What can a bishop do about liturgical abuse?

[pigpen]

I am asking hypothetically…if a parish commits many liturgical abuses, is ordered to stop by a bishop, and yet they continue the abuses, what consequence might the parish face? What can a bishop do?

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I am asking hypothetically…if a parish commits many liturgical abuses, is ordered to stop by a bishop, and yet they continue the abuses, what consequence might the parish face? What can a bishop do?

It depends on what the nature of the liturgical abuses are. You haven’t provided any details or hints.

It is the pastor’s job to follow the rubrics of the Church.

If there are committees that are doing things that are offensive, then the pastor can change the committee in some way … change the name and appoint other people or just temporarily suspend the committee meetings. If it’s some ministry that is off, he can just break it up and reassign the duties.

It really all depends on the nature of the abuses.

Worst case, if the pastor is too inexperienced to be able to deal with it, the bishop can appoint someone else.

There have been cases where the congregation is “death” on pastors and where the congregation has earned a deserved reputation for giving their pastors a hard time. In that case, the bishop could change out the pastors every year or two, before they get burn-out.

Some pastors have been alerted ahead of time by their bishops and have felt that their personal calling was to bring Christ to that particular parish. In those cases, the bishop should use a kind of “ecclesiastical tough love” and not send in a pastor who would end up as a basket case and insist on a one-year or two-year rotation.

Most commonly, the bishop would just assign some other priest to be pastor and remove the pastor who has failed to correct the abuses.

He can call the pastor up and ask him to come by the bishop’s office for a visit. And then read him the riot act. And give him a letter with details of the priest must do.

Or, he can reassign the priest to perhaps a hospital chaplaincy. Or a prison ministry.

And if all that fails, he can give the priest some kind of choice: such as reassignment to a monastery with solitary prayer versus being laicized.

There was one case in which the bishop appointed as pastor a priest from Korea … a very tough guy!

I don’t mean to make light of it, but bishops do have ways of dealing with these situations.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

If the the Bishop orders a pastor to fix his liturgical errors and he refuses then he faces two chocies: the Bishop can reassign the pastor somewhere else or he can suspend the pastor.

Reassignment is the only practical option in most cases since suspension would be a very serious penalty and would need to be for very serious reasons. However, when it comes to reassignment where are you going to put him? The liturgical errors will probably just continue whereever he goes. And who are you going to replace him with and what do you do with that opening?

Outside of really serious liturgical abuses, if the parish is quiet and running well then there’s no reason to be rocking boats.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

And if all that fails, he can give the priest some kind of choice: such as reassignment to a monastery with solitary prayer versus being laicized.

Well, that would be difficult to do outside of really serious abuses that affect the validity of the sacraments or outright heresy. Diocesan priests can’t be forced into monastic lifestyles and a priest can fight being laicized.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Well, that would be difficult to do outside of really serious abuses that affect the validity of the sacraments or outright heresy. Diocesan priests can’t be forced into monastic lifestyles and a priest can fight being laicized.

Agreed.

It totally depends on the nature of the abuses.

If it turns out that the parish secretary is running the parish … into the ground. Then the secretary can be fired.

And the pastor hires as a replacement a temp who is not from that town.

It depends on what is going on.

If the pastor needs to be removed, he can simply be sent home. There have been priests who ended up pumping gas for a living.