For the record, if I had to choose between following a man of God (as a teacher) who was full of the Holy Spirit, expressed the genuine love of God, and knew the Bible backwards and forwards or someone with an M.Div from the best school in the world (and maybe a PhD to boot) and seminary formation but who had none of the love of God or any sense of the Holy Spirit, I would choose the former. Of course, ideally, you would have both: holy men who are well educated and trained to become priests.
Is there a better way? Can priests be trained “on the cheap”? The seminary is an invention of the Council of Trent. Before then, it was something like what they do in Orthodoxy. The elite were monks, trained in universities and their communities. Parish priests are local men who were brought up in the parish and learned their “stuff” from childhood, and were chosen as viri probati to be ordained for the parish. They often just celebrated the Liturgy, and a priest-monk would come in once in a while to preach and hear confessions. That system leaves something to be desired, but there is a lot of wisdom to it. It is a notion of priestly training based on an apprenticeship and years of hands-on experience.
Whether it is right to say that only mainstream churches train the clergy properly and “continuing” churches are beneath contempt depends on the beholder’s viewpoint. Perhaps one particular “beholder” should have stayed with his owners in the American Episcopal Church, as there was no justification for his going to a pretty little neo-baroque church in the city where he lives. Officialdom and institution are more important than conscience and genuine grievances with the so-called “mainstream” bodies.Following orders coming from the official authority does not justify just anything. That was the most significant principle that came out of the Nuremberg Trials in 1946.
Resuming, a priest should be cultured and able to reason with all social classes. First of all he should be a devout believer and concerned for the spiritual good of his flock. Thirdly, a degree of professionalism and competence in “priestcraft” is needed. A badly celebrated Mass is unedifying! Good manners are essential. The quality of being a good cleric is being increasingly questioned, when the cassock and collar are used to conceal evil and wrongdoing. Corruption is proper to institutions and the men who use them for their own ends. This is why Catholicism can survive outside these institutions and renew itself according to extraordinary means – a principle foreseen in canon law. Salus animarum suprema lex – the salvation of souls is the highest law.
Indeed I give priority to a man being devout in his spiritual life and his human qualities which are acquired by experience in life. I think the first thing to look for is empathy with others. Then the priest needs to be cultured, able to relate with all social classes, and able to reason. University degrees do not confer these qualities. Such priests are just as possible in the little Catholic Churches as much as any big institution with money, resources and numbers.
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Then there are the good administrators but terrible scholars and have little faith (maybe this occurs over time?) they probably got the job because they were the only one who knew how to count and where to put what. I wonder what percentage of the Catholic clergy are just “Good parish administrators” but don’t care for sound theology (ergo, the terrible preaching) and have bad faith? Maybe to those priests, it’s more important to have a full collection plate than anything else. (So they say and do whatever the congregation wants rather than what they need.)
What Fr. Chadwick wrote reminded me of the angry letters written by St. Jerome to St. Ambrose, who became bishop only within a week of his baptism. I feel sympathetic to St. Jerome, because St. Jerome was right in criticizing such an appointment, it’s like having me elected as bishop of Los Angeles on the basis of popularity. And yet both men are now saints.
I also feel Fr. Chadwick is correct in his assessment of seminaries- seminarians require, from what I remember, two years of Philosophy, and three years of Theology, but priests I know state that they only have their undergraduate degree in whatever field from whatever college, and only an additional four at a seminary. I’d think this is not sufficient in the same way the “Orthodox” style of priestly training based on an apprenticeship and years of hands-on experience offers- It becomes an education for life in that case.
(Tangent: Long ago, I have read an article written by a frustrated parish priest who compared how Catechism Class for the Latin Rite’s Sacrament of Confirmation is different, and have different effects on the Catechists from how Eastern Rites did it- since Confirmation is done along with Baptism, Eastern Christians then get an education for life, rather than thinking they knew everything they needed to know within the space of a few months and thus would have no further obligation to learn anything of their faith after the Sacrament was administered.)
On the other hand, there are things like the study of foreign languages or formal education on specialized fields like Patristics and Canon Law that have been made widely available through institutions like seminaries which may not have been available through a master-apprentice system. (So if your father was not a priest, or your local priest/monk is unsatisfactory in his education/formation/whatever, there’s the seminary.)
It’s still a shame that proper liturgy and preaching (or Homiletics?) started to deteriorate by having so many things dumbed down for greater accessibility. Lowered standards is never good.
