Sunday Celebrations in the absence of a priest

[BobHayes]

Perhaps one way to consider this would be to ask, 'How would our sisters and brothers in the Middle East, Africa and the former USSR tackle such a challenge? We do have it pretty easy here!

[nazard]

...If a priest walked by a bakery and (even inadvertently) muttered "This is my Body", was all the bread in the shop now consecrated?

What does de defectibus say about this? Surely there would be a defective intent to say a valid mass?

...On A Sunday, I am sick in bed one hundred yards from the church but I can just see the altar through my bedroom and a church window. As I can see the host and chalice elevated during the Canon, have I fulfilled my Sunday obligation?

Surely if you are sick in bed you have no Sunday obligation?

The situation you describe is not terribly dissimilar from many big churches where distant members of the congregation cannot see the priest, and only hear his voice by virtue of an abysmal speaker system. The only real difference is that they are in the same room. I have attended mass where the congregation overflowed so often that they had a speaker on the outside wall, and at communion time the priest popped outside to distribute communion. What do you make of that?

[Peter Jones]

............We do have it pretty easy here!

At the moment, perhaps. Not in ten years time though. For example, I know how many seminarians there are at Oscott - but I'm not at liberty to divulge the number. Let's just say that the number of seminarians ordained in the next few years will be vastly exceeded by the number of priests retiring. (Didn't Nick Baty, on another thread, give a link to an article about the circumstances in Liverpool?)

[Peter Jones]

What does de defectibus say about this? ......

I make a mental note - nazard is well versed in "trad" Canon Law and Moral Theology.

What do you make of that?

Well, we had greater journeys than simply popping outside at Cofton Park and BXVI didn't seem to mind.
Now - back to journeying from one church with a priest to one without.

[BobHayes]

............We do have it pretty easy here!

At the moment, perhaps. Not in ten years time though. For example, I know how many seminarians there are at Oscott - but I'm not at liberty to divulge the number. Let's just say that the number of seminarians ordained in the next few years will be vastly exceeded by the number of priests retiring. (Didn't Nick Baty, on another thread, give a link to an article about the circumstances in Liverpool?)

Oh, I was not being complacent about what lies ahead - far from it! What I was intimating was that viewed from a global perspective when have (and in future will still have) churches - with priests - relatively close together, quite high levels of access to a car and availability of public transport.

My fear is that without rigorous catechesis SCAP would quickly become a substitute for Holy Mass, as it would be seen as an opportunity to 'get' a host on Sunday. As it is there are already plenty of people not returning to the pews, but making for the exit, after receiving the Blessed Sacrament. SCAP could add to the commodification of the Eucharist.

[Southern Comfort]

Re CCTV cameras and suchlike, here's a brief extract from a 1998 article by Gabe Huck entitled You have to be there: Liturgy requires bodies which is mostly about televised Masses (and well worth a read) but also has this choice chunk:

If, by chance, you were to wander into St. Patrick's Cathedral in the Archdiocese of New York, what would you see? A long gothic building, of course, focused on a distant sanctuary. But you might also notice the large television monitors hanging from every pillar, provided so that during major celebrations everyone can see what's happening up there, in that distant sanctuary. The people who have provided this service have pretty much guaranteed that nothing will, in fact, be happening, because they have turned the doers of the liturgy into the viewers of a ceremony. Those television monitors are a denial of the statement that opens the General Instruction of the Roman Missal: "The celebration of Mass is the action of Christ and the people of God hierarchically assembled" (#1); they also stand against the statement in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1144) that it is "the whole assembly which is leitourgos." (1)

It isn't ideal to be far away from the ambo or the table at Mass, of course, but it's all right when the assembly is large. When, however, you televise the lector at the ambo or the priest at the table to those at a distance (but, as at St. Patrick's, still in the same room!), what does this practice say about the whole enterprise of doing liturgy? Among other things, it says: Who needs you? It says: Welcome to the audience. We'll try to make your visit to St. Patrick's as pleasant as possible.

Those monitors hanging on the pillars of that cathedral are perhaps the ugliest thing ever done to a house of the church. . . and that's saying a lot! The shape and size of the ego behind this decision boggles the mind.

(1) This statement is not an anomaly in the Cathechism. See also #1140: "It is the whole community, the Body of Christ united with its Head, that celebrates."