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The Dilemma of Priestless Sundays
A growing number of Catholic communities are unable to keep holy the Lords day in our tradition with Sunday Mass. They cannot celebrate the Eucharist because their pastoral leader is not a priest. More and more, these communities are gathering for Sunday worship in the absence of a priest. Does this make a difference? Will this alter the Church's sense of identity and mission? How will Catholic spirituality be affected if it lacks the foundation of Sunday Eucharist? This book takes a deep look at the concerns raised by Sunday worship in the absence of a priest. It asks that we look carefully at what this growing practice entails, and that we give serious consideration to available alternatives. An index and endnotes provide for further study. Press Association 1995 Book Award winner, first place, in liturgy Published by Liturgy Training Publications.
154 pages, Paperback
First published March 27, 1994
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April 27, 2025
A DISCUSSION OF THE PROBLEMS, AND SOME ALTERNATIVES BEING USED
James Dallen (b. 1943) is a priest in the archdiocese of Chicago. He wrote in the Introduction to this 1994 book, “A growing population and a diminishing number of clergy have put the Catholic church squarely between two needs deeply embedded in its tradition: the need of a faith community to celebrate the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day and the need of that community for a priest to preside at the celebration of the eucharist. The consequence of this is that while an increasing number of Catholic communities are called to keep holy the Lord’s Day, they cannot do so in the traditional Catholic fashion. They cannot celebrate the eucharist because their pastoral leader is not a priest.” (Pg. vii)
“The situation is not new. Throughout history, communities have been deprived of the eucharist by persecution, oppression, isolation, a clergy shortage or some other factor… In modern times, most Christians in mission territory have been ‘eucharistically underprivileged’ due to a lack of priests. As a consequence, missionaries … have had to find ways for new faith communities to gather for worship, even without the eucharist. They realized that that church must gather in order to be the church… (Pg. vii)
“What is new today is that LONG-ESTABLISHED churches find themselves in a … steadily worsening situation due to the lack of priests…. In the United States, the situation is especially problematic because Catholics accustomed to a certain level of priestly service seem unwilling to accept a reduction. The number of available priests relative to the U.S. Catholic population has been steadily declining since the early 1940s---well before the Second Vatican Council---and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. In 1942… there was one priest for every 617 Catholics. The projection is that in 2005 there will be one priest for every 2200 Catholics… The consequences are already being felt: In 1982 there were 843 parishes without a resident pastor; in 1992 there were 2047 such parishes…” (Pg. viii)
“As a solution, many writers have called for alternatives to the present ordination discipline, including the ordination of married men and the ordination of women. In an even more radical departure from Catholic tradition, some writers have advocated lay presiders at the eucharist… The pragmatic solution adopted in many locales without available clergy is that members of such communities either travel elsewhere to celebrate the eucharist or gather as a community for ‘Sunday Worship in the Absence of a Priest’ [SWAP]… when possible, SWAP parallels the traditional Sunday celebration of word and sacrament with a combined word and communion service… the acronym SWAP highlights that an exchange is indeed taking place…” (Pg. viii-ix)
“The central questions concern the consequences for parish communities and for the church if SWAP becomes an acceptable replacement for the Sunday eucharist. Does it make a difference whether a community celebrates the eucharist or whether its members receive communion at SWAP?... How will Catholic spirituality … be affected if it lacks the eucharist as its foundation? Can the church continue on the direction it set for itself … without celebrating the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day? The church makes the eucharist and the eucharist makes the church… nothing would so radically change the church as losing its sacramental foundation in eucharistic celebration. For this reason, we need to look carefully at what SWAP entails and ask whether alternatives might be preferable… Doing nothing, tolerating an ersatz eucharist, is a more radical departure from the Catholic tradition of Sunday eucharist than any alternative that has been proposed. This book will be devoted in great part to a study of the ecclesiological concerns that emerge as the eucharist and SWAP are compared.” (Pg. ix-x)
He explains, “Historical antecedents to the modern communion service include various forms of communion outside Mass. From the earliest centuries we have examples of home communion and communion for the sick and dying… While the eucharist can be celebrated in the sickroom, the more convenient and more common practice through the centuries has been to bring communion from the eucharistic celebration from the reserved sacrament to the sick person.” (Pg. 34)
