What are your thoughts on Communion services with no priest, where a layperson distributes pre-consecrated hosts?
A viewer says that because of a shortage of priests, their diocese now holds word-liturgies in place of some Masses, with no priest present and a layperson distributing pre-consecrated hosts, and asks Robert's thoughts.
Answer
At least you have the pre-consecrated hosts, so a bishop has thought it through that far. The priest shortage is a slow death for Catholicism: one diocese recently had no seminary graduates for the first time in two hundred years, and it will only worsen as older priests die with no one to replace them. Do not expect a magic revival of vocations; many good, holy applicants have already been turned away. So if this is what the bishop has decided as a last resort, that is what it will be, but make sure the layperson conducting the service is actually assigned by the bishop and not just chosen by the parish, and that the pre-consecrated hosts are put in the charge of someone responsible and trustworthy. At least you have something; I can see the day coming when even that privilege is gone.