Lay Funeral Ministers

[Nick Baty]

Liverpool Archdiocese has recently trained and commissioned its first batch of Lay Ministers for Funerals. Is this happening elsewhere or is it a local initiative?

[Southern Comfort]

If this is true (and it would be a great pastoral step forward if it were), it is probably "illegal". Rome requires the use of lay ministers to lead funeral services to be a decision of the bishops' conference, and I am not aware that ours has decided anything like this. An individual diocese taking this step may be asking to be rapped over the knuckles....

The use of lay ministers at funerals is, I am told, common in South America, and I would suspect that the same may be true in parts of Africa. In England there was in the past at least one parish where the priest empowered a female lay leader for funerals and weddings (both without Mass, of course) for a number of years, without the knowledge of his bishop, but he is now dead and those days are, I think, long gone.

[JW]

Ir seems odd to me that a Catholic funeral should be conducted without a Requiem Mass. Are the deceased consulted before their demise? I can't believe we don't have enough priests for this when many say weekday Masses for a handful of people.

If it's just a question of the family needing a Catholic minister at the crematorium for a 'nominal' catholic commital, most dioceses have deacons who can fulfill this function.

[Nick Baty]

Seems to me, JW, as a pastoral response to a pressing need. We have more than 200 funerals a year and our deacon died a few weeks ago. So our PP is now on his own with three-and-a-half parishes merged into one.

Part of the funeral preparation is undertaken (no pun intended) by our parish's pastoral assistant but there's a limit to what he can do alongside his work in our three churches and five schools. And as he's shared with another parish, what he does with us is only half of his workload.

Were there a queue of people offering themselves for diaconate – which there isn't – the training is three years, so that means our parish still faces at least three years without a deacon.

...most dioceses have deacons who can fulfill this function.

Are you suggesting "flying" deacons? And am I right in thinking this is also a decision which would have to be taken from on high?

I tried to attach a Funeral information leaflet but "the board attachment quota has been reached". So click here, scroll down to Planning a Catholic Funeral and click on "Read more...."

[Peter Jones]

Ir seems odd to me that a Catholic funeral should be conducted without a Requiem Mass.

Not possible in, for example, Social Services arranged funerals where one is allotted twenty-odd minutes in a crematorium or cemetery chapel. Mass can always be offered for the deceased at a time following the funeral.

[organist]

Deacons are for the deanery not just a parish or at least that's the theory. This sounds like an obvious solution to a major problem.

[Peter Jones]

We have more than 200 funerals a year.....

That sounds as if you have a degree of deceased whose nostalgic families are bringing them back to the "home church" of their childhood, rather than the funerals being celebrated in the parishes where they have recently (or not-so-recently) resided.

[Nick Baty]

That used to be the case but no longer. The only people allowed back for funerals are those who had a long-standing link to the parish but have been forced to move away – perhaps into care or to live with relatives – because of old age.

[Peter Jones]

Deacons are for the deanery not just a parish......

Errrr - cough, cough - Deacons are appointed by their Bishop to do whatever the Bishop considers appropriate. (There are no permanent deacons in my deanery.)

[Nick Baty]

Deacons are for the deanery not just a parish or at least that's the theory.

I always thought the reverse was true. And the one we recently lost was the only one in a pastoral area of 11 churches.

[Peter Jones]

And the one we recently lost was the only one in a pastoral area of 11 churches.

But in 2009 you did have 107 permanent deacons in the diocese - http://www.liverpoolcatholic.org.uk/userfiles_rcaol/file/fd/RCAL%20Summary%20Financial%20Report%202009.pdf

How many are there now? (Next year, there are 10 candidates for ordination in Birmingham)

[Nick Baty]

But in 2009 you did have 107 permanent deacons in the diocese...

But not in the right places.

Anyway, back to the original question, are Lay Ministers for Funerals being commissioned anywhere else?

[Southern Comfort]

I tried to attach a Funeral information leaflet but "the board attachment quota has been reached". So click here, scroll down to Planning a Catholic Funeral and click on "Read more...."

Ah, so this is what you mean! But most of that is old hat. It has always been possible, and indeed encouraged, for lay ministers to take, for example, the Vigil service. That's what books such as the Bishops' Conference In Sure and Certain Hope are for: they provide materials for all the things that lay ministers can do in the funeral rites:

Commmendation of the Dying
Prayers after Death
Gathering in the Presence of the Body
Vigil for the Deceased
Gathering of the Family and Transfer of the Body to the Church or to the Place of Committal
Vigil for a Deceased Child
Finale Commendation for an Infant
Forms of Prayer to Mark an Anniversary
Rite for the Burial of Ashes

What you won't find in that list is taking the actual funeral service. The Church assumes that a priest or deacon will always preside at the funeral itself, not a lay person; and, as stated above, any variation in that provision has to be an act of the Bishops' Conference, approved by Rome.

The fact that the Liverpool leaflet specifically states that a Lay Minister may take the Funeral service itself appears on the surface to be a breach of law, even though it may be a pastorally desirable one.

[Nick Baty]

Ah, so this is what you mean!

Plus the fact that 22 people have been trained and formally commissioned.

[Peter Jones]

Commmendation of the Dying

I'm just wondering now how many Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist are aware of their role as ministers of Viaticum.