Conger

A Roman Catholic priest who permitted a female Episcopal priest to read the Gospel at a funeral mass has been fired by the Archbishop of Baltimore.

The firing has prompted outrage among parishioners and liberal church activists in the US, who charge Baltimore’s new Archbishop with seeking to tighten discipline within the archdiocese. While Anglicans and Roman Catholics have moved closer in recent years through the ARCIC process, highly publicized flaps over Eucharistic sharing continue to erupt.

On Nov 8, Archbishop Edwin O’Brien ordered Fr. Ray Martin be removed as pastor of the Catholic Community of South Baltimore. He further asked the priest to sign a statement recanting his error and apologizing for “bringing scandal to the church.”

On Oct 15 Fr Martin celebrated a funeral mass for a Baltimore community activist and invited a number of community clergy, including the Rev. Annette Chapell, vicar of the Episcopal Church of the Redemption to participate.

Ms. Chapell read the Gospel and received the Eucharist at the service, acts that violate Roman Catholic canon law.

Canon 757 of the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law states that the Gospel may only be read by priests and deacons. The sole exception to this rule is that “members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life can be invited to collaborate, in lawful ways, in the exercise of the ministry of the Word.”

Non-Roman Catholics are also forbidden to receive the Eucharist, as the church’s dogma states “that the celebration of the Eucharist is a sign of the reality of the oneness of faith, life, and worship, members of those churches with whom we are not yet fully united are ordinarily not admitted to Communion.”

The family of the deceased told the Baltimore Sun they were outraged. “It doesn’t sound possible that the church would take such a petty thing and ruin a man’s career.”

However a spokesman for the Archdiocese said Fr. Martin had been warned repeatedly about his liturgical laxness, and noted that on other occasions he had permitted dogs to enter the sanctuary, and had missed baptisms.

“I think that canon laws exist to protect the church from extremism. I don’t find that this is such an extreme situation,” Fr Martin told the Sun.

“I feel terrible that this is happening to him because, in compassion, he permitted me to participate in the service,” Ms. Chappell said.

On Easter Sunday 2006, three Roman Catholic Augustinian priests concelebrated the Eucharist with the Church of Ireland rector of Drogheda to commemorate the 1916 Rising and the Battle of the Somme.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh disciplined the three priests, who issued a statement saying that “having reflected on the seriousness of their actions,” they apologized to the Archbishop “unreservedly for the ill-considered celebration and give an absolute commitment as to future conduct in matters liturgical.”