Coming soon to a Church near you.
Laity empowered by a supposed priest shortage. The argument is flawed. The proportion of priests to people has detiorated a bit in the last forty years but nothing like as much as the proponents of lay involvement would have you believe.The real problem is a shortage of Catholics. Full article here.
The nice woman at the door becomes a stealth priestess during the services.
Outrageous implication here, that the priest and the stealth priestess are equivalent, and that they (better to say he only in reality) depends on approbation from the congregation- hence the familiar looking salutes.
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Comments
I am sorry but you are gravely mistaken by your interpretation of these images. The parish shown was at the time a mission church which was unable to have a pastor of its own. Due to the fact that the Diocese of Jackson has only about 70 priest most of whom are at or above the age of retirement, the Diocese chose to create a hand full of lay ministers under the direction of a parish administrator (a pastor of a nearby parish). This was all in accordance to regulations on lay ministry given by the Vatican. This lay minister followed the official texts for Eucharistic celebrations in the absence of a priest. Never did she attempt to act as if she was a priest and as such she never attempted to consecrate the Eucharist etc...
Since then, the parish has grown and recently became a full parish and no longer a mission. Because of this, a Pastor has since been assigned and the lay minister has been moved to a simple administration position since the pastor is also assigned to another parish.
Again, all of this was approved by the Church and therefore, anyone who chooses to speak against it is (in extension) speaking against the Church.