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PAGE 7—The Southern Cross, January 23,1975
NAT’L PRIESTS’ COUNCILS STUDY SHOWS
Dispensed Priests Can Take Jobs Open to Laymen
CANDLEMAS DAY -- A pilgrim adds one more light known as the feast of the Presentation of Our Lord,
to the glow of tapers burning in St. Mary in Cosmedi (NC Photo by KNA)
Church in Rome for Candlemas Day, Feb. 2, also
IN WORLD FOOD CRISIS
Explores Church Role
CHICAGO (NC) -- Dispensed priests
“may be hired for any position in the
Church for which a lay person may be
employed,” according to a study of
present Church law released here by the
National Federation of Priests’ Councils
(NFPC).
In addition, the study concluded, the
dispensed priest, “a lay person in good
standing in the Church .. . may and
indeed is called upon to exercise those
ministries incumbent on the baptized as
lay persons.
“He may also exercise certain more
specific ministries including liturgical
ones, provided the danger of confusing
others as to whether he is acting as a
cleric or lay person is avoided.”
The study, prepared for the NFPC by
three canonists (Church lawyers), is not
an attempt to suggest modifications in
Church law, but only to interpret the
meaning of existing legislation.
The three canon lawyers who made
the study were Father James Provost,
chancellor and presiding judge on the
marriage tribunal for the diocese of
Helena, Mont.; Father Kenneth Lasch,
vice chancellor and notary in the
diocese of Paterson, N.J.; and Father
Harmon Skillin, assistant chancellor and
vice officialis for the diocese of
Stockton, Calif.
They were attempting to clarify a
January 1971 circular letter sent out to
the world’s bishops by the Vatican’s
Doctrinal Congregation.
The Doctrinal Congregation,
according to the study, told bishops
that a priest who has been returned to a
lay status and dispensed of his priestly
obligations is not permitted to:
- “Perform any function of sacred
orders, except what is indicated in
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The South
Vietnamese government has its faults,
but the majority of South Vietnamese
prefer it to the Hanoi regime, according
to Vatican spokesman Federico
Alessandrini.
In an editorial in the Vatican Weekly
magazine L’Osservatore della Domenica
Jan. 19, Alessandrini wrote: “As things
stand today, at this moment several
million South Vietnamese reject
communism.”
He added: “If some of South
Vietnam’s inhabitants do not like the
Saigon regime, the Hanoi regime is liked
less and is rejected even at the cost of
very hard sacrifices and with uncertain
prospects.”
Alessandrini said also that perhaps
the current system of government in
Saigon and President Ngyuen Van Thieu
himself are not well liked. He added
that “the climate of corruption” which
he said is common to all wars “may be
oppressive” in South Vietnam.
“But it is also true that dissent can
Rap Ford
WASHINGTON (NC) - While giving
President Gerald Ford credit for
changing directions and offering a
comprehensive economic and energy
policy, church leaders here say the plan
will hurt the poor more than anyone
else.
They also see the plan as weak
because it offers no specifics for
creating jobs, helping the staggering
housing industry or lowering interest
rates.
Coming under the strongest criticism
were the President’s proposal to hold
Social Security, Food Stamp and Civil
Service and military pension
cost-of-living increases to a five percent
ceiling, despite a rise more than twice
that in the actual cost-of-living index.
Also hit strongly was the President’s
announced moratorium on new
spending programs.
While praising the President for
reversing positions he held at the
economic summit meetings in
September by endorsing tax cuts and
accepting necessary higher budget
deficits, Msgr. Lawrence Corcoran,
executive director of the National
Conference of Catholic Charities,
(NCCC) said he questioned the
President’s “priorities.”
“The President made some effort to
study the impact of his proposals of
low-income people, but low income
people will still be hurt the most,” Msgr.
canons 882 and 892, paragraph 2
(referring to hearing confessions of
those in danger of death);
- “Take any liturgical part in
celebrations with the people where his
conditions in known, nor ever give the
homily;
-- “Exercise any pastoral office;
- “Fill the office of rector (or any
other directive function), of spiritual
director and professor in seminaries,
theological faculties and similar
institutes;
-- “Assume the office of director of a
Catholic school or teacher of religion in
any school, Catholic or not,” unless the
local bishop “in his prudent judgment
for particular cases” feels it is allowable
to let the man teach religion in public
schools, or “by way of exception even
in Catholic schools.”
