Concelebration and Mass Offerings

What Canon Law Says §

At 10:00 AM on a Wednesday, five priests stand at the altar for a parishioner’s funeral. The pastor presides. His parochial vicar said the 7:00 AM Mass. Two pastors from nearby parishes will say evening Masses in their own churches, and a retired priest will say no other Mass that day. On the secretary’s desk are three Mass cards for the woman who died, and a question: can the priests at the altar take them?

Any priest “celebrating or concelebrating Mass” may accept an offering so that he applies the Mass for a particular intention (canon 945 §1). The canon on several Masses in a day then sets one limit for concelebrants:

§2. Sacerdos alteram Missam eadem die concelebrans, nullo titulo pro ea stipem recipere potest.

§2. A priest concelebrating a second Mass on the same day may not receive an offering for it on any title whatever.

Canon 951 §2. Latin · The Holy See’s English · Our translation.

The canon’s first paragraph lets a priest who says several Masses in a day accept an offering for each, keep one, and hand the rest over to the purposes the Ordinary lays down, Christmas Day excepted (which offerings a priest keeps). The second paragraph is stricter. It bars receiving the offering at all, “on any title whatever”: not to keep, not to send on, and not as recompense on an outside title. Fr. John Chrysostom Kozlowski, OP, a doctor of canon law, writes that a priest may “under no circumstances” accept an offering for concelebrating a second Mass, “not even to transfer the money to the fund designated by his ordinary.”¹

What Is Concelebration? §

Concelebration is one Mass offered by several priests together, one of them presiding as the principal celebrant. The Missal’s instructions say it fittingly shows the unity of the priesthood, of the Sacrifice and of the whole People of God. The rite itself requires it at the ordination of a bishop or of priests, the blessing of an abbot and the Chrism Mass, and recommends it, unless the good of the faithful calls for something else, at the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, at councils, synods and gatherings of bishops or of priests, and at the conventual Mass and the principal Mass in a church (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 199, in our words). The bishop regulates it in his diocese (GIRM 202). Visiting priests are to be gladly admitted once it’s known that they are priests in good standing (200), and nobody joins once Mass has begun (206). Canon law keeps each priest’s freedom:

Nisi utilitas christifidelium aliud requirat aut suadeat, sacerdotes Eucharistiam concelebrare possunt, integra tamen pro singulis libertate manente Eucharistiam individuali modo celebrandi, non vero eo tempore, quo in eadem ecclesia aut oratorio concelebratio habetur.

Unless the good of the faithful requires or counsels otherwise, priests may concelebrate the Eucharist, each of them remaining entirely free, however, to celebrate the Eucharist individually, though not at the time when a concelebration is being held in the same church or oratory.

Canon 902. Latin · The Holy See’s English · Our translation.

Concelebration has remained in use in the Church, East and West, and the Second Vatican Council extended it to more occasions in 1963 (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 57). The new rite came into use on Holy Thursday, 15 April 1965, by a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (Ecclesiae semper, 7 March 1965, AAS 57, 412). That decree speaks of several priests concelebrating the same Mass, acting together with one will and one voice, and offering the one Sacrifice in a single sacramental act (410 to 411, in our words). Each of them celebrates it, and every concelebrant says the words of consecration with the principal celebrant (GIRM 218).

Canon 905, which limits how often a priest may say Mass, speaks of the cases in which he may celebrate or concelebrate more than once a day (canon 905 §1), and the Missal’s instructions list the occasions on which any priest may do either more than once (GIRM 204). So in law a concelebration is one of his Masses that day.

May Each Priest Apply the Mass for His Own Intention? §

Yes. Canon 945 §1 names any priest “celebrating or concelebrating Mass,” so each concelebrant may apply the one Mass for an intention he accepted and take its offering, within the limit of one offering a day (canon 951 §1). A Mass with three priests at the altar may be applied for three intentions, one by each. Cincinnati’s policy for its priests says “There is no distinction” between the presider’s offering and a concelebrant’s,² and the bishops of Kansas wrote in 2014: “If a priest chooses only to concelebrate Mass on a given day, instead of serving as the main celebrant of the Mass, he may still accept a stipend for his intention.”³

Rockford’s guide sets four conditions for a concelebrant, “a secondary priest” in its words: the intention he offers has an offering attached, “He has not celebrated or concelebrated another Mass on that day,” his intention differs from the main celebrant’s, and he’s told it before Mass begins.⁴

Fr. Edward McNamara, a professor of liturgy, thinks more than one intention may sometimes be announced at a concelebrated Mass, “provided that the faithful know that each intention will be entrusted to a different priest.” A priest who wrote to him said his monastery announces none, so that nobody who asked a concelebrant for a Mass thinks it was passed over.⁵

What Counts as a Second Mass? §

The canon says “a second Mass on the same day.” Read by the clock, that is a concelebration that comes after another Mass in his day. In 1972, more than ten years before the Code, the Holy See had already set the rule without regard to order:

Sacerdotibus, qui in bonum pastorale fidelium celebrant et alteram Missam concelebrant, nullo titulo pro Missa concelebrata stipendium percipere licet.

Priests who celebrate for the pastoral good of the faithful and concelebrate another Mass may not receive an offering for the concelebrated Mass on any title.

Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, Declaratio de concelebratione, 7 August 1972, n. 3 b). Acta Apostolicae Sedis 64 (1972) 563. Latin · Our translation.

