I've probably hinted at these ideas before, but it's worth repeating. I recently commented on a blog about concelebration and thought my musings were worth re-posting here:
If there is a place for concelebration, it must have a "vertical" dimension, not some "horizontal" one.
There is a certain logic to all the monks of a monastery concelebrating the conventual Mass with the Abbot as main celebrant, or all the priests of a diocese (on certain occasions each year) or the cathedral chapter with the Bishop, etc.
But these random concelebrations that just mix and match whatever priests are on hand (from one concelebrant to hundreds) from all different jurisdictions with an arbitrary head celebrant...is bad ecclesiology. And dividing up the eucharistic prayer so that a few (but not necessarily all if the number is too large) of the other priests can have a token spoken role...is bad liturgy.
I have often thought about the following limits on concelebration:
1) concelebration should be done only under the presidership of a direct superior as main celebrant. I would also argue that it should generally be the "lowest common superior." In other words, monks with their abbots, priests with their bishop, bishops with their metropolitan or patriarch, cardinals with the Pope, etc. Given some of the unbalanced proportions that now exist jurisdictionally in the Church (ie, there are now thousands of Latin Rite bishops that have the Pope as their patriarch, dioceses with hundreds and hundreds of priests, etc), even under this limit things might get out of hand. But, at the very least, having simple priests who aren't even of the diocese of Rome randomly concelebrating with the Pope is certainly needless and can never in practice fulfill my condition #2:
2) concelebration should, generally, only be done when a moral totality/quorum of a given college of priests is present (done under the presidership of that college's head). Which is to say a (reasonably) complete logical unit of clergy should be there: all the monks of a monastery, all the priests of a diocese, all the chapter of canons, all the newly ordained, all the bishops of a synod, the whole college of cardinals. Having an arbitrary "sampling" of priests who happen to be present concelebrate is, far from a sign of unity in Christ's body, rather a symbol of fragmentation and confusion. It would be like having some legislators from Utah and some from California and some from the US House all get together under the presidership of the governor of Texas and pass a law...it would make no sense and wouldn't be binding because that isn't a duly constituted houses of legislators, it's just an arbitrary mixing and matching across jurisdictional lines. The fact that there is ultimately a federal government that encompasses all those jurisdictions...doesn't change that. There is a subsidiarity in the Church that needs to be shown, not just its universality;
3) concelebration should most definitely not count for a separate stipend or Mass intention (when I found out that the intentions I was paying for might not even have a separate whole Mass said for them, I was scandalized). Priests should still be expected to say their own private low Mass if they concelebrate. They probably shouldn't hold their own separate hosts either, as their intention is supposed to be to all together consecrate everything that is being consecrated, and having separate hosts gives the impression that they are each only consecrating their own host.
If there is a place for concelebration, it must have a "vertical" dimension, not some "horizontal" one.
There is a certain logic to all the monks of a monastery concelebrating the conventual Mass with the Abbot as main celebrant, or all the priests of a diocese (on certain occasions each year) or the cathedral chapter with the Bishop, etc.
But these random concelebrations that just mix and match whatever priests are on hand (from one concelebrant to hundreds) from all different jurisdictions with an arbitrary head celebrant...is bad ecclesiology. And dividing up the eucharistic prayer so that a few (but not necessarily all if the number is too large) of the other priests can have a token spoken role...is bad liturgy.
I have often thought about the following limits on concelebration:
1) concelebration should be done only under the presidership of a direct superior as main celebrant. I would also argue that it should generally be the "lowest common superior." In other words, monks with their abbots, priests with their bishop, bishops with their metropolitan or patriarch, cardinals with the Pope, etc. Given some of the unbalanced proportions that now exist jurisdictionally in the Church (ie, there are now thousands of Latin Rite bishops that have the Pope as their patriarch, dioceses with hundreds and hundreds of priests, etc), even under this limit things might get out of hand. But, at the very least, having simple priests who aren't even of the diocese of Rome randomly concelebrating with the Pope is certainly needless and can never in practice fulfill my condition #2:
2) concelebration should, generally, only be done when a moral totality/quorum of a given college of priests is present (done under the presidership of that college's head). Which is to say a (reasonably) complete logical unit of clergy should be there: all the monks of a monastery, all the priests of a diocese, all the chapter of canons, all the newly ordained, all the bishops of a synod, the whole college of cardinals. Having an arbitrary "sampling" of priests who happen to be present concelebrate is, far from a sign of unity in Christ's body, rather a symbol of fragmentation and confusion. It would be like having some legislators from Utah and some from California and some from the US House all get together under the presidership of the governor of Texas and pass a law...it would make no sense and wouldn't be binding because that isn't a duly constituted houses of legislators, it's just an arbitrary mixing and matching across jurisdictional lines. The fact that there is ultimately a federal government that encompasses all those jurisdictions...doesn't change that. There is a subsidiarity in the Church that needs to be shown, not just its universality;
3) concelebration should most definitely not count for a separate stipend or Mass intention (when I found out that the intentions I was paying for might not even have a separate whole Mass said for them, I was scandalized). Priests should still be expected to say their own private low Mass if they concelebrate. They probably shouldn't hold their own separate hosts either, as their intention is supposed to be to all together consecrate everything that is being consecrated, and having separate hosts gives the impression that they are each only consecrating their own host.
