Priests who can't stand

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Michael_Anthony

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Recently I saw a video of Pope John Paul II at Mass near the end of his life, and he seemed to be saying Mass in some sort of motorised chair, it got me wondering, if a priest can’t stand, can they still say Mass?
 
A Pope isn’t going to be dismissed from saying mass just because he can’t walk,

Though priests can become handicap after being a priest an still be allowed to say the mass as long as they are physically able, normally you are not going to see someone entering into the priesthood with a physical handicap, Normally. An they are scrutinized if they do have one. Insurance comes into play upon the early stages and a bishop and ones diocese try to rationalize if they want to take on that financial burden .
 
Father Bill Atkinson was ordained nine years after an accident left him a quadriplegic, served as a priest for 30 years before needing to enter a care facility for the last couple years of his life, and is now up for sainthood.


I note that he was a member of a religious order, not a diocesan priest, which may have made it a bit easier since from what I have read, his brothers in the order helped care for him, and he could be assigned to duties that he could handle. It would obviously be much harder for a severely disabled priest to be running a parish as the only priest, as many diocesan priests are called to do. I have seen a number of priests suffering from some severe illness or disability where they cannot stand without help or can’t stand for very long, but they tend to be “in residence” at some parish with other priests who presumably take on many of the duties that might be taxing on a priest with a disability. The priests with the disability will often help with things like saying daily Mass, leading a prayer group, hearing confessions, etc.
 
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One priest whose Masses I attend fairly regularly is on a walker. I always pray for him because he has a lot of difficulty getting around but he seems to be a very holy priest. He is from Poland and very traditional, educated and prayerful. He pretty much only stands for the consecration and can only lift the bread and wine a little bit. He lets others such as deacons and lay ministers handle the readings and distributing the Communion. If there’s a rosary after Mass, he’ll go change out of his vestments and then come back out on a little scooter and pray the rosary with us.
 
In a parish where we used to live, one elderly priest celebrated regular weekday Masses in his wheelchair. They put up a low folding table which he used as the altar, at the foot of the altar steps. He said Mass without ever standing up or genuflecting. No hassle.
 
My parish has one Priest Assistant who Offers Mass, but doesn’t serve communion. He is elderly and has back, leg, and strength issues, and he worries about dropping the consecrated Hosts. To prevent Our Lord falling to the ground, he has asked the Deacons and Sacristans to do communion for him. He’s an amazing, thoughtful, interesting man, and I love having him still participating and saying Mass!
 
A priest who was the pastor at my father’s old parish in upstate PA was blind and in a wheelchair. He came to a nursing home near our house (this is in the mid to late 1970s) and offered the Divine Liturgy from memory!

The only thing he couldn’t do was distribute Holy Communion, so one of the Sisters would distribute Holy Communion with the spoon BUT she NEVER said the words. Father - even though he was blind - would say the words “The servant of God…” for each communicant.

This year is 35 years since that good priest passed away. Blessed repose and eternal memory.
 
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Back in the late 1960s, we had an elderly priest who said Mass from a chair with a small table in front of him. In the diocese we had a number of elderly priests who would not adapt to the new liturgy and the archbishop was fairly lenient with them despite the EF being officially not allowed for public Masses. One once claimed he was too old to serve behind the counter. The archbishop was quite relieved that infirmity had driven our priest to say Mass ad occidentem even if he did stick to the Latin Missal.
 
I’m not trying to hijack this thread, but it could interestingly be tied to a string of posts where some were very concerned about priests doing things that were not explicitly allowed in the rubrics. Some might contend that this is bad form, and be upset about it…but hopefully those folks are few and far in between.
 
It’s ad orientem (to the East). Ad occidentem is to the West. 😉
 
Actually jimXroberts was saying that it forced the priest to serve ad popullum (to the people) I am unaware of any precedent for ad occidentum (the novus ordo is usually ad popullum), and ad orientum is when it is done facing the altar (which in turn traditionally faced East).
 
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