Moving Your Mass Intentions Book Off Paper

Ask the Chancery Before You Start §

We make Mass intention software, so weigh what follows accordingly.

If you’re hoping to begin 2027 in software, start with a phone call to your chancery or finance office. Canon 958 asks for a book, librum, in which the parish records the number of Masses, the intention, the offering given, and the Mass once it has been said. The Holy See’s 2025 decree calls it a register, registro (decree, Art. 4 §1). Neither names paper.

Dioceses that have written on it don’t agree. Scranton requires “a permanent mass book bound with consecutively numbered pages.”¹ Rockford lets parishes keep the records on a computer, but “Anyone choosing to stop recording Mass intentions in a paper book is REQUIRED to have an adequate computer data backup procedure in operation.”² Omaha’s finance office recommends an Excel file over a book and calendar, so a discrepancy can be found quickly.³

So ask three things: may we keep the register electronically, do you want a printed copy, and how often? (what the book must hold)

When Is the Best Time to Switch? §

Pick a date the book can be cut at cleanly. Our suggestion is the first of a month at the least, so a month’s Masses and each priest’s offerings sit in one register. Better still is the first day of the year your diocese counts by, whether that’s the calendar year or a fiscal year ending 30 June, so the year-end count and the yearly review come from one book (which year is the Mass year).

Avoid the weeks when the book is busiest: November, with its All Souls envelopes, and the run-up to Christmas and Holy Week (the busy seasons). From the switch date on, every new request goes into the new register.

What Should You Carry Over? §

You don’t need to retype twenty years of Masses already said. The old book stays the record for those. What has to move is every promise still open on the switch date. Our suggestion, line by line:

The date first received matters most. The year for saying a Mass runs from the day it was received (canon 955 §2), so if the new register shows the day you typed it in, every carried-over Mass looks younger than it is. Bring across the offering as written, or “None”, any condition such as “at this church only”, and who asked and how to reach them.

Masses sent elsewhere stay the parish’s responsibility until word comes back that they were accepted and the offering received (canon 955 §1), so they can’t be left behind in the old book. Founded Masses keep a second book of their own besides the Mass book (canon 1307 §2); keep it as it is.

Should You Run Both for a While? §

Yes, briefly, with one of them in charge. Our suggestion is a month: write each new request in both, but treat the new register as the book of record from the switch date. At the month’s end, check that every Mass said appears in both, then stop writing on paper.

Much longer than that and the two start to disagree, which is worse than either alone. If you keep a desk calendar beside the book, as Rockford’s guide describes,² check it against the new register each week while you’re settling in.

Check the Count Before You Trust It §

On the switch date, count the Masses the old book still owes. After the carry-over, the new register should show the same number. The Mass account should also hold the offerings for every one of them; Omaha’s rule is that the stipend bank account and the account of what’s owed “should always equal.”³

At the end of the first month, print the new register and file the printout with the old book. Rockford’s advice for electronic records is to make safe copies and “Consider storing these backups at multiple locations.”²

Close the Old Book, but Keep It §

Under the last entry, draw a line and write where the record continues, dated and initialled: “Continued in the electronic register from 1 January 2027.” Don’t erase anything or remove a page (correcting a line).

Then keep it. A Mass obligation never expires with time (canon 199), so a book with an unsaid Mass in it is still in use. Scranton says “Both the yearly and the permanent Mass books are to be kept on file permanently.”¹ Follow your own diocese’s schedule. The book belongs to the parish, too: in Owensboro’s words, “the intentions remain with the parish and become the responsibility of the new pastor.”⁴

Moving From a Spreadsheet §

A spreadsheet moves more easily than a book, and it’s also easier to change by accident. Save a copy of the file as it stood on the switch date, print it, and treat that copy like the old book: closed and never edited. Then carry over the open rows as above. If a row has only the Mass date, find the date it was received, from the envelope or the desk calendar, before you carry it.

Who Should Enter It? §

One person, reading each line back against the book, the same way the book is best kept every day (how the office keeps it). If whoever makes your software offers to enter the book for you, ask for the carried-over list before the switch date and count it yourself.

How Memento Keeps This §

Free Migration comes with every Memento plan: send us your book, your spreadsheet or the export from whatever you use now, and we enter it for you. The register is numbered without gaps and never erased, every change carries the name of whoever made it, and it prints as a bound copy when the chancery asks (canon 958, and what we do about it).