Priestless services ‘stifle vocations’
12 July 2012
www.thetablet.co.uk/latest-news/4339
The practice of lay people or consecrated Religious conducting communion services in the absence of a priest [so-called SCAPs] is a hindrance to priestly vocations and confusing to the faithful, a senior Vatican cardinal has warned.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, made his remarks at the Fifth Fota International Liturgy Conference in Cork this week. He said it was “not good for people to participate repeatedly in these kinds of services on Sundays because they lose the sense that the Blessed Sacrament – Holy communion – comes from the sacrifice.”
Cardinal Burke said that Services of the Word separated the Eucharist from the vocation of the priest. He added: “It shouldn’t surprise us that the number of vocations plummets.”