He states, “The eucharist today is neither the making of a new offering to God nor a receiving of the benefits of Christ’s offering. It is rather ‘the realization of God’s act of atonement in and for the worshippers.’ … Can all this happen in a service that depends almost solely on words? Can the justice orientation of the eucharist be experienced in a communion service?... The activity of sharing a meal is ambivalent without the interpretation given when the assembly is present for, and clearly participates in, the prayer over the bread and the cup. This point is crucial to seeing why SWAP, even with a prayer of thanksgiving and with communion from the reserved sacrament, is insufficient to express full participation in Christ’s sacrifice. Certainly a verbal statement alone is insufficient. Interpretation separated from the activity interpreted is a faulty sacrament.” (Pg. 99-100)
He notes, “Canonically, of course, a priest is the pastor, even if that priest only visits occasionally and is not involved in the community’s life. It is on this basis that the claim is made that no parish community is ‘priestless.’ Were the claim based on the theological facts that Christ is the one Priest and that Christ is indeed present where two or three gather in faith, it would be more convincing. The pastoral fact is that persons who actually function as pastors of communities without priests---whether called pastors of not---are not ordained; and this says something about the ecclesial reality of such communities. The crucial issue, then, is the ecclesial character of the community whose actual (if not canonical) leaders and pastors are not ordained.” (Pg. 109)
He asserts, “The central issue is thus misnamed. The issue to be addressed is not Sundays without priests but Sunday assemblies without the eucharist... Providing for Sunday assemblies with a lay presider risks destroying the intimate link between the assembly and the eucharist. The real problem is ignored, namely that the failure to recognize through ordination the role of those who exercise pastoral leadership in a community deprives communities of the eucharist. Increasingly, communities will be gathering for Sunday worship and listening together to the word of God, but they will not be sharing the action of God in the eucharist because their worship leaders are not ordained… Granted, communities will, when possible, be dining together on what is left over from a previous eucharist. But they will not be celebrating the eucharist. And, as the Body of Christ, they have the responsibility to do so. They must experience who they are, not just preserve a memory.” (Pg. 137-138)
He concludes, “The lack of priests makes SWAP necessary… At root, the problem is a lack of priests, and ‘to offer a liturgical solution to a non-liturgical problem’ is unwise, to say the least… A choice is presently being made regarding the shape of the future church. Simply continuing the present policy is a choice… that is a more radical departure from tradition than changing the ordination discipline. It necessarily means the diminishment of a church that has always given pride of place to expressing its sacramental character in celebrating the eucharist. Catholicism could cease to be a sacramental, eucharistic church. Do we risk losing the sacramental consciousness that is key to recognizing For in Christ and in life?... As a consequence, communion from the reserved sacrament seems sufficiently eucharistic to be acceptable as a substitute. But it is not. People… receive something less for their nourishment than they need in order to remain fully the Body of Christ serving the world.” (Pg. 142-143)
This book will be of keen interest (despite its lack of a ‘solution’ to the problem) to Catholics concerned about this situation.
James Dallen (b. 1943) is a priest in the archdiocese of Chicago. He wrote in the Introduction to this 1994 book, “A growing population and a diminishing number of clergy have put the Catholic church squarely between two needs deeply embedded in its tradition: the need of a faith community to celebrate the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day and the need of that community for a priest to preside at the celebration of the eucharist. The consequence of this is that while an increasing number of Catholic communities are called to keep holy the Lord’s Day, they cannot do so in the traditional Catholic fashion. They cannot celebrate the eucharist because their pastoral leader is not a priest.” (Pg. vii)
“The situation is not new. Throughout history, communities have been deprived of the eucharist by persecution, oppression, isolation, a clergy shortage or some other factor… In modern times, most Christians in mission territory have been ‘eucharistically underprivileged’ due to a lack of priests. As a consequence, missionaries … have had to find ways for new faith communities to gather for worship, even without the eucharist. They realized that that church must gather in order to be the church… (Pg. vii)
“What is new today is that LONG-ESTABLISHED churches find themselves in a … steadily worsening situation due to the lack of priests…. In the United States, the situation is especially problematic because Catholics accustomed to a certain level of priestly service seem unwilling to accept a reduction. The number of available priests relative to the U.S. Catholic population has been steadily declining since the early 1940s---well before the Second Vatican Council---and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. In 1942… there was one priest for every 617 Catholics. The projection is that in 2005 there will be one priest for every 2200 Catholics… The consequences are already being felt: In 1982 there were 843 parishes without a resident pastor; in 1992 there were 2047 such parishes…” (Pg. viii)
