Am I off my rocker or is there grave matter involved here?!?

[CatholicNerd]

Yesterday I received a call from my parish music director and was asked to be the organist for a funeral held this morning (can a good West Coast Catholic even call it a funeral? I think they called it a ‘resurrection celebration’ or something). I should have known that something funky was brewing when I saw a woman in priestly choir dress running around before the service started (Requiem Masses are sooo not in style here, so it was some kind of prayer service)… then she put on a golden stole that matched the priest’s and processed down the nave with him while I was playing the processional and getting ready for the introit.

Initially, I thought “well, it’s not proper to put a female server in choir dress, but they probably don’t know any better around here.” Then, to my horror, she was introduced by Fr. as the “Right Reverend Nomen from All Saints’ Episcopalian church, and as she was a good friend of the deceased, she will be assisting with our celebration this morning.” 0_0

And assist she did! Readings, prayers, a second (and rather heretical) homily… What in the heck was that all about?!? As I said before, this wasn’t a Mass, so perhaps there are different canons that cover these situations… but goodness. Allowing a woman and a material heretic to dare approach the altar in choir dress?! Introducing her as Reverend and having her share in the duties of the priest?! That seems to be borderline heresy. Am I right? Or am I just nuts?

 

[mumto5]

Well, I know this is ok for weddings in two instances: 1/ In a Catholic church the priest presides and the minister of another denomination can concelebrate the wedding Mass. 2/ The Catholic can get a dispensation to marry in the church of another denomination and the minister of the other religion is the primary celebrant, the Catholic priest has a secondary and very minor role. Basically all he does is give a blessing.

I would assume that likewise, you could have an ecumenical funeral but it does seem the non-Catholic minister would have been more involved in the service than she should have been.

So in itself, I don’t think, going by what I know about weddings, that it would have been forbidden in itself, it may just have gone too far.