4 comments:
There is a certain logic to all the monks of a monastery concelebrating the conventual Mass with the Abbot as main celebrant, or all the priests of a diocese (on certain occasions each year) or the cathedral chapter with the Bishop, etc.
I've always thought it fairly ridiculous that every priest present at a noteworthy solemn Mass should vest in chasuble. Is it really necessary to have every single priest of a diocese concelebrate the Chrism Mass or the requiem of a notable cleric? Wouldn't it be sufficient for the ordinary bishop and his assistant bishops to celebrate the Mass and have the simple priests attend in choir? I am not clergy, but I would not feel slighted in the least to attend even an important Mass in choir.
Certainly, there is nothing wrong with attending in choir. I can imagine many such cases where that would be appropriate; namely, any cases where there are multiple priests present which don't fulfill my conditions.
At the requiem of an important cleric...no, I dont think everyone need concelebrate. Because that's an arbitrary occasion. In fact, I don't think anyone should concelebrate in such a situation.
Certainly not just the auxiliary bishops, whose existence is already rather odd in itself. The Cathedral Chapter of Canons is a much more logical sub-unit of the diocesan clergy to use under the Ordinary in that sense.
At the Chrism Mass, though...maybe. If all or most of the priests of the diocese are truly present. For a few (or one?) occasion each year like that it can make sense. Wearing a chasuble? Maybe not, maybe the concelebrants on such a scale should just wear stoles. And they might sit in choir for most of the Mass. But the point would be to show the unity of the local college of priests with its Head.
Of course, part of the problem is probably dioceses with hundreds of priests in the first place. Maybe we do need to start making more bishops with smaller dioceses, etc. Then again, that has it own problems: can we really imagine 20,000 bishops at an ecumenical council?! Though, many ecumenical councils in the past were held with only some subset of the bishops in attendance. Many of the early ecumenical councils, for example, had the whole West represented pretty much only by the papal legate. Though all are theoretically "invited," the ones from Gaul and Britain just werent making the trek. And that's still valid.
Still, increasing population causes these sorts of demographic problems where, as it were, "volume increases faster than surface area" and more and more levels need to be created to keep the fundamental cohorts of the same small size. It reminds me of the mathematics of the originally proposed First Amendment that was never adopted, regarding the proportions of representation.
Of course, part of the problem [with the Chrism Mass] is probably dioceses with hundreds of priests in the first place. Maybe we do need to start making more bishops with smaller dioceses, etc. Then again, that has it own problems: can we really imagine 20,000 bishops at an ecumenical council?!
By "ridiculous" I mean the Chrism Mass or other large Mass in extremely large dioceses, such as the archdiocese of NYC. Cdl. Egan would try to fill the choir of St. Pat's with hundreds of priests on Chrism, for example.
The Vatican can handle 20k bishops if the council is at least partly held in the piazza, Paul VI auditorium, maybe even via teleconferencing -- sintne tabella cogitandi via Skype discursanda? 8-0 Yes, I could imagine a resection of very large dioceses into three or four suffragan "microsees". There's no rule that a bishop must preside from an archetypal cathedral. A largish church with a cathedra is all you need. Perhaps more bishops with better oversight would yield less corruption and prevent sexual offenders from slipping under the radar.
Though all are theoretically "invited," the ones from Gaul and Britain just werent making the trek. And that's still valid.
So it's told -- in the 15th century a group of Scandinavian bishops made their ad limina. Must've took them at least a year to reach Rome. They pull up to the Lateran with wife
and kids in tow. No one ever told them that bishops were supposed to be celibate!
C'mon, the real scandal here is that some Catholics really think that Luther, Cramner, Petri (father of the Swedish Reformation), et. al. "invented" clerical marriage.
Mind if I jump in here?
I guess I'm a little more old-school when it comes to concelebration: it only happens at the ordination of a priest and the consecration of a bishop, and then only the ordaining bishop and the man (men) who have been ordained or consecrated.
Enter the only Mass I've ever concelebrated. September 9, 2007, the one time I ever consecrated a bishop. It was flawless, and I still remember raising my hand at the Te Igitur, just to remind him the words were «...una cum me indigno servo tuo et omnibus orthodoxis...». (The self-contradiction in that sentence is that I called myself a sede back then, but sent a letter to Rome informing them of the consecration three days later. Go figure.)
For everything else, I'm all about the rule of "one Mass - one celebrant." That includes the Chrism Mass, which traditionally didn't focus on the priesthood but on the function of the Chrism as an oil of anointing (I write this with a Missal open in front of me, checking my statements). The new-fangled focus on the priesthood just lends itself to the cultic/holier-than-thou image of the priest that you've complained about several times on this blog already.
Not to mention, when you get 100 priest in the sanctuary, there's no room to move around (or even breathe), and they can't say their lines on time, it just looks stupid, and certainly doesn't help the person in the pew to lift his mind up to the things of heaven.
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