Arguments for and against MSE/WPs

Please send more suggestions!

FOR	AGAINST
It is faithful to the first century model	Those who know what's what, forbid it (see 1954 Vatican letter extract - right)
It gets more ordained people to help in parishes [not a good reason]	It undermines the laity. It might even frighten the horses
It involves the ministerial priesthood in the grubby realities of working life as they impact the bulk of the church - the laity. This may help inform pastoral understanding and preaching	It blurs the priestly office

 

 

No, you can't!

"The Holy See holds that it is not essential to the apostolate in the worker milieu to send priests as workers there, and that it is not possible to sacrifice the handed down view of priesthood for this purpose..The priest is ordained essentially for the practice of sacral functions: to offer God the holy Eucharist and the public prayer of the church, to minister the sacraments to the faithful, and to preach the word of God...

He [sic] gives this testimony [of Christ's resurrection] above all by preaching the word, and not by manual working among factory hands, as if they were his peers.

What is more, the Holy See holds that working in a factory or on a building site is incompatible with the priestly life and its obligations.." [1954]