The Swiss bishops’ call for adherence to Catholic “rules” followed an internet controversy over an August 2022 video of a laywoman who seemed to concelebrate Mass with priests. / Credit: Katholisches Medienzentrum YouTube screenshot
Denver, Colo., Sep 11, 2023 / 14:45 pm (CNA).
A viral video showing two priests celebrating Mass with a Swiss laywoman at the altar has resulted in a formal reprimand of the pastors by Bishop Joseph Bonnemain of Chur, Switzerland, but there will not be a canonical proceeding.
“Careful investigation of the matter has shown that there were no serious liturgical violations in this service, the assessment of which would be reserved for the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith,” said a Sept. 8 joint statement whose signatories included Bonnemain. “Therefore, no criminal proceedings are required under canon law.”
“However, important liturgical regulations that are binding for the entire Church were ignored in this service,” the statement added. “The bishop therefore cannot avoid issuing a formal reprimand to the pastors involved in this regard.”
The joint statement came from the Diocese of Chur, St. Martin Catholic Parish, the pastors and clergy involved in the controversy, and Monika Schmid.
The August 2022 Mass in the Diocese of Chur marked the retirement of Schmid, a longtime de facto parish administrator. Video of the Mass depicted Schmid as she appeared to concelebrate the Eucharist with the priests.
Schmid stood at the altar in ordinary dress with two priests beside her. She extended her arms and pronounced with them the words of the Consecration and an extensively revised version of the Eucharistic Prayer.
The joint statement noted that the farewell service received broad media coverage.
Following controversy over the video, Schmid denied her actions constituted an attempt to concelebrate Mass or to be provocative. She acknowledged that as a woman she can’t validly celebrate the Eucharist as ordained Catholic priests do.
Canon 907 of the Catholic Church’s canon law bars Catholic deacons and Catholic laity from offering the Eucharistic Prayer and from performing actions “proper to the celebrating priest.”
The joint statement discussed the bishop’s response.
“On Aug. 15, 2023, Bishop Joseph Maria Bonnemain issued the appropriate warning to the five affected people during detailed personal discussions in the expectation that these mistakes will not be repeated in the future,” the statement said.
At the same time, the statement from the diocese said Bonnemain “expressed his confidence in all the pastors involved and thanks them for their committed pastoral work for the good of the people.”
In the wake of the controversial video, Bonnemain joined Bishops Felix Gmür of Basel and Markus Büchel of Sankt Gallen in writing a Jan. 5 letter to people active in pastoral care in their dioceses, as CNA previously reported.
Only ordained priests may preside at Mass, and the liturgy should not be “a testing ground for personal projects,” said the three bishops, whose dioceses are the predominantly German-speaking dioceses of Switzerland.
The bishops acknowledged people’s desire to participate in the liturgy but said the Catholic liturgy has a universal character, and this especially concerns celebrations of the sacraments. They referred to Pope Francis’ June 2022 apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi. It insists on the quality of liturgies, the careful attention to every aspect of liturgical celebration, and the observance of every rubric.
“Common witness requires common forms and rules. We bishops regularly receive requests and worried reactions: The faithful have a right to religious services that respect the rules and forms of the Church,” they said.
Schmid, the pastoral worker whose retirement Mass sparked the controversy, was critical of the bishops’ letter upon its release in January. She advocated a liturgical celebration that, in her view, “reaches out to people in their daily lives, in their language, and in their understanding of themselves,” the Swiss Catholic internet news portal Cath.ch reported.
[…]
Since female “deacons” in the early Church were historically and now are decidedly not equivalent to male deacons (International Theological Commission in 2002, plus the sidelined Gerhard Cardinal Muller’s book: “The Priesthood and the Diaconate”, German 2000/English 2002), it seems the Pope Francis has four options.
He can either (1) invent a contradiction and throw the three-tiered sacrament of Holy Orders into complete chaos, or perhaps,(2) create a “deaconess” subcategory of deacon-like ministry that is no not-quite-an-ordination, or (3) simply reject any misguided advice (the term “inadmissible” comes to mind), or he can (3) remain silent.
Option Two seems to have been unwittingly pre-empted in recent years by the creation Lay Ecclesial Ministers. These ministers, as it was clarified in writing only at the last minute, serve by virtue of their sacramental Baptism and Confirmation, and not by any unspoken, grey-area-sort-of sacrament-ish Holy Orders.
How now to foster a category of service specifically for women and that does not look (speaking theologically) a hell of a lot like clericalism?
Other than Lay Ecclesial Ministers, another unmentioned and long-existing path for the laity is that of the “religious life”–very much in decline for reasons not mentioned. A new insignia and non-sacramental bucket list probably won’t reverse the post-Christian threats now eating away at the perennial Church.
Under the DOA Option One, would we now be tutored to look forward to a new set of amendments to the still-recent Catechism of 1994/97 (for which the same Cardinal Schonborn was the lead editor), that is, paragraphs 886, 896, 1256, 1538, 1554, 1570, 1569-74,1588, 1596?
And what are we to say of the implied marginalization of other ministries: Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion (sic Eucharistic Ministers), the ministry of welcoming, the ministry of teaching, the ministry of visitation, the ministry of (fill in the blank). Ministry inflation (like secular grade inflation) cannot be resolved by incrementally dissolving the Sacrament of Holy Orders, nor the Second Vatican Council’s “universal call to holiness.”
I wish someone could explain to me how this “conservative” mind , behind large chunks of the CCC, got to the place where he endorses nonsense after for so long being regarded as solidly reliable.
Probably for the same reason as Cardinal Oullet after he endorsed Amoris Laetitia. He either gave up after realizing that nobody would listen to his orthodox advise, or he is fearful of being put on a bus.
While Female Deacons are not explicitly prohibited, I think they should not be allowed given that in the minds of some it will open the door to women priests.
@Joe M – This Cardinal, for years, has vacillated between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. He has participated or allowed quite a lot of crazy or stupid things in his diocese. He is quite the contradiction and I have never been able to figure him out. He seems content to be blown about whichever way the wind blows.
Schönborn should be drug tested.