Loyalty to the Pope DAILY CATHOLIC for December 18
The Vicar of Christ Speaks
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vol, 8
no. 55

Gif Animation Photos of Holy Father used with permission of EWTN

INTRODUCTION: With the release on November 13th of the document on the respective duties of priests and lay people, especially in parish life and ecause of its importance and need for dissemination, we will take the next several issues to bring you this document in installments, signed by the heads of the Congregation for the Clergy, Pontifical Council for the Laity, Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Congregation for Bishops, Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts. It was approved by the Holy Father on August 13 this year and signed two days later on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and released publicly November 13th, the feast of Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini, a saint known for education. Education on these guidelines is necessary for all parishes at every level. Therefore, we bring you the Holy See's complete document in installments. We are foregoing putting the sources in the text as we have done for the first eleven installments since many complained it was difficult reading. Therefore, to keep the flow going we will put sources in a separate file you can click on.

THE VICAR OF CHRIST SPEAKS
on the Role of the Laity

INSTRUCTION on Certain Questions regarding the Collaboration of the Non-ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priest

Twentieth installment: PRACTICAL PROVISIONS - Article 11
The Minister of Baptism
Particularly praiseworthy is the faith with which many Christians, in painful circumstances of persecution, or in missionary territories or in special cases of necessity, have afforded and continue to afford the Sacrament of Baptism to new generations of Christians in the absence of ordained ministers.

Apart from cases of necessity, canonical norms permit the non ordained faithful to be designated as extraordinary ministers of Baptism (109) should there be no ordinary minister or in cases where he is impeded. (110) Care should be taken however to avoid too extensive an interpretation of this provision and such a faculty should not be conceded in an habitual form.

Thus, for example, that absence or the impediment of a sacred minister which renders licit the deputation of the lay faithful to act as an extraordinary minister of Baptism, cannot be defined in terms of the ordinary minister's excessive workload, or his non-residence in the territory of the parish, nor his non-availability on the day on which the parents wish the Baptism to take place. Such reasons are insufficient for the delegation of the non ordained faithful to act as extraordinary ministers of Baptism.

NEXT ISSUE: PRACTICAL PROVISIONS - Article 12 Leading the Celebration at Funerals

December 18, 1997 volume 8, no. 55
VICAR OF CHRIST SPEAKS



December 1997