The list of employment and ministry
restrictions, the NFPC study said, is not
so absolute as it might appear at first
sight, chiefly because:
- “All restrictive or penal laws of the
Church are to be “interpreted in a strict
sense,” that is in the narrowest terms of
applicability.
- Recent changes in Church practice
have resulted in the exericse of
ministries by lay people and the
employment of lay people in many jobs
that were once considered priestly jobs.
Regarding the first restriction, against
performing functions of sacred orders,
the study said: “It imposes a restriction
forbidding the exercise of powers which
have been received in virtue of
ordination ... On the other hand, for
those functions in the Church which do
not involve an exercise of sacred orders,
his ability in this regard is at least the
same as a non-ordained lay person’s.”
manifest itself publicly, can state its
arguments, and express itself in
parliament, while nothing of this kind is
possible in the North.”
The Vatican spokesman said that it
was very hard at the moment to assess
the situation in South Vietnam. “Very
intense propaganda, perhaps more
effective than material weapons, has
formed a bit everywhere a widespread
mentality which is very hostile to the
Saigon government, presented not only
by communist sources as dictatorial and
tyrannical, while it is in equal measure
strangley indulgent in comparison
toward the Hanoi regime, dictatorial by
definition and nature.”
According to Alessandrini, it was
thought that when U.S. troops and
direct aid were withdrawn from South
Vietnam, that the Saigon government
would cave in. But, he pointed out, this
has not happened. “What system of
government can support itself in a war
fought with real force if it does not have
the support of a majority of citizens?”
Alessandrini asked.
Proposals
Corcoran said.
Msgr. Corcoran also said the increased
taxes resulting from the President’s
proposed energy-saving measures may
well come to more than lower-income
families will receive in tax rebates and
lowered taxes. Some economists have
expressed concern that the total cost of
the energy taxes could amount to more
than the tax rebates, causing even more
severe inflation.
Kissinger
BOSTON (NC) -- Twenty-four
Catholic and Orthodox Arab-American
religious leaders from New England
signed a statement here Jan. 15
protesting “the suggestion that the
United States might consider military
intervention in the Arab oil-producing
countries to avoid possible ‘economic
strangulation.’”
They charged that America’s
“pro-Israel policy” is the chief cause of
high oil prices and the U.S. energy crisis.
Among the signers were Archbishop
Joseph Tawil, exarch (archbishop) of all
Melkite-rite Catholics in the U.S., and
Rt. Rev. Athanasius Saliba, dean of
Antiochean Orthodox clergy of New
England.
They were protesting against a
statement by Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger. In an interview with Business
Week made public Jan. 3, Kissinger said
in response to a question that military
action on oil prices would be “a very
dangerous course.” But he added:
“I aril not saying that there’s no
On the exercise of pastoral office, the
study noted that the term “pastoral
office” is not found in the Code of
Canon Law, but it is defined for bishops
by the Second Vatican Council as “the
habitual and daily care of their flock.”
A dispensed priest is thus prohibited
from exercising “an ecclesiastical office
which has as its identifying
characteristic ‘the habitual daily care’ of
souls,” the study said.
But this would not prohibit him, the
study said, from “assisting those who
exercise in their own name a strictly
pastoral office” -- in activities such as
coordination of religious education or
the role of pastoral associate, jobs that
are currently being held by women
Religious or lay persons in many areas
of the United States. (In Church law
women Religious are “lay persons,”
since the term applies to all non-clerics.)
The study said the prohibition on
taking part in liturgical celebrations or
giving the homily must also be
understood in the narrowest sense of
applicability.
Giving a homily is an office of a
priest or deacon and is not allowed at
any time for any lay person. But “there
is a growing practice in the United
States to permit lay persons to give an
instruction at the usual homily time,”
and where this is a practice it would be
possible for a dispensed priest, as a lay
person in good standing, to serve in this
capacity -- so long as it is clearly
understood that he is acting as a lay
person and not as a priest.
For other participation in liturgical
celebrations, the study said, in the first
place the dispensed priest is not
prohibited from “participating in the
liturgy altogether, for that would be
‘excommunication.’” In addition, this
restriction applies only “where his
condition (as a dispensed priest) is
known,” so that there are no
restrictions in places where his
condition is not known.
