Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 7, 1990 TAG: 9004070131
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
And when that time comes, said Dennis Beeman, a staff member of the Diocese of Richmond, it will represent an identity crisis for the many who see an ordained person as essential to worship.
Only an ordained priest may officiate in the Catholic church at Mass - a weekly or daily service for the receiving of Communion. Church tradition of about 1,700 years has required its frequent reception by members in good standing.
Today lay men and women may assist the ordained man in administering the bread and wine, but it must still be consecrated by a priest.
And, as Beeman said, this regular taking of bread and wine, along with allegiance to a pope in Rome, is a keystone of Catholicism. Emphasis on sacraments sets the church apart from others in Christianity.
Beeman was in Salem recently to interpret a thick report on the coming role of Catholic laity in their church in coming decades. The coordinator of lay ministries for the diocese said he was invited by leaders of parishes in Region 9 to help them start planning for "priestless Sundays."
The region covers the Roanoke and New River valleys and scattered groups in Floyd, Franklin and Patrick Counties.
Beeman, a layman who travels throughout most of Virginia interpreting and encouraging lay work for Bishops Walter Sullivan and David Foley, said Virginia has been fortunate so far in attracting and keeping younger priests. He noted that the average age of diocesan clergy is now 47, compared to 63 in South Carolina.
In many areas of the north and west with large Catholic populations the shortage of priests has caused the closing of churches. That Virginia is only now beginning to feel the crunch has been attributed to Sullivan's personal support of young men and his enthusiasm for church changes set in motion by Vatican Council II 25 years ago.
Nationally, the shortage of priests is usually blamed on the refusal of Pope John Paul II and his Vatican supporters to permit the ordination of women, to allow priests to marry or to welcome as assistants men who have chosen to leave the active priesthood.
Another problem, which Beeman said applies especially to modern Virginia, is the number of Catholics who move annually into the state.
At Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, where the Saturday seminar for about 50 laity and clergy was held, there were chuckles when Beeman referred to "our hordes from the North."
At the Roanoke Valley's four parishes, and two new missions at Moneta and Fincastle, a high percentage of members have moved to the valley in the past 15 years. Parish councils often elect young adults who have become active in less than three years, those at the seminar noted.
The newcomers are transferred in with industry. Perpetual Help expects to receive a number of new families when two Northern plants move some of their supervisory staff to Salem.
Growth of Catholic churches is explosive in the fast-growing Hampton Roads areas both urban and rural, Beeman said. It is tempting in these churches for leaders to concentrate on erecting new buildings to the exclusion of what he called the church's major tasks of promoting justice, showing compassion and winning people to Christ.
The slower growth in Western Virginia is a blessing, Beeman implied, and the Roanoke area is the site of three out of four experimental programs that may help the priest crisis in years to come.
In Botetourt County, the 18-month-old Church of the Transfiguration mission is now using the Fincastle firehouse for some major services because it has outgrown two "borrowed" smaller churches. A nun, Madeline Abdelnour, is its parish coordinator, the name given a non-ordained pastor. A Roanoke priest officiates at Mass, with Abdelnour and her lay leadership doing everything else, Beeman noted.
A similar arrangement has worked at relatively new missions in Rocky Mount and Moneta, but the diocese is now faced with finding replacements for the two women, a nun and a retired homemaker, who built up work in those areas.
The task force on future lay leadership has much to say about this kind of future Catholic ministry.
Beeman said the report has been three years in the making. Sullivan has accepted it, and the problem now is finding staff and money to expand the experiments.
A search committee is looking for laity to fill the jobs at Rocky Mount and Moneta. So far, said the diocesan coordinator, no one in Virginia has been found with a master's degree, three years' experience working in a Catholic parish and willing to accept $15,000 to $21,000 annually, including benefits. Too, the successful pastoral coordinator may not be a member of the church he or she wants to serve.
"We're going outside the diocese now . . . but we're not going to lower our standards," Beeman said. Sullivan will appoint and supervise the lay pastors as he does the ordained men.
Meanwhile, Sullivan wants to keep starting new missions in areas where Catholics are asking for a convenient place to go to Mass. The church, said Beeman, does not plan "civic center-size" Masses or mega-parishes where the personal touch essential to Christian community is likely to be lost. It does not plan to close or merge any churches, he added.
Nor is the task force agitating for ordained women or married priests, "because we don't see the time as right," Beeman said. But he regards lay leadership in a church steeped in priest-dominated tradition to be a realistic, if less than ideal, goal.
by CNB