A pastoral Letter underlining the need for a responsible preparation in the sacraments has been published by Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevicius of Kaunas to mark the solemnity of Corpus Christi. “Responsibility for appropriate preparation belongs to the clergy and also to the community of the faithful”, points out the archbishop. He also recalls that “the sacramental celebration and preparation in the sacraments of Christian initiation ought to take place in the Christian’s own parish, so that the faithful be deeply rooted in their own community and become active members of it”. In the view of Archbishop Tamkevicius, “the faithful ought to appreciate the parish just as children love their own family”. Preparation should not just be confined to the sacraments of Reconciliation and First Communion: the archbishop stigmatises those priests who “bless a marriage that was not preceded by any preparation”, because by doing so “the priest could inflict spiritual damage on the spouses”. He also rejects the habit of “administering the sacraments to faithful of another parish devoid of adequate preparation” and also the habit of some parents to remove their children from the parish to “send them to summer camps for preparation in the sacraments”, which Tamkevicius calls “superficial” and “intolerable relics of the Soviet era”. In his Letter to the faithful the archbishop also mentions the destination of donations to the Church: “Those for the parish should not be used as a means for the upkeep of priests who live from the free offerings made during the celebration of mass or during other religious ceremonies”. The archbishop concludes by emphasizing the need for better bookkeeping in the administration of parish finances.