Finally, the canon lawyers said, the
prohibition seems directed against a
dispensed priest serving in capacities
such as reader, song-leader or Mass
server where his conditions is known
“because his role would not be clear” to
the people. But if this confusion need
not be feared in a particular situation,
the lawyers said, one can argue that the
local bishop can declare the restriction
not binding “because of lack of
sufficient cause,” or he can dispense
from the restriction under his
discretionary powers as local bishop.
Even with regard to the restrictions
on the employment of dispensed priests
in seminaries, in higher institutes of
theology or related sciences, or as
teachers of religion or religious studies
in schools, the lawyers noted that a
Vatican document of June 15, 1966,
allows the individual bishop to dispense
“in particular cases” from general laws
that restrict or forbid.
“The diocesan bishop, then, has the
discretion to permit a married dispensed
priest (or one not married) to be hired
as an administrator at any level of
education, or to teach theology in
seminaries and higher institutes,” the
study concluded, “provided there is ‘a
just and reasonable cause’ which may be
the ‘spiritual good of the faithful’. ..”
The norms themselves state that bishops
may make such exceptions for
dispensed priests to teach religion below
the level of higher institutes of learning.
The study concluded that in most of
the areas restricted by the Vatican
document, bishops have a wide range of
discretionary power.
It added that the use of this power
would be “within the general direction
indicated by the American hierarchy,”
which has urged that the “talents and
education” of dispensed priests “should
not be lost to the Church and the
human community.”
Talk Hit
circumstances where we would not use
force. But it is one thing to use it in the
case of a dispute over price, it another
where there’s some actual strangulation
on the industrialized world.”
“On behalf of the parishes and
religious organizations we represent,”
the religious leaders said, “we strongly
protest the suggestion that the United
States might consider military
intervention in the Arab oil-producing
countries to avoid possible ‘economic
strangulation.’ For a nation which
values human rights and obedience to
international law, it is totally
inconsistent with our American ideals
for our leadership to seriously
contemplate such a violation of human
rights and international law.
“Also, as Senator Fulbright and other
patriots have reminded us, such
precipitous action could mean economic
disaster and nuclear holocaust. Our
energy-chemical crisis is the direct result
of our unfortunate pro-Israel policy,
which has been at the expense of the
Arab Christian and Moslem people.”
TV Special
NEW YORK (NC) - The National
Broadcasting Company is presenting an
hour-long television special on “Food:
The Crisis and the Churches,” Sunday,
Jan. 26.
The program focuses on the nature of
the global food crisis, the unique
relationship which the United States has
to the global problem, and the
consequent responsibility of the
American religious community.
The panelists for the network special
include Holy Cross Father Theodore M.
Hesburgh, president of the University of
Notre Dame and chairman of the
Overseas Development Council, and
Father J. Bryan Hehir, associate
secretary for international justice and
peace, United States Catholic
Conference. Philip J. Scharper, editor of
Orbis Books, is the moderator.
The panelists discuss such matters as
the role of multinational corporations in
relationship to the crisis and the United
States’ use of foreign aid as a tool of its
foreign policy. Citing confusion in
government leadership, the panelists
speak of the necessity of placing the
question of the global food crisis
squarely before the American people.
Father Hesburgh says this country
must confront the question of whether
it prefers to feed Russian cattle or
starving people.
He adds that while immediate action
is needed to prevent starvation in many
parts of the world, this must be joined
to long-term planning and activity by
the U.S. government with that of other
countries.
Father Hesburgh expresses the view
that if the United States were to take
the initiative in offering grain to the
underdeveloped nations, the
oil-producing countries would then
offer monetary assistance.
Father Hehir says the global food
crisis must be placed in the context of
such questions as development,
distribution, including trade and aid,
and the matter of consumption of the
world’s resources and the life-style of
the American people.
He says there is no doubt the
American people would respond
favorably to meeting the needs of the
starving people of the world if the issues
and questions were placed before them
correctly.
The panelists agree that it is easy to
place blame on others in the food crisis
but that no one group of people can be
singled out as the villains in this
complex question. They say the
American farmer is not the villain.
Ultimately the question will come
down to whether we in this country
have the will to meet our
responsibilities, the panelists state.
“Food: The Crisis and Churches” was
produced in cooperation with the Film
and Broadcasting office of the United
States Catholic Conference. NBC will
televise the program Jan. 26 from 3 to 4
p.m. EST.
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