I am afraid that priests will be turned into roving "sacrament machines," though.
I'm hoping that the trend toward orthodoxy and orthopraxy among the young will result in more vocations. Should that not occur, it would be wise to import priests from Poland or Africa.
Sadly, it seems, where there are legitimate shortages of priests, that a more appropriate solution is often overlooked.
I recently visited a parish in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. They have no priest, but the director of the parish (I forget the precise title) is not a sister or a layperson. Rather, the person who directs parish life is an ordained permanent deacon, married, with a family.
How much better it seems to me to have an ordained man, someone whose Holy Orders make it normative for him to proclaim the Gospel, offer homilies, and distribute the Blessed Sacrament.
Or am I missing something?
sitetest
Why not just have the Bishop consecrate a few cartons of hosts every Sunday, and then have eucharettes drive them back to the parish for distribution? No need for Priests at all. When a new Bish is needed, ordain a deacon.
You're right ... EXCEPT ... that those dioceses (Albany, LA, for example) most in need of imported priests are run by bishops intent on 'fulfilling the work of Second Vatican Council' (their words, not mine). They have no intention of importing priests; they subscribe to the notion of lay run parishes. Their ultimate goal is to rewrite the book that JPII closed and ordain women to these positions. In the meantime, priests in these dioceses have been reduced to roving "sacrament machines". As the brother of a retired priest recently put it, for a priest who committed his life in service to our Lord, this is comparable to 'castration'.
Here in Albany, we are looking at 8 more years of this nonsense. In the July 22 edition of The Troy Record, the Coalition of Concerned Catholics placed an ad with a petition and letter to be sent directly to the Congregation for the Clergy at the Vatican. The 1/4 page ad cites the bishop's dismal record since his appointment in 1977. In the past 10 years, the diocese has lost 41% of its priests. The RCD of Albany is rated the fifth worst diocese in the nation by Crisis magazine, based on the rapid decline of priests, the lack of new Ordinations (the bishop has turned away many orthodox men who did not share his vision) and the low number of converts. This is a disaster for handing on the faith! We have already seen the ramifications from closing down 5 churches in one town - the parishioners now attend an Evangelical Protestant Church. May God have mercy on this bishop's soul!