No Mass to take place in Limerick diocese next Tuesday

[GEddie]

I don’t think anybody is saying that a bishop can’t send all the priests wherever. Obviously he can. And no, no justification is needed. There is no right to daily Mass, just as there is no right to the Eucharistic Body.

The question was whether this should be represented as stemming from a “shortage of priests.” There is no connection. Even if there were a superabundance of priests, the bishop could still send them wherever, and there is still no right to Daily Mass.

ICXC NIKA

 

[commenter]

I don’t think anybody is saying that a bishop can’t send all the priests wherever. Obviously he can. And no, no justification is needed. There is no right to daily Mass, just as there is no right to the Eucharistic Body.

The question was whether this should be represented as stemming from a “shortage of priests.” There is no connection. Even if there were a superabundance of priests, the bishop could still send them wherever, and there is still no right to Daily Mass.

ICXC NIKA

The media will draw a connection, if it sells newspapers. The problem with interviews is that they may have asked lots of questions, gotten lots of answers, but only a few statements make it to print.

When a parish was closed in my diocese, a long standing devotion was moved over to another parish a short distance away. Reporters who themselves had made prior statements showing no belief whatever suddenly lamented over this precious devotion being stolen from the people, by the Church.

 

[FrDavid96]

I don’t think anybody is saying that a bishop can’t send all the priests wherever. Obviously he can. And no, no justification is needed. There is no right to daily Mass, just as there is no right to the Eucharistic Body.

The question was whether this should be represented as stemming from a “shortage of priests.” There is no connection. Even if there were a superabundance of priests, the bishop could still send them wherever, and there is still no right to Daily Mass.

ICXC NIKA

Again, I checked the diocese own public communications about this.

The priests’ absence from the parishes on that day is not a result of the priest shortage. The bishop does not claim that there is a cause-and-effect.

However, the choice of prayer service being done in the parishes is connected to the shortage. The bishop did want prayers to be introduced at the parish level to help prepare the parishioners for a future with less priests.

So there is nothing disingenuous or misleading or dishonest (nor anything else) about what the bishop has said; this despite the comment that’s been made in this thread by another user.

The problem is that the media is trying to make a direct connection between the two (absence from parishes and choice of prayers) which simply does not exist. Diocese do this sort of thing all the time, mandatory priest meetings, and they do it whether there is a shortage, a surplus, or anywhere in between.

The bishop is not saying “there won’t be Mass because of the priest shortage” instead he’s saying “there won’t be Mass because of a mandatory meeting” and adding “by the way, this gives us an opportunity to prepare for the future reality of less priests.” My paraphrase, of course.