeply about what he should say, writing out his remarks in full, editing them severely, reducing them to one or two note cards, and then putting those note cards to memory.
I know that most priests don’t devote that much time to their homilies (you can tell, listening to them), but that is what it takes to end up with a truly substantive homily. How convenient, then, lay preachers would be for a priest who thinks he has better ways to spend those 20 hours!
Yes, I have heard the blather about “empowering lay people”--the article in “The Catholic Spirit” provides several such quotations--but I know enough about human nature to know that motives usually are mixed.
I defy anyone to locate a priest who, having turned over his preaching duties to lay people, is frustrated because he no longer has the chance to spend many hours weekly working up his own homilies. (“Dang! Why do I have to be so thoughtful? I really would prefer to restrict all the preaching to myself, but I feel compelled to empower my parishioners.”)
The real mystery here is why Harry Flynn never got around to doing his duty, until the very end of his tenure. This liturgical abuse was widespread in the archdiocese. He could have ended it at any time during the past 13 years by issuing a three-word command to his priests: “Stop it now!”
Well, maybe there was a reason, beyond the archbishop’s request, that the Vatican assigned him a coadjutor.