Vatican News: Vatican Dicastery maintains that a layperson cannot deliver the homily

The Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments responds to the request made by the German Bishops, denying their petition for a lay person to preach the homily during Mass, even in exceptional cases, stating that the proclamation of the Word in the liturgical celebration is inseparable from the mission received sacramentally.

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The Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has issued a clarifying text regarding who is permitted to deliver homilies.

In a letter dated June 17, 2026 addressed to the President of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Heiner Wilmer, the Dicastery communicated that it is not possible to grant the indult requested on March 30, 2026. An indult is “a special (and often temporary) favor granted to a physical or moral person by the Apostolic See (or the local ordinary) which confers faculties contrary to or beyond the prescriptions of the law.”

The German Bishops had requested “to permit, in exceptional circumstances, a duly commissioned lay member of the faithful to preach in place of the homily during the celebration of the Eucharist.”

While the Dicastery expressed appreciation for the pastoral concerns that inspired the request, it reaffirmed that the current discipline cannot be dispensed from by means of an indult, since the reservation of the homily to a priest or deacon is not a merely disciplinary norm but derives from the very nature of the liturgy.

In the text, the Dicastery reiterated that the homily, which forms an integral part of the Liturgy of the Word, is intrinsically linked to the proclamation of the Gospel and constitutes an exercise of the munus docendi entrusted to ordained ministers through the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

It added that the proclamation of the Word within the liturgical celebration is inseparable from the mission received sacramentally and from the unity that binds together Word and Sacrament in the Eucharistