Cardinal Muller: Push for lay homilies stems from denial of ‘sacramental priesthood’
The Church’s teaching on this matter of the duties reserved to the priesthood is not a mere invention of recent times, but dates to “the very beginning.”
VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Cardinal Gerhard Müller has added his voice to the Vatican’s in opposing a move by the German bishops to have lay people delivering homilies during Mass.
“One cannot arbitrarily divide up priestly powers and outsource them in a functionalist manner,” he warned, “unless one denies the sacramental priesthood altogether in a Protestant manner, subsumes it entirely under the common priesthood of all the faithful, and leaves it merely as a function carried out on behalf of the community.”
Müller’s commentary was published on June 25, two days after the Vatican published news of its own response to the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) who had sought permission for members of the laity to deliver homilies during Mass. {For full details see the previous report by this correspondent from Tuesday. Cdl. Müller’s full statement is found below.}
The lengthy response from the Congregation for Divine Worship to the DBK noted how the homily forms “an integral part of the Liturgy of the Word, is intrinsically linked to the proclamation of the Gospel, and constitutes an exercise of the munus docendi entrusted to ordained ministers through the Sacrament of Holy Orders.”
Müller echoed this, writing that “priestly authority extends not only to that part of the Holy Mass which culminates in the offering of Christ’s sacrifice and the consecration of bread and wine into the sacramentally present Body and Blood of Christ, but to the entire Sacrament of the Eucharist.”
The Church’s teaching on this matter is not a mere invention of recent times, but dates to “the very beginning,” and has, Müller noted, been continuously taught through the centuries, most recently at the Second Vatican Council.
Continuing, the German prelate pointed to an apparent double standard on the part of liberal activists in the Church, accusing them of invoking the name of Vatican II to cover their own personal goals:
It is interesting that precisely those who are so fond of invoking the Second Vatican Council Vatican Council II, contradict it on matters of lay preaching during Holy Mass and seek not only to revert to the Council of Trent but specifically to the pre-Reformation abuses—against which Luther not only protested but which prompted him to accuse the Church of apostasy from the true Gospel (albeit according to his own interpretation) and to turn his back on it.
He urged the “perpetual protesters” to “engage with the fundamentals of Catholic theology and stop driving the Church in Germany into a wall with their resentment-fueled ideologies and claims to power.”
However such an outcome is not immediately likely, given that the highly influential German lay body has urged the DBK to be resolute in its position and reject Rome’s decision. “We therefore expect the German bishops to reaffirm their substantive position to Rome, strengthen their arguments, and under no circumstances read Cardinal Roche’s letter as a cause for discouragement,” wrote Irme Stetter-Karp who leads the Central Committee of German Catholics.
She noted how the German bishops had given their wide support to the proposal of lay homilies, and thus should lobby the Holy See anew to have such a change approved.
The CDW having now given its answer to the DBK, it is somewhat improbably that any new response will emerge from the Vatican in the upcoming months.
What is much more likely is that members of the German laity will unofficially deliver homilies regardless of the Vatican’s prohibition, and media clips of the event will be leaked and shared by the DBK’s online publications as a way of pressuring the Holy See.
“Priestly powers cannot be arbitrarily divided and functionally outsourced”
Gerhard Cardinal Müller
(Published on Kath net, working English translation)
The Second Vatican Council emphasized that in the Holy Mass, the Liturgy of the Word (liturgia verbi) and the Liturgy of the Eucharist (liturgia eucharistica) “are so closely linked that they constitute a single act of worship” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy 56), thus representing the unity of worship of the Triune God, who became flesh in Jesus Christ, the Divine Person of the Word. Therefore, Christ is present in the Church through the proclamation of the Gospel and the celebration of the Holy Sacraments.
The sacramental sign or sacramental act consists of audible words and visible gestures. Priestly authority extends not only to that part of the Holy Mass which culminates in the offering of Christ’s sacrifice and the consecration of bread and wine into the sacramentally present Body and Blood of Christ, but to the entire Sacrament of the Eucharist.
While devotions, catechesis, and celebrations of the Word of God may be held as separate services led by a layperson commissioned by the bishop, one must not separate the Liturgy of the Word from the Eucharistic portion of the Holy Mass, allowing the former to be led by a layperson’s homily and the latter to be celebrated by an ordained priest.
Luther himself had already regarded this as an abuse and accused the Church of allowing priests and bishops to cease being first and foremost ministers of the Word, instead degenerating into ritualists and mere celebrants of the Mass.
The Council of Trent, on the other hand, taught that sacramentally ordained priests are appointed by Christ to be ministers of both the Word and the sacraments. Justin the Martyr had already stated this in his Apology, explaining that the presider interprets the letters of the Apostles and the Gospels in his sermon and then proceeds with the Eucharist, while the deacons assist him in distributing Holy Communion.
The Second Vatican Council therefore emphasized the unity of the priest’s ministry in the Word of God, the sacraments, and the governance of the Church. Sacramental ordination configures bishops and presbyters “by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, in the image of Christ, the supreme and eternal Priest, for the proclamation of the Good News, for the pastoral care of the faithful, and for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy” (Lumen gentium 28).
In accordance with the practice and teaching of the Church from the very beginning, the Congregation for Divine Worship has affirmed that the homily in the Holy Mass is an integral part of the Holy Mass, which is entrusted to the presiding priest by virtue of his sacramental ordination, while he is assisted by the deacons, who share in this sacrament by virtue of their own ordination.
One cannot arbitrarily divide up priestly powers and outsource them in a functionalist manner unless one denies the sacramental priesthood altogether in a Protestant manner, subsumes it entirely under the common priesthood of all the faithful, and leaves it merely as a function carried out on behalf of the community.
It is interesting that precisely those who are so fond of invoking the Second Vatican Council Vatican Council II, contradict it on matters of lay preaching during Holy Mass and seek not only to revert to the Council of Trent but specifically to the pre-Reformation abuses—against which Luther not only protested but which prompted him to accuse the Church of apostasy from the true Gospel (albeit according to his own interpretation) and to turn his back on it.
The German “perpetual protesters” should not only reconsider their relationship to the Pope’s Petrine ministry, but also engage with the fundamentals of Catholic theology and stop driving the Church in Germany into a wall with their resentment-fueled ideologies and claims to power.