Lay ministers? Which we have long taken for granted:
. . . sacrilege is now the norm. . . . there is no such thing as “lay Eucharistic ministers.” The Church never knew them. The Council of Trent explicitly declared: “To priests alone has been given power to consecrate and administer the Eucharist.”
That was then, now is now, and it’s all we care about, if you please.
The post-conciliar practice is not a pastoral adaptation but a rupture: a direct import of Luther’s “common priesthood of the faithful.”
On the other hand:
St. Thomas Aquinas warned that only consecrated hands may touch the Host. John Paul II . . . reaffirmed the same. Yet today bishops commission armies of women in yoga pants and retirees in polos to distribute the Body of Christ as if passing hors d’oeuvres.
Harsh, yes, but softened a little, point is made. (I see care and devotion all the time, but I have encountered less of that.)
The [liturgical] revolution’s genius lies here: not in headline scandals, but in quiet normalization of sacrilege. When every parish accepts Communion in the hand and lay distributors, the Eucharist is treated as bread. Once that habit sets in, faith in the Real Presence withers. And as the faith goes, so does the Church.
Indeed it’s withered compared to what it used to be. Or is it? See this on the question.
Meanwhile, we have, if we look hard enough, a reading of Vatican 2 by John Paul II:
In the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, the Council teaches that all the baptized share in the priesthood of Christ.
But at the same time it clearly distinguishes between the priesthood of the People of God, common to all the faithful, and the hierarchical or ministerial priesthood.
So, one for lay people, the other for priests, bishops, etc.
In this regard, it is worth-while quoting in full an instructive passage of the Constitution: ‘Christ the Lord, High Priest taken from among men (cf. Heb 5:1-5), `made a kingdom and priests to God his Father’ (Rev 1:6; cf. 5:9-10) out of this new people.
OK . . .
The baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood. Thus through all those works befitting Christian men and women they can offer spiritual sacrifices and proclaim the power of him who has called them out of darkness into his marvellous light (cf. 1 Pet 2:4-10).
Notice: spiritual, not sacramental.
Therefore all the disciples of Christ, persevering in prayer and praising God (cf. Acts 2:42-47), should present themselves as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God (cf. Rom 12:1). Everywhere on earth they must bear witness to Christ and give an answer to those who seek an account of that hope of eternal life which is in them (cf. 1 Pet 3:15).
Everybody’s got a vocation, as my father repeated at the dinner table what he had heard hours earlier at a Serra Club lunch in a Loop hotel. Repeated as simply telling something by which he was fascinated and from which he clearly felt rejuvenated.
Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated.
It’s nothing figurative.
Each of them in its own special way is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ. The ministerial priest, by the sacred power he enjoys, moulds and rules the priestly people. Acting in the person of Christ, he brings about the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and offers it to God in the name of all the people.
It’s his specialty.
For their part, the faithful join in the offering of the Eucharist by virtue of their royal priesthood. They likewise exercise that priesthood by receiving the sacraments, by prayer and thanksgiving, by the witness of a holy life, and by self-denial and active charity.
So. Is this distinction downplayed by today’s liturgy? In my humble opinion, yes.
Blithe Spirit 