Ioannes,
After beginning: Then there are the good administrators but terrible scholars and have little faith (maybe this occurs over time?) they probably got the job because they were the only one who knew how to count and where to put what. I wonder what percentage of the Catholic clergy are just “Good parish administrators” but don’t care for sound theology (ergo, the terrible preaching) and have bad faith?…
You concluded: It’s still a shame that proper liturgy and preaching (or Homiletics?) started to deteriorate by having so many things dumbed down for greater accessibility. Lowered standards is never good.
I agree completely with your final remark with respect to lowering standards.
Unfortunately, the rest of your post seems predicated on a very idealized view of what existed at the time of the Second Vatican council that has no basis whatsoever in reality. I realize that you are young and that your knowledge of this era comes from what you have heard from others — likely traditionalists who long for its return, not realizing how impoverished it really was.
The tragic reality is that, through the 1960′s, most Catholic seminaries operated as “priest factories” — teenage men entered at the start of high school, or at least college, endured discipline and structure more rigid than a Marine Corps boot camp, and emerged eight or twelve years later as priests. In this environment, the coursework in liturgy focused on exacting execution of the rubrics and pronounciation of the Latin text with virtually no training in sacramental and liturgical theology, theological formation focused on recitation of dogmatic statements, there was no study of scripture or the church fathers, and there was little training for practical ministry. The following reforms embedded in the sacred constitution Sacrosanctum concillium give some hint as to how bad things really were.
>> “15. Professors who are appointed to teach liturgy in seminaries, religious houses of study, and theological faculties must be properly trained for their work in institutes which specialize in this subject.”
>> “16. The study of sacred liturgy is to be ranked among the compulsory and major courses in seminaries and religious houses of studies; in theological faculties it is to rank among the principal courses. It is to be taught under its theological, historical, spiritual, pastoral, and juridical aspects. Moreover, other professors, while striving to expound the mystery of Christ and the history of salvation from the angle proper to each of their own subjects, must nevertheless do so in a way which will clearly bring out the connection between their subjects and the liturgy, as also the unity which underlies all priestly training. This consideration is especially important for professors of dogmatic, spiritual, and pastoral theology and for those of holy scripture.”
>> “35. That the intimate connection between words and rites may be apparent in the liturgy:…
“2) Because the sermon is part of the liturgical service, the best place for it is to be indicated even in the rubrics, as far as the nature of the rite will allow; the ministry of preaching is to be fulfilled with exactitude and fidelity. The sermon, moreover, should draw its content mainly from scriptural and liturgical sources, and its character should be that of a proclamation of God’s wonderful works in the history of salvation, the mystery of Christ, ever made present and active within us, especially in the celebration of the liturgy.”
>> “52. By means of the homily the mysteries of the faith and the guiding principles of the Christian life are expounded from the sacred text, during the course of the liturgical year; the homily, therefore, is to be highly esteemed as part of the liturgy itself; in fact, at those Masses which are celebrated with the assistance of the people on Sundays and feasts of obligation, it should not be omitted except for a serious reason.” (The Council of Trent actually directed this reform four centuries earlier, but it was widely ignored.)
>> “56. The two parts which, in a certain sense, go to make up the Mass, namely, the liturgy of the word and the eucharistic liturgy, are so closely connected with each other that they form but one single act of worship. Accordingly this sacred Synod strongly urges pastors of souls that, when instructing the faithful, they insistently teach them to take their part in the entire Mass, especially on Sundays and feasts of obligation.” (It was commonplace at the time for parishionners to arrive five to ten minutes after the mass began, missing the opening rite and the readings, and to leave as soon as the priest received communion.)
The reality of Sunday masses in most parishes in the early 1960′s was quite simple. The priest and the altar boys raced through the mass as quickly as possible (we had one priest in my parish who requently celebrated the Tridentine mass in sixteen minutes, including distribution of communion to a full church) while the people in the pews did their pious devotions (rosaries, novenas, etc.). And do you know why the acolytes rang bells before the institution narrative and during the elevations? That was to alert the people in the pews, who were otherwise divorced from the mass, to interrupt their devotions for long enough to pay attention to what was then regarded as the big moment! Yes, the solemn high mass lasted considerably longer, but virtually nobody except the choir went to it. My mother brought me a few times only so I would know what it was, and the church was nearly empty. I don’t comprehend how so many traditionalists seem to think that this was so reverent, unless they are viewing that era through rose-colored glasses.
