Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Lector in an Irregular Relationship

ROME, JAN. 17, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

After our comments on the criteria for choosing suitable lectors and other ministers (see Dec. 20), an Oregon reader asked: "Our parish is in considerable turmoil about many issues, this being one of them: Is it allowed to have a homosexual man who lives with his partner, as a Eucharistic minister?"

As we mentioned before, the instruction "Immensae Caritatis" indicates that the choice of an extraordinary minister "should never fall upon a person whose designation could cause astonishment to the faithful."

Note that the norm does not say "scandal" but "astonishment." This wider, but more ambiguous, category should induce pastors to exercise great pastoral prudence before inviting or accepting people to serve as ministers. They also should weigh carefully any special circumstances that might cause difficulty to a lot of parishioners.

These need not always be negative elements. For example, it might not always be advisable for people actively involved in politics to serve as liturgical ministers if many parishioners find it difficult to dissociate the private and public personae of the former.

Since exercising a liturgical ministry is always a service, nobody is deprived of a right if particular conditions prevent his or her being called.

In the case at hand, we must distinguish between a person who is burdened with same-sex attractions, and a person who is actively living out those attractions.

A person with same-sex attractions who is striving to live a chaste life need not be excluded from lay ministries in the Church, which is not the same as saying that he or she has a right to exercise them.

Here, too, the pastor must weigh carefully the concrete circumstances, such as, for example, the case of a person who had been earlier (and publicly) identified as a practicing homosexual. His or her appearance, say, in the sanctuary, might cause "astonishment" to the faithful who are ignorant of the current spiritual situation.

It is not necessary to serve as a liturgical minister to form part of the Kingdom of heaven. A person who faces special difficulties and who accepts the challenges and sacrifices inherent in living the Christian calling is fully capable of reaching the heights of sanctity.

A person involved in a homosexual relationship cannot serve as a liturgical minister, since this service implies communion with Church teachings and, at least, the daily struggle to live in conformity with those teachings.

In maintaining an ongoing relationship with a same sex-partner, whether openly or hidden, a person dissents from Church teachings and is living in an objectively sinful condition.

Such a person should not normally be receiving holy Communion, much less acting as an extraordinary minister for others.

Certainly, one often hears the argument that only God can know the true condition of someone's soul.

This is true, but since neither the Church, nor for that matter the individuals concerned, are blessed with divine omniscience, they must be guided by objective Church teachings regarding the particular need of those who struggle with same-sex attractions to live chaste lives and avoid all proximate occasions of sin.