In The Tablet (4th July 2026) there is a report that the prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal Arthur Roche, refused a request by the German bishops to allow suitably trained lay people give a homily.

The Cardinal’s reply was that Canon Law did not allow it because the homily is integral to the liturgy and thus is reserved to the ordained minister.

This leaves me with two thoughts. First, authority is not competence. Second, Canon Law, while it may have a divine intent, is a man-made construct, and as such can be changed.

Authority without competence

The first goes back to a homily I heard more than 20 years ago, when one of the several reports into clerical sexual abuse in Ireland was published.

In the Vigil Sunday Mass that week, the first reading, from Ezekiel (if memory serves me), called the shepherds of the people to account.

It was a perfect opportunity to give a thoughtful and humble homily — one carrying a substantial emphasis on repentance, atonement and on the evils of clerical sexual abuse.

However, our celebrant spent the homily telling us of all the phone calls he received supporting him, making a stand for the clerical caste in general and then, very much as an afterthought, he mentioned victims of abuse.

He may, by virtue of his ordination, have had the authority to preach the homily, but he displayed no competence.

I could list other examples, but that is to give them a prominence they don’t deserve.

Canon Law can change

The second concerns Canon Law, which is a man-made construct and, as such, can be changed.

And it has been changed before.

For example, there was no trouble changing it when Pope Francis wanted to double down on the exclusion of women from ordination (Canon n. 1379) or when John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger (as prefect of the CDF) sought to restrict the freedom of theologians (Canon n. 750).

A law’s life-cycle

As the eminent canonist Ladislas Orsy SJ notes in an essay on the interpretation of law, the law has a life-cycle:

• it is conceived when it is seen as a value to the community;
• it is born when it is promulgated;
• it lives when it is a vital force in the community, when people freely accept it for the good that it is; and
• when laws fulfil their purpose, they die.

Orsy adds that if a law is not allowed to die, it can become a burden (“The Interpretation of laws: new variations on an old theme” in The Art of interpretation: selected studies on Canon Law, published by the Canon Law Society of America, 1982).

The law restricting the homily to the ordained has reached the end of its life cycle.

As an example, one only has to listen to the excellent resource of homilies that is Catholic Women Preach to know it should be allowed to die with dignity.

• Angela Hanley studied theology as a mature student, graduating in 2010. In 2015 she completed a research MA on Catholic same-sex relationships. She is currently undertaking PhD studies. She has published many articles and two books, Whose a la Carte Menu?: Exploring Catholic Themes in Context and What happened to Fr Sean Fagan?