Lay Ministers

[mommy_k]

I would have thought the Holy spirit would have annointed them with wisdom to decide to pursue this. Not a formal annointing --a spiritual one.

 

[Tigg]

Thank you for your replies. I feel that when you are annointed to become a Eucharistic minister it is a sacred thing.

Altho Christ does call us to certain ministries, being human, sometimes the motivation for us to serve in a certain capacitiy is not totally unselfish.

I would never report my pastor, he is a holy man with a gentle soul.

But if he is allowing lay ministers to serve who are not in full communion with the Church, that is quite wrong and can cause scandal and harm to the general community.

Perhaps the church needs to prepare lay ministers better sothey can truly become the representitives of the church.

Most dioceses’ have guidelines, code of conduct and behavior standards for lay ministers. Anyone wishing to serve in our parish must attest to the fact that their marriage is valid and that they will uphold Church teaching.

 

[Phemie]

Most dioceses’ have guidelines, code of conduct and behavior standards for lay ministers. Anyone wishing to serve in our parish must attest to the fact that their marriage is valid and that they will uphold Church teaching.

Would that that were so in all parishes but, having served in as many as 10 parishes over the years, I’m well aware that such is not the case. Only once, in 30 years of serving, have I heard someone say “I’m divorced. Are you sure it’s appropriate for me to be an EMHC?” In that case the woman was not in a relationship with anyone so it was OK for her to serve in that capacity.

The saddest thing is that if you refused to have someone read or be an EMHC because he/she was in an invalid marriage or living in sin most of the parishioners would be outraged.

 

[odile53]

I’d talk with the pastor about the e-mails, and then set my spam filter to intercept them. I’d dump the spam mailbox daily. If this person is a EMHC, I’d go to another communion line. I wouldn’t engage this person verbally: People like this like nothing better than an audience!

I certainly wouldn’t let such a character affect my comfort level at Mass. There are what my husband calls “granola” (nuts and flakes) all over the place, and the Church, being comprised of broken human beings, is no different. I can’t let myself, my values, and my faith be seriously affected by them.

 

[Tigg]

The saddest thing is that if you refused to have someone read or be an EMHC because he/she was in an invalid marriage or living in sin most of the parishioners would be outraged.

Reform is not easy and we’ve learned all too well in this area, the depth of rebellion when we got a new bishop two years ago. After many years of liberal leadership many parishioners were none too pleased to hear echoes from Humanae Vitae once again. In addition, this is a heavily Democrat area and a neighboring parish recently had some walk out during the homily after hearing that our voting preference this election must be given to candidates who support the primary issues regarding life and traditional marriage.

One comment I heard over this incident was that the goats are being separated from the sheep. Perhaps this is true and if Catholics choose to live outside the boundaries, maybe we will see the smaller, more pure Church that Benedict recently spoke about.