The declaration uses the canon’s own words, alteram Missam, and names no order: the concelebrated Mass carries no offering, whether it comes before or after the Mass he says for the faithful. Pope Paul VI confirmed it and ordered it published (the same page). Every source we found that takes up the order of the day reads canon 951 the same way. Rockford’s second condition counts any other Mass “on that day.” Jefferson City allows an offering “for concelebration if that is the only Mass a priest celebrates that day.”⁶ Fr. Kozlowski holds that the rule applies “even if the concelebration is not chronologically second,” as when a priest concelebrates with his bishop in the morning and says a parish Mass with an offering later.¹ And Fr. McNamara calls it “a strict norm that a priest may never receive a stipend for a concelebrated Mass if he celebrates, or more rarely concelebrates, another Mass on the same day.”⁵

Our suggestion, which satisfies every reading: give a concelebrant an intention with an offering only when it’s the only Mass he says that day.

The priest who presides at a concelebrated Mass is another question. Jefferson City puts him under the first paragraph, the rule for a priest who says several Masses: if he says another that day, he keeps one offering and the rest go on.⁶ If a case turns on it, ask your diocese. Christmas Day changes nothing for a concelebrant, as we read the canon: its exception for Christmas sits in the first paragraph, and the second names none.

What Some Dioceses Say §

Two of the dioceses whose rules we found, Rockford and Jefferson City, bar a concelebrant’s offering whenever he says another Mass that day. The others state the permission without that limit, or say how such intentions are counted.

Funerals With Several Priests §

The Holy See’s liturgy journal took up the funeral case in 1975. Notitiae, published by the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship, described how it happens: in places where several Masses had once been said at the same time, especially for funerals, the neighboring priests are now invited to concelebrate, sometimes as a second Mass, since some of them have Masses to say for the faithful. Asked whether the offering for such a concelebration could at least go to a charity, the seminary or a need of the diocese, it repeated the 1972 rule and concluded: “nullaque e causa stipendium percipiatur pro concelebratione, quae fit binando”, no offering is to be received for any reason for a concelebration that is a second Mass of the day (our translation).⁹ The journal’s answers are the Congregation’s guidance, not law, but this one applies the declaration as written.

At that funeral, then:

• The pastor presides and offers the funeral Mass for her. The Missal’s instructions give the funeral Mass first place among all the Masses for the dead (GIRM 380). The funeral’s own offering isn’t a Mass offering (what the funeral offering is): it goes to the parish, whoever presides, unless the giver clearly meant otherwise (canons 530 and 531).
• The parochial vicar said the 7:00 AM, so the funeral is his second Mass: it carries no offering for him, on any title.
• The two neighboring pastors will say evening Masses. Read by the clock, the funeral comes first in their day, but on the 1972 declaration’s reading, and Rockford’s and Jefferson City’s, it can carry no offering for them either. Give them none.
• The retired priest says no other Mass that day, so he may apply the funeral Mass for an intention he accepted and take its offering (canon 945 §1). In Rockford, it must be a different intention from the presider’s, and he must know it before Mass begins.⁴

And the three Mass cards? Each one stands for a Mass of its own (canon 948), and goes in the book to be said on a later day. Rockford reminds its parishes that at a funeral “the parish may receive many Mass intentions,” all of which “must be recorded in the Mass Intention Book.”⁴ Even the retired priest couldn’t take one in Rockford, because each card is for her, as the presider’s intention is.

A concelebration counts among each priest’s Masses, so a priest who concelebrates a funeral after his own parish Mass is celebrating twice that day (how many Masses a priest may say). Where priests are few, the local Ordinary may let him celebrate twice a day for a just cause (canon 905 §2), and Jefferson City gives all its priests that faculty.⁶

If the people planning the funeral want to thank the visiting priests, ask your diocese how it treats such a gift. Fr. Kozlowski holds that the priest “may not receive any other form of compensation for concelebrating a second Mass,” although one who celebrates a second Mass himself may keep what is given for his “time, travel expenses, preparation.”¹

If It Has Already Happened §

Sometimes the office learns afterward that a concelebrant took an intention with an offering on a day he said another Mass. Our advice: don’t simply send it on with the day’s other extra offerings. Jefferson City says he may not accept it “even if he were to give the offering to charity,”⁶ and Notitiae refused it for a charity, the seminary and the diocese alike. Tell the chancery what happened and ask what it wants done with the offering.

Then, before the next concelebrated Mass, ask each priest whether he says, or has said, another Mass that day. Rockford asks a supply priest who says Masses with offerings at two parishes in one day to tell the second parish that he has already received one.⁴

Writing It in the Book §

The book records the number of Masses, the intention, the offering given, and the celebration once completed (canon 958). A concelebrated Mass is one Mass, but it can carry more than one line, each naming its priest (each column of the book):

• The presider’s intention, as for any Mass. For the funeral: “† [Name], funeral Mass”, the pastor’s name, and “None” for the offering unless someone gave a Mass offering for it.
• A line for each concelebrant who applied the Mass for an intention the parish gave him, with its offering and his name.
• No offering for a concelebrant who says another Mass that day, before or after, as above.
• A visiting priest who applies the Mass for an intention he accepted himself notes it in his own record, as every priest must (canon 955 §4). The parish’s book holds what the parish accepted.

Our advice is to write every concelebrant’s name against the Mass on the day it’s said, even when he holds no intention. At the month’s end, the reckoning of each priest’s offerings turns on every Mass he said or concelebrated that day.

The Common Cases §

How Memento Keeps This §

In Memento a concelebrated Mass takes one intention, like any other, and the ledger of offerings counts its offering as the presiding priest’s, under the rule for several Masses in a day, as Jefferson City does. Every priest recorded at the altar has that Mass counted in his day (canon 951, and what we do about it).