A bunch of folks have e-mailed me about a situation occurring in the Diocese of Orange (California) in which a number of parishioners have been "invited" to "leave" their parish and the diocese.
According to some, the reason for this is that they insist on kneeling after the Agnus Dei when the local bishop has determined otherwise.
Now, for those who may not be aware, the determination that there will not be kneeling after the Agnus Dei is a determination that liturgical law empowers a bishop to make in this country. He’s within his rights to do that. Section 43 of the U.S. version of the GIRM provides:
In the dioceses of the United States of America, they [the faithful] should kneel beginning after the singing or recitation of the Sanctus until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer, except when prevented on occasion by reasons of health, lack of space, the large number of people present, or some other good reason. Those who do not kneel ought to make a profound bow when the priest genuflects after the consecration. The faithful kneel after the Agnus Dei unless the Diocesan Bishop determines otherwise.
Now: I don’t know whether this is the real issue in the parish in question or not. I’ve had people e-mail me links to a bunch of stories that give the parishioners’ side of what is going on, but that’s the problem: It’s the parishioners’ side of things. I don’t have a full account of what the other side of the story is.
I’ve seen the text of the letter in which the priest invites them to leave, but this document only makes summary allegations (e.g., that the parishioners have distributed literature that made false allegations against the diocese and the priest). It doesn’t get into the specifics underlying these charges (e.g., what was it specifically that the parishioners said that was false?).
In the absence of further information, I can’t make any judgment one way or the other about this situation.
But I would comment on one thing: What the priest said in his letter is . . . odd, canonically speaking.
Here’s the relevant passage:
With full responsibility, authority and faculties of an Administrator of St. Mary’s by the Sea, appointed by Bishop Brown, for the sake of the common good of the Church, the parish and the diocese, with the approval of the Bishop, I (very sadly) officially invite you To leave the parish St. Mary’s by the Sea and the diocese of Orange.
You will be welcomed back only with your sincere heart-felt repentance/conversion on these issues mentioned above.
What is one to make of this?
It is certainly not a decree of excommunication. That’s obvious on its face. So the parishioners aren’t excommunicated.
What is meant by inviting them "to leave"? This obviously isn’t an old fashioned "Get out of Dodge" request. The priest isn’t expecting them to physically move out of the Diocese of Orange (or I assume he’s not).
Is he suggesting that they formally defect from the Church? If so, then Rome is going to take a very dim view of that. Formal defection from the Church is an intrinsically evil act, and priests should not be in the business of recommending that people commit intrinsically evil acts.
Is he just inviting them to not attend church in the diocese until they shape up? Maybe. That’s something that could arguably be within the authority of a bishop.
I mean, there may be individuals in a diocese who are so disruptive–even though they haven’t committed the canonical crimes that would ordinarily result in excommunication–that it is reasonable to request their non-attendance until they shape up.
I suspect that there would be a way for the bishop to handle this via the Code’s "just penalty" provisions, without going all the way up to an excommunication. But we don’t have a decree imposing a penalty here.
We may, in fact, have a translation problem. The priest’s last name is "Tran," which I assume means that he is of Vietnamese extraction, so English may not be his first language. That could play a role either in the way he articulates himself in the letter or in what he understood the bishop to be authorizing him to do.
I suspect we’ll be hearing more about this in the future.
