UK archdiocese to permit lay-led funerals
CWN - September 17, 2012
An English archbishop has commissioned 22 lay ministers to lead funerals in his archdiocese. "In some of our parishes in the diocese, priests are being asked to celebrate over 120 funerals each year," said Archbishop Patrick Kelly of Liverpool. "That does not neatly work out at two or three times a week."
If a lay minister leads the funeral, Mass should "be celebrated for the deceased at the earliest convenient time," he added.
In a 1997 instruction, eight Vatican dicasteries taught that
in the present circumstances of growing dechristianization and of abandonment of religious practice, death and the time of obsequies can be one of the most opportune pastoral moments in which the ordained minister can meet with the non-practicing members of the faithful.
It is thus desirable that Priests and Deacons, even at some sacrifice to themselves, should preside personally at funeral rites in accordance with local custom, so as to pray for the dead and be close to their families, thus availing of an opportunity for appropriate evangelization.
The non-ordained faithful may lead the ecclesiastical obsequies provided that there is a true absence of sacred ministers and that they adhere to the prescribed liturgical norms. Those so deputed should be well prepared both doctrinally and liturgically.
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