It obviously took several years to implement the reforms directed by the Second Vatican Council in the seminaries, and then several more years for the bishops to figure out that more extensive reforms in the area of psychological screening, etc., were needed. Here in the United States, the real reforms of seminary training seem to have taken hold c. 1980. Now, five decades later, we’re finally seeing the retirement of the last of the presbyters ordained under that regime. When you look at where we were, we actually have made a LOT of forward progress. The standards for formation and training of our clergy are much more rigorous now, and in most places we are starting to hear homilies that focus on the scriptures of the day, and the people in the majority of our parishes are participating in the mass rather than distracting themselves with other devotions. Yes, many parishes still have deficiencies and we still have a long way to go, but we really have moved in the right direction over the past five decades.
Norm.
Norm,
Perhaps that’s only the case in Boston or just in the United States. I don’t know what’s wrong with this dysfunctional country, but there will always be bishops to blame. Don’t blame the laity- yes, we’re stupid and ignorant about what goes on at seminaries and what theologians are talking about, But Vatican II actually gave us some capability to teach and learn and fight and to see for ourselves at what has been done! Can you imagine the sort of sin committed by bishops and priests who knowingly threw away what was handed down to them? Latin language and Gregorian Chant must be kept at a place of honor, not left to collect dust at the Church’s basement. Now, they’re passing down a poisoned chalice that killed off the transcendent and supernatural and coated it with sugar and food coloring. It’s a sort of Kool-Aid popular with religious leaders of that era.
But yes, regardless what you or I say about the past, the past is in the past. But you can’t accuse me of merely having a nostalgia for the “Good old days” that never happened, because not only was I born in the 80′s, I also saw for myself the objectively Holy and Perfect Sacrifice made by the holy priest of God not only in the Latin Rite, but also in the Eastern Catholic Churches. And if the way the Traditional Mass is done now is different from the Latin Mass done during your time, and I think they are, Norm, then I’d say your bad mass is different from the Traditional Mass. And so, it’s not me trying to turn back time, it is affirming what the Church had always been and will always be in its celebration of God’s Mysteries. It is affirming the eternal nature of the Church, which shall exist forever until Jesus Christ Himself comes back and sees no more need for the Church and the masses performed by His agents.
Do I believe God hears prayers better in Latin only? No, but if God can hear you pray, wouldn’t you at least talk to God with the acknowledgement that He Is God? A utilitarian language is insufficient. It is the fruit of the earth that Cain offered, compared to the perfect sheep Abel lovingly raised and gave back to God. And boy, do I sense a lot of Cain’s hatred towards the Traditional Latin Mass.
My generation is more sophisticated than the older generation- sorry. We don’t just pray the rosary and do our private devotions now that we know the Mass is celebrating with the priest, together as the unified, single Body of Christ, facing God. We have the internet. We can listen to Cardinal Arinze and Bishop Fulton J Sheen, and talk with Catholics thousands of miles away in Rome. We can send messages to the Pontiff himself. We can read the encyclicals and other documents by ourselves without relying on middlemen. We can teach Latin to ourselves. We can have discussions with priests with an opinion and priests with differing opinions, and most importantly, what the bishops have to say about that matter.
I don’t see Vatican II as the cause of evil, but it has been consistently twisted by many people- none of us can deny it. We can admit that both pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II eras have their problems, as there will always be problems- yet one thing that bothered me is how more people were lost and how much we are still losing from the Church’s membership after Vatican II at such a short amount of time than what the Church gained before Vatican II. How much has there been a lack of spirit, a sort of lethargy that does away with the mystery of God becoming Incarnate, and communing with Him. I wonder how evident that fact of mystery is to the Novus Ordo parishioner? A sort of leveling of God to man’s stature, so that it becomes easy to see the superfluity of such a God.
Let’s not forget that Vatican II was built on Vatican I, and that was built on Trent, all the way to the Council of Jerusalem. Vatican II will not be the last Church council, either. And if there would be a Vatican III or a meeting elsewhere, I expect a new Syllabus of Errors.
Norm, in response to your selections from Sacrosanctum Concilium:
“15. Professors who are appointed to teach liturgy in seminaries, religious houses of study, and theological faculties must be properly trained for their work in institutes which specialize in this subject.”
