WHEN I first read a report claiming that parishioners of a Co Tipperary Catholic church walked out in protest at the absence of a priest to say the daily morning Mass, I applauded this gesture as "a sacramental boycott".However, the Catholic media office has been in overdrive to refute the accuracy of the walkout and has insisted that such Liturgies of the Word conducted by lay people are increasingly common throughout Ireland.
This is not a serious response to a grave crisis.
The pious folk of Ardfinnan parish are morally entitled to their Church ensuring the presence of an ordained minister to celebrate Mass, hear their confession, administer Holy Communion and be on call for the sick and the dying.
Instead, what they got was a second-class spiritual service provided by the local sacristan who led a Communion service.
Ken Hackett was standing in for parish priest Robert Power, who was on holiday. "It's Mass bar the consecration," he explained.
The well-intended Mr Hackett was merely implementing the policy of the Irish Bishops' Conference, which allows for an absentee priest to leave in the tabernacle pre-consecrated hosts to be distributed to the faithful during week days.
This takes place after the lay stand-in has said biblical readings and led prayers of intercession.
The non-sacerdotal surrogate does not have the vested spiritual power to say the words of consecration of the host, which is exclusively reserved for ordained male clerics.
The rationale behind this communion service is the acute shortage of priests, which is devastating all 26 dioceses in Ireland.
"We're adapting to modern realities," Mr Hackett said apologetically. "With the shortage of priests the way it is, we all have to take more responsibility for the Church because it's for the whole people of God."
It was the reform-minded Second Vatican Council, from 1962-5, that defined the Church as the People of God, but successive popes have not responded to the overwhelming wishes of the laity to allow priests to marry and women to be ordained as priests.
It is papal obstinacy, supported by submissive bishops and docile laity, who have allowed a manpower crisis to develop for almost half a century.
In Ireland we have entered the era of the vanishing priest.
Yet, even in the death-knell of clericalist paternalism, devastated by the paedophile priest scandals, the episcopal leaders of the Irish Church refused to engage in open dialogue with the laity and continue to dole out half-baked solutions such as the introduction of male deacons and lay catechists.
Theological standards are lowered in the name of hot-gospel evangelisation from social conservatives.
It is only a matter of time until the Irish Church, which on Sundays is organising parishes into "clusters", will have insufficient priests even to supply pre-consecrated hosts.
This problem is not unique to Ireland.
The same dilemma is Europe-wide, and is particularly chronic in the US, Canada and Australia.
In calling for "a sacramental boycott", the Irish laity need to challenge Rome and Maynooth to supply leaders at the eucharistic table.
This will signal the end of the sacramental monopoly of the celibate male clergy.
New forms of ministry are needed.
Not clericalist halfway houses in priestless parishes.
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