Will Bishop Kohlgraf be excommunicated for his outright defiance of Rome’s ruling?
Peter Kohlgraf has managed to compress the ecclesiastical crisis into three sentences.
The Bishop of Mainz was asked this week whether laypeople may preach the homily during Mass despite Rome’s recent refusal to permit the practice in Germany.
His answer began correctly.
According to the Roman norms, he acknowledged, a laywoman cannot preach the homily. He cannot give her permission. “Canon law does not allow it and that remains our basis.”
Then came the next sentence.
Lay preaching has nevertheless become customary in some parishes of his diocese.
Then the third:
“If I learn of this, I will not take disciplinary action or impose sanctions under canon law.”
He added that he does not encourage the practice and cannot permit it. He will simply “take note” that it occurs. (CNA Deutsch)
This would already be an extraordinary statement from a diocesan bishop about a liturgical rule. It becomes considerably more revealing when one reads what Rome actually told the Germans.
The Dicastery for Divine Worship rejected the German bishops’ request for an exception on June 17. Vatican News summarized the ruling in emphatic terms: reserving the homily to a priest or deacon is “not a merely disciplinary norm” because it arises from the nature of the liturgy itself. The homily is connected to the sacramental mission received through Holy Orders and to the unity between Word and Sacrament in the Eucharistic celebration. (Vatican News)
Kohlgraf therefore knows the rule and the theological reason and he knows Rome just denied the German bishops an exemption. He knows he lacks power to dispense from it. And he has announced beforehand what he intends to do when his own parishes violate it.
Nothing.
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