What came to my mind was Anscar Chupungco, who was a trained “liturgy expert” who instead of guarding against liturgical abuse, pioneered and spread their usage (especially in the Philippines) and helped with the overthrow of the Old Mass. So much for the organic evolution of the liturgy, hello innovation. But now, he’s dead and I personally know one of his pupils, a priest who occasionally visits the U.S.- he told me most of them are having second thoughts about their priesthood, and this lack of faith I find to be the cause for the recent betrayal of Catholicism by many Filipinos in their government and modern culture. May God have mercy on him and the people he misled.
“35. That the intimate connection between words and rites may be apparent in the liturgy:…
See a previous comment I made about how, if God is no respecter of men, and can hear any language you speak in prayer to Him, how fitting it would be for that language to be the best language, and not a utilitarian language that is spoken merely because of its convenience.
Because the sermon is part of the liturgical service, the best place for it is to be indicated even in the rubrics, as far as the nature of the rite will allow; the ministry of preaching is to be fulfilled with exactitude and fidelity. The sermon, moreover, should draw its content mainly from scriptural and liturgical sources, and its character should be that of a proclamation of God’s wonderful works in the history of salvation, the mystery of Christ, ever made present and active within us, especially in the celebration of the liturgy.”
I always thought the Homily is technically a “break” from the Mass, and so it would have made sense to make all the announcements during the Homily, rather than before the final blessing, as is always done at parishes in Los Angeles. But yes, I have noticed and find it commendable how Homily draws from Scripture.
52. By means of the homily the mysteries of the faith and the guiding principles of the Christian life are expounded from the sacred text, during the course of the liturgical year; the homily, therefore, is to be highly esteemed as part of the liturgy itself; in fact, at those Masses which are celebrated with the assistance of the people on Sundays and feasts of obligation, it should not be omitted except for a serious reason.” (The Council of Trent actually directed this reform four centuries earlier, but it was widely ignored.)
And then comes the not-so-Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, thinking they’re “assisting” compared to “merely responding and singing or reading”- Why am I not surprised that people ignored Trent? A great number of people are always disobedient, from Jerusalem to Vatican II- it doesn’t make what the Council decided as invalid, does it?
“56. The two parts which, in a certain sense, go to make up the Mass, namely, the liturgy of the word and the eucharistic liturgy, are so closely connected with each other that they form but one single act of worship. Accordingly this sacred Synod strongly urges pastors of souls that, when instructing the faithful, they insistently teach them to take their part in the entire Mass, especially on Sundays and feasts of obligation.” (It was commonplace at the time for parishionners to arrive five to ten minutes after the mass began, missing the opening rite and the readings, and to leave as soon as the priest received communion.)
I actually saw no feeling of “breaks” between the two parts of the mass in the Traditional Latin Mass, or the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. There were no cheesy offertory hymns, and there were no couples or families bringing bread and wine to the altar.
Ioannes,
You wrote: Perhaps that’s only the case in Boston or just in the United States.
The major urbanly based dioceses of the northeast have been among the slowest to adopt the legitimate reforms of the Second Vatican Council, but probably also among the worst centers of misfires by those who attempted to implement reforms but did not really understand the intent thereof. Having said that, I’ll give the pastors who misfired some credit for obedience — at least they made a sincere effort to implement the reforms as they understood them. The worse problem was the disobedience of intransigence by those who obstinately refused to change anything when the pope gave clear direction to move. But having said that, there is a conservative core in some of the larger cities in other parts of the country, probably including Los Angeles, that replicated the pastoral miscues that were prevalent here in the northeast.
My experience of parishes in the midwest, the deep south, and the Pacific northwest, even thirty years ago, was much more positive than what I have encountered in the preponderance of parishes around here. I got so fed up that, one Saturday evening in the fall of 1984, I called a nearby Benedictine monastery a couple towns away from my home and asked the time of their Sunday mass. Going there the next morning, I found a place where the celebration of the liturgy is with reverence and dignity and where there is “full and active participation” by the whole congregation. I have been going there to worship on a stable basis ever since, even though I go by about a dozen parishes, depending upon which route I happen to take, to get there.
You wrote: Can you imagine the sort of sin committed by bishops and priests who knowingly threw away what was handed down to them?
Can you imagine the sort of sin committed by those who obstinately refused to implement reforms explicitly directed by the Vicar of Christ, even holding that they were theologically invalid?