“As a solution, many writers have called for alternatives to the present ordination discipline, including the ordination of married men and the ordination of women. In an even more radical departure from Catholic tradition, some writers have advocated lay presiders at the eucharist… The pragmatic solution adopted in many locales without available clergy is that members of such communities either travel elsewhere to celebrate the eucharist or gather as a community for ‘Sunday Worship in the Absence of a Priest’ [SWAP]… when possible, SWAP parallels the traditional Sunday celebration of word and sacrament with a combined word and communion service… the acronym SWAP highlights that an exchange is indeed taking place…” (Pg. viii-ix)
“The central questions concern the consequences for parish communities and for the church if SWAP becomes an acceptable replacement for the Sunday eucharist. Does it make a difference whether a community celebrates the eucharist or whether its members receive communion at SWAP?... How will Catholic spirituality … be affected if it lacks the eucharist as its foundation? Can the church continue on the direction it set for itself … without celebrating the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day? The church makes the eucharist and the eucharist makes the church… nothing would so radically change the church as losing its sacramental foundation in eucharistic celebration. For this reason, we need to look carefully at what SWAP entails and ask whether alternatives might be preferable… Doing nothing, tolerating an ersatz eucharist, is a more radical departure from the Catholic tradition of Sunday eucharist than any alternative that has been proposed. This book will be devoted in great part to a study of the ecclesiological concerns that emerge as the eucharist and SWAP are compared.” (Pg. ix-x)
He explains, “Historical antecedents to the modern communion service include various forms of communion outside Mass. From the earliest centuries we have examples of home communion and communion for the sick and dying… While the eucharist can be celebrated in the sickroom, the more convenient and more common practice through the centuries has been to bring communion from the eucharistic celebration from the reserved sacrament to the sick person.” (Pg. 34)
He states, “The eucharist today is neither the making of a new offering to God nor a receiving of the benefits of Christ’s offering. It is rather ‘the realization of God’s act of atonement in and for the worshippers.’ … Can all this happen in a service that depends almost solely on words? Can the justice orientation of the eucharist be experienced in a communion service?... The activity of sharing a meal is ambivalent without the interpretation given when the assembly is present for, and clearly participates in, the prayer over the bread and the cup. This point is crucial to seeing why SWAP, even with a prayer of thanksgiving and with communion from the reserved sacrament, is insufficient to express full participation in Christ’s sacrifice. Certainly a verbal statement alone is insufficient. Interpretation separated from the activity interpreted is a faulty sacrament.” (Pg. 99-100)
He notes, “Canonically, of course, a priest is the pastor, even if that priest only visits occasionally and is not involved in the community’s life. It is on this basis that the claim is made that no parish community is ‘priestless.’ Were the claim based on the theological facts that Christ is the one Priest and that Christ is indeed present where two or three gather in faith, it would be more convincing. The pastoral fact is that persons who actually function as pastors of communities without priests---whether called pastors of not---are not ordained; and this says something about the ecclesial reality of such communities. The crucial issue, then, is the ecclesial character of the community whose actual (if not canonical) leaders and pastors are not ordained.” (Pg. 109)
He asserts, “The central issue is thus misnamed. The issue to be addressed is not Sundays without priests but Sunday assemblies without the eucharist... Providing for Sunday assemblies with a lay presider risks destroying the intimate link between the assembly and the eucharist. The real problem is ignored, namely that the failure to recognize through ordination the role of those who exercise pastoral leadership in a community deprives communities of the eucharist. Increasingly, communities will be gathering for Sunday worship and listening together to the word of God, but they will not be sharing the action of God in the eucharist because their worship leaders are not ordained… Granted, communities will, when possible, be dining together on what is left over from a previous eucharist. But they will not be celebrating the eucharist. And, as the Body of Christ, they have the responsibility to do so. They must experience who they are, not just preserve a memory.” (Pg. 137-138)
He concludes, “The lack of priests makes SWAP necessary… At root, the problem is a lack of priests, and ‘to offer a liturgical solution to a non-liturgical problem’ is unwise, to say the least… A choice is presently being made regarding the shape of the future church. Simply continuing the present policy is a choice… that is a more radical departure from tradition than changing the ordination discipline. It necessarily means the diminishment of a church that has always given pride of place to expressing its sacramental character in celebrating the eucharist. Catholicism could cease to be a sacramental, eucharistic church. Do we risk losing the sacramental consciousness that is key to recognizing For in Christ and in life?... As a consequence, communion from the reserved sacrament seems sufficiently eucharistic to be acceptable as a substitute. But it is not. People… receive something less for their nourishment than they need in order to remain fully the Body of Christ serving the world.” (Pg. 142-143)
This book will be of keen interest (despite its lack of a ‘solution’ to the problem) to Catholics concerned about this situation.
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