Case LIV: Saying a Second Mass

In a parish the pastor was suddenly taken ill in the night between Saturday and Sunday. Feeling himself unable to say Mass on Sunday, he sent for his assistant before six in the morning, and told him to say the early Mass as usual, because there were already a great many people in the church who could not possibly attend a later Mass. He was not to take any purification or ablution after Holy Communion, because he would have to say the second Mass at 9 a. m. and it was impossible to omit this Mass, as a number of people were expected from other parishes to celebrate the meeting of a confraternity.

The assistant pointed out that duplication was not allowed without the Bishop's permission, but the rector reassured him, and said that in such unforeseen circumstances one might take this permission for granted; he would himself report what had happened. The assistant obeyed, and at the first Mass explained matters to the congregation, and later celebrated the Mass at nine o'clock, although he felt some anxiety, and his parishioners were somewhat astonished, as well as the strangers who had come to the festival and had heard of the occurrence. What opinion ought we to form of the rector's action?

Answer.—According to the existing laws of the Church, binatio (except on Christmas day) is allowed de jure communi only incase of necessity. A case of necessity occurs on days when the faithful are bound to hear Mass, and one priest has to serve two churches at some considerable distance apart, so that the congre-

207 --' gation of one church would be unable to hear Mass at all if the priest did not come. Another case of necessity occurs when it would be impossible for all the parishioners attending one church to be present at the same Mass. In both these cases the Bishop must recognize the actual necessity of binatio before sanctioning it. Apart from a case of absolute necessity a Bishop can sanction binatio under special circumstances (Missions, etc.), only if he has received faculties from the Holy See. That we have a casus verae necessitatis under discussion is plain. The strangers who were coming to the nine o'clock Mass would have missed Mass altogether if the early Mass had been the only one said that day, and so would a considerable part of the ordinary congregation. If the early Mass had been omitted, and the High Mass at nine o'clock had been the only one said that day, there would be good reason to fear that many of the people already assembled would not return, and so would miss Mass. It would be an incommodum grave for them to wait three hours or to go to some other church, which might be far away. They could not hear early Mass anywhere, and the second is, as a rule, much later in the morning. In the short interval (from six to nine o'clock) it was hardly possible to obtain the Bishop's sanction, especially if there was no telegraph office in the neighborhood, and the nearest station was some distance off. Hence it was quite right to take the Bishop's permission for granted, and all requirements were satisfied by the official report sent in later.

Noldin (Summa theol. mor. de sacram., n. 206) discusses a precisely similar case, and says: "In an unforeseen case of urgent necessity in which recourse to the bishop is impossible, a second Mass may be celebrated by presumed permission, provided the celebrant is fasting. If, for example, in a place where two priests have the care of souls, one of them is seized by illness on Saturday so that he cannot celebrate on the following day, the other may celebrate twice on Sunday if another priest cannot be obtained and otherwise a large part of the people—about sixty persons—would be deprived of Mass. After the event, however, the matter must be referred to the Ordinary for recognition of the cause." (Cf. also Gury, Casus consc, II. n. 264).—Dr. Johann Gföllner.