In retrospect, though, there is the legacy of St. Hippolytus, the only antipope ever to be canonized. He did oppose the reforms instituted by the Vicar of Christ in his day, so we have a perverse certainty that his writings actually reflect the prevailing liturgical practice of his day. Of course, he was reconciled before his death.
You wrote: Latin language and Gregorian Chant must be kept at a place of honor, not left to collect dust at the Church’s basement. (boldface yours)
You seem to be reading Sacrosanctum concillium apart from its historical context and thus failing to understand the actual intent of the council fathers. There are two sources of difficulty in a literal reading of this document.
>> 1. Sacrosanctum concillium was the first document promulgated by the Second Vatican Council, and it came out while the ecclesiology articulated in Lumen gentium — which is really the apex of the council’s work — was still emerging. As a result, the principles articulated in Sacrosanctum concillium often need to be applied in a somewhat different way in the light of Lumen gentium.
>> 2. In the discussions at the Second Vatican Council, there was a tension between bishops who saw an urgent need for reforms and wanted to implement them aggessively and bishops who were apprehensive that the reforms might not work out and that it would be necessary to backtrack. The compromise was the tact of, first, affirming the primacy of place of the existing custom and, second, admitting a limited place for something new — the idea being that this would allow the Roman Curia and the episcopal conferences room to admit each change slowly while providing the flexibility either to backtrack if it went badly or to proceed further if it went well. We see this, in particular, with respect to (1) the adoption of vernacular languages, (2) the use of contemporary styles of music, and (3) the admisison of instruments other than the pipe organ for liturgical use.
It’s pretty obvious that Lumen gentium actually provided the theological impetus for the “full and active participation” of the lay faithful in the liturgy that’s embodied in sacrosanctum concillium, and thus also of the full adoption of vernacular languages to facilitate this participation.
That said, I do favor the use of chant where it’s liturgically appropriate. And at the monastery, we also sometimes sing some of the responses in Latin (and, of course, the Kyrie in Greek, as it has never been done in Latin).
You wrote: And if the way the Traditional Mass is done now is different from the Latin Mass done during your time, and I think they are, Norm, then I’d say your bad mass is different from the Traditional Mass.
The issue here is one of dignity and reverence. Clergy who lack the spirituality to celebrate the current ordinary form of the mass with dignity and reverence are not going to celebrate the Tridentine form, or the Anglican form, or any other form with dignity and reverence, either — and vice versa.
You wrote: And so, it’s not me trying to turn back time, it is affirming what the Church had always been and will always be in its celebration of God’s Mysteries. It is affirming the eternal nature of the Church, which shall exist forever until Jesus Christ Himself comes back and sees no more need for the Church and the masses performed by His agents.
Here’s what Pope Paul VI said about that very subject in the 1969 edition of the General Instructions to the Roman Missal and Pope John Paul II reaffirmed in the most recent edition thereof (boldface added).
The Tridentine form of the liturgy is, of course, the very “what our immediate forebears have passed on to us” of which both popes speak.
You wrote: My generation is more sophisticated than the older generation- sorry.
In some ways, yes, and in some ways, no. Every generation of young adults seems to think that it posesses wisdom that the generation before it lacked. Mark Twain once remarked: “When I was twenty, I thought that my old man was stupid. When I was thirty, I was amazed at how much he had learned in ten years.”
You wrote: We don’t just pray the rosary and do our private devotions now that we know the Mass is celebrating with the priest, together as the unified, single Body of Christ, facing God.
Good!
But I can’t say that all Traditionalits follow your lead. Unfortunately, I know a few who do not.
You wrote: I don’t see Vatican II as the cause of evil, but it has been consistently twisted by many people- none of us can deny it. We can admit that both pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II eras have their problems, as there will always be problems- yet one thing that bothered me is how more people were lost and how much we are still losing from the Church’s membership after Vatican II at such a short amount of time than what the Church gained before Vatican II.
The real question is how many of those who have left really belonged in the first place. I suspect very few. Perhaps the timing is unfortunate, but there were many factors that made it much easier for people to stop going to church that began to come into many families in the 1960′s and became much more prevalent in the 1970′s and 1980′s.
>> 1. Prior to the 1960′s, many families of predominantly Catholic ethnicity lived in ethnic ghettos in major cities, where there was considerable social pressure to be active in the local parish and the sacraments of the church (baptism, first communion, confirmation and marriage) had become cultural rites of passage, giving rise to considerable social pressure to receive them when one reached the respective ages. As second and third generations born outside those ghettos became more separated from the cultural pressures, the social pressures subsided.
