Project Canterbury
The Authority for Reservation
by Walter Howard Frere
(Truro Diocesan Gazette, August 1928)
IT is now being commonly said that to reserve the Blessed Sacrament for the Sick is the ‘right’ or ‘duty’ of the parish priest. This view seems to need a little investigation; for if it is a true one, people will naturally exclaim: ‘If so, why have we had all this fuss about legalizing reservation by the new Prayer Book?’ Is it then true to say that the parish priest has already this right or duty?
1. The parish priest has, as such, many duties and rights which he would not have otherwise than as ‘Incumbent’. So it is on his behalf, not for a chaplain, any curate, or every unattached priest, qua priest, that the claim is made. And it is made in view of the pastor’s responsibility for the cure of souls entrusted to him. Good.
2. Before investigating this view more closely, it is well to remember that Reservation is not an additional rite. Language is often used which seems to imply that it is an ordinance in itself, and one which people are being denied. Such language would be intelligible, and perhaps justifiable, with regard to Holy Unction; but it is not in place here. Reservation is a method: a means for administering Holy Communion. It may be a useful one, or desirable in many cases; essential even, if in some circumstances people are not to lack their last Communion and viaticum; but still it is a method.
The Church may consider other methods preferable; it did so when it set out the Order for Clinical Communion; and it did so, altering designedly the ancient discipline, and also standing out against the hostile criticism of the Protestants. And if that method were to be maintained as the only method of communicating the Sick, the Church would be within its rights. Its action might be foolish, prejudiced, or even morally wrong; but it would not be outstepping its constitutional and legal authority.
3. Take the legal side of the question next, leaving the moral side to come later. There is no doubt that at the present moment the Law of the Church of England has been declared to be against any Reservation. This was the decision of the Lambeth Hearing in 1899, as well as of the Ecclesiastical Courts previously. The parish priest has, then, no legal right to reserve. It is said that there are Canons to the contrary, and that the Catholic custom of Christendom supports them. But this argument proves too much. The Canons in question do not give the clergy the right to reserve if they so wish: they impose on all parish priests the duty of doing so in every parish, whether they wish it or not; and Catholic custom in this case is simply the carrying out of these compulsory regulations. This is a condition of things remote from our own; and, legally speaking, quite irrelevant to it. It is safer to urge that the legal decisions above mentioned were based on a misunderstanding alike of history, rubric, and law. Very likely, and if so, not by any means for the only time in the history of liturgical judgements. The remedy, then, is not either to ignore or to question them; but to take legal steps to supersede them. That is, in fact, what the new Prayer Book set out to do. But, as everyone knows, the united demand of the Church in the latter has been twice refused by the House of Commons. As it is, then, in this matter, the law still remains ‘too narrow’ for the needs and life of the Church to-day. Other considerations, therefore, cannot be excluded in the practical working of administration.
4. We come, then, to the moral question, which is much more important. If the parish priest has no legal right, has he a moral right, duty, or responsibility, to reserve the Holy Sacrament as part of his cure of souls? Now that cure of souls is not his only: he shares it with the Bishop. It is already in the Bishop: it is delegated by him to the Incumbent at his institution. The Bishop, in delegating the cure to the parish priest, does not part with it himself. ‘Accipe curam meam et tuam’—'Receive this cure which is both mine and thine’—that is the significant formula. They should both be joining together in the recovery of Reservation, if that recovery is needed. It is needed,—and they are, in fact, joining in the recovery of it. And they must remain joined together in the recovering of it—especially in face of the opposition. It will not do to fall out over details: first the principal thing must be secured.
5. But, it may be said, that the Bishop has, by instituting, already laid the responsibility upon the parish priest, and he cannot withdraw it. In fact, is either of these contentions true? (a) It can hardly be said that reservation is, in fact, a recognized part of the responsibility of every parish priest, devolved upon him at his institution; (b) nor, supposing that were true, could it be said that the Church has no authority to withdraw such a power from him. The amount involved in the cure of souls as handed by the Church to the parish priest is not uniform or unchanging. There is a certain part of the cure which may always be presumed to devolve upon him; but there is more which depends upon circumstances, which may be given or not given, may be curtailed, or may be withdrawn. In the last resort the Bishop will (if need be) suspend or inhibit the parish priest, and will then will himself be bound to make other provision for the care of his flock.
Especially as regards the ministration of Sacraments, the ultimate responsibility is always the Bishop’s. The responsibility for the baptism of an adult, for example, is especially reserved as his. Properly speaking, no priest ought to duplicate (except at Christmas) without the Bishop’s licence. So again, in regard to absolution, it would be quite proper, and some think it desirable, that the Church should ‘reserve cases’, taking them out of the competence of the parish priest in order that they may be better handled by some other method, e.g. by licensed confessors. More relevant still is the fact that, if it is thought desirable for the convenience of communicants that there should be a Celebration in some hamlet, the Bishop gives (or else refuses) a licence for this to be done in a school room or mission room. In short, the Church, for good reason and to secure good pastoral methods, from time to time enlarges or curtails the responsibility entrusted to the Pastor of Souls.
6. This points to the conclusion that when the Church takes action about Reservation, this action supersedes and remodels any right, duty, or responsibility in that matter, belonging to or supposed to inhere in the parish priest. For him to take a line of his own which had neither legal sanction nor episcopal authorization would not be really defensible on the ground of Catholic order. It might be justified in the last resort, for the good of souls and in obedience to conscience; but as an abnormal and not a normal act,—done in exceptional circumstances and after all constitutional methods had been tried and failed.
7. And this points to the further conclusion that Bishop and parish priest should unite in the primary need of securing Reservation itself, each according to his own measure of authority and responsibility: and should leave the secondary details to be settled, as they can be now, slowly and in the light of experience.