Daily Mass is inevitably the first casualty when individual priests become responsible for several parishes. The same is true when parishes are without a designated priest for a prolonged period. Supply or locum priests are invariably considered to be necessary only for Sundays and Holy days.
Adrian Chiles’ welcome and much-needed article (The Tablet, 25 April) and ensuing letters in subsequent editions on the importance of daily Mass in parishes focus attention on the concept of vibrant Eucharistic communities, rather than numbers of Sunday Mass attendees as the paramount criterion in the allocation of priests to parishes.
Sadly, of late a pattern seems to have become established whereby little or no attention is paid to the importance of weekday Mass for the health of a parish community – I have noticed this not only throughout Britain but also in northern France.
If daily Mass, for an admittedly small number of people, could be seen as the vital life-blood of a parish, rather than an optional and easily disposable add-on extra to Sunday Mass, then the present discipline whereby the priesthood is restricted to celibate males, something Pope Francis has already said is “archaic”, would more quickly wither on the vine of outdated ecclesial legislation.
Basil Loftus, Helmsdale, Sutherland
After more than ten years in Anglican ministry the breakdown of my 20-year marriage had me return to secular employment. I later met and married my present wife of 26 years. It was later still that I obtained a nullity on my first marriage and became a Roman Catholic. There was no question of priestly ordination, the papal dispensation was not in place.
It was 10 years later that the parish priest rekindled my vocation when he suggested I offer myself for the Catholic priesthood.
I did so but failed. The Selection Panel believed the Church of England did not regard Orders as indelible. Thus in their view, on leaving the ministry I became an Anglican layman, ineligible for the dispensation. I made clear on the day that they were wrong but no one could be bothered to look it up or ask someone. Two days later I received a letter from the bishop rejecting my application on this erroneous ground. I replied quoting the Anglican Canons and ARCIC. The correction was accepted but the rejection stood for other reasons – undisclosed despite repeated, fruitless, requests.
A change of diocesan staff four years later encouraged me to seek enlightenment again – successfully this time. The problem was my wife.
When we married I was still Anglican, an inactive priest of the Church of England. Anglican priests are allowed to marry or remarry. The fact that she was not my wife when I was active in the ministry meant that the dispensation could not apply to her. My application had been doomed from the start. I felt that Rome had wasted my time, insulted first my intelligence, then my wife and marriage.
Three years later I returned to the Church of England and a few months later was licensed by the diocesan bishop. I assist regularly in my Anglican parish. My beloved former Catholic parish and priest have missed out on nine years of free liturgical and pastoral support.
And why? I can only issue this warning to those like Fr Edward Butler (Letters, 2 May) who lament the loss of priests who have left to marry and who long for their return. Deep in the Roman psyche and structures there is an attitude to women and marriage that has more to do with the priest Ahimelech and the bread of the Presence than with anything in the New Testament (1 Samuel 21:4). It is an attitude that discounts pastoral and sacramental need. It will see and does see the faithful without priests but still yields not one iota.
Revd Patrick Bryan, Palmer’s Cross, Wolverhampton
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