>> 2. In the 1960′s and 1970′s, it became more common for young people to go to colleges and universities a fair distance from their homes. Arriving on campus, they were freed from the parental oversight and thus free not to go to church.
>> 3. During the 1970′s, it also became more prevalent for young adults to seek their fortunes further from their family homes. Again freed from direct parental oversight, they also became free not to go to church.
>> 4. There were also the dynamics of the “cultural revolution” and militant Atheism that sought to tear down and discredit churches. Major elements of this are prevalent on many college and university campuses, but it also pervades the majority of major newspapers and the news departments of major television networks.
Of course, miscreant clergy also did not exactly help our cause. How many of the victims of sexual abuse by clergy, and their immediate families, do you suppose to be active parishionners today? And that is barely the tip of the proverbial iceberg of the harm caused by bad actors among the clergy!
But on the whole, I think we actually are better off now. There’s much more of a sincerity of faith among those who remain active in the church.
You wrote: How much has there been a lack of spirit, a sort of lethargy that does away with the mystery of God becoming Incarnate, and communing with Him. I wonder how evident that fact of mystery is to the Novus Ordo parishioner? A sort of leveling of God to man’s stature, so that it becomes easy to see the superfluity of such a God.
The fact is that this was probably much more prevalent in the 1950′s and early 1960′s, before many of the lethargic parishionners left the churches. But the lethargic parishionner who feels a need to fulfill an obligation invariably takes the path of least resistance — the nearest parish with a mass at a convenient time, which in most cases happens to be a parish that celebrates the mass according to the current ordinary form. Your fallacy here is to place blame on the current ordinary form for a situation that was actually much worse five decades ago.
You wrote: Norm, in response to your selections from Sacrosanctum Concilium…
Whoa, stop right there. I was quoting those paragraphs as indications of the problems of the day, for which they were prescribing correction.
You wrote: But now, he’s dead and I personally know one of his pupils…
Beware of taking anecdotal evidence of the word of one individual as indication of a trend. His sampling is probably rather small, and probably gravitates toward like-minded current and former clergy. Further, you travel in circles where you probably are not too likely to hear contrary opinions.
You wrote: I always thought the Homily is technically a “break” from the Mass…
Then you thought wrong. It is, rather, a constituent element of the Liturgy of the Word that should not be omitted without serious reason, especially on Sundays and Holy Days.
Of course, a homily need not be long. One or two sentences pointing out some significant detail of the readings and its applicability to current life would be sufficient, especially at a weekday mass.
You wrote: A great number of people are always disobedient, from Jerusalem to Vatican II- it doesn’t make what the Council decided as invalid, does it?
Here, the distinction between doctrine and discipline is crucial. When an ecumenical council makes a doctrinal statement, that statement is intrinsically infallible and there is no further appeal — not even to the pope. When an ecumenical council decides a matter of discipline (or practice), however, either another council or the ordinary magisterium can modify or even reverse it in response to a new, different, or changing pastoral situation. Thus, for example, the doctrine of concommitance (that is the whole presence of Christ in each of the consecrated eucharistic species) is infallible and remains intact, but its directive mandating the discipline of administering communion only under the form of the consecrated bread (body of Christ) is open to change, as proposed by the Second Vatican Council.
Incidentally, the practice of distribution of communion under both forms also has a rather interesting recent history. In 1977, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) here in the States, now known as the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, adopted a resolution authorizing communion under both forms at normal weekday masses in the parishes. The Vatican ratified this decision fairly quickly. This was only a year or two after Pope Paul VI authorized use of lay people as extraordinary ministers of communion, but they actually were thinking that weekday masses in many parishes were concelebrated because there was not a need for each priest to celebrate separately, and thus that distribution of communion by the clergy would be the norm. In 1978, however, the NCCB went a step further and voted to authorize distribution of communion under both forms, with the assistance of lay people serving as extraordinary ministers of communion, at masses on Sundays and Holy Days. The Vatican’s immediate reaction was along the lines of “Ah, wait a minute, here, that’s not quite what we had in mind…” but the Vatican eventually ratified the decision rather enthusiastically c. 1981. But this has a very interesting pastoral benefit: there are many people who cannot consume the host because they have an intolerance for the gluten in wheat flour, but who are no longer habitually excluded from communion because they can receive from the chalice without prior arrangement or causing a stir.
Norm.