Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Participation in Protestant Events

ROME, DEC. 11, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Related to the question of a priest participating in a Protestant funeral (see Nov. 27), a Taiwanese reader had asked about praying for the non-baptized.

"Many times," he wrote, "the Catholic faithful would ask priests to offer Masses for non-baptized relatives, living or deceased. Can the priests do that? What I know is that Masses can only be offered for Catholics; and that rosaries (and other prayers), mortifications, good works, etc., can be offered for these non-baptized."

I believe that a distinction must be made. It is not possible to offer a public funeral Mass, or even a funeral service, for a person who was never a Christian, as most of the prayers and rites suppose that the person had received baptism or at least had been a catechumen.

At the same time, the public rites are one thing and the priest's personal intentions in offering the Mass is another. Most days the priest's intention has no effect on the external rites except, perhaps, for a brief mention at the beginning of Mass that it is being offered for a specific intention.

In this latter sense of the personal intention there would be no essential difference in offering a Mass or praying a rosary except that the objective effectiveness of the Mass is infinitely greater than any other form of prayer.

Thus a priest may accept a request to offer his personal intention at Mass for people who are not Christians, just as he may pray for his own non-baptized friends and relatives.

Likewise, any Catholic can offer his or her participation at Mass for a non-Christian.

We also touched on this theme, especially regarding praying for public figures, in our columns last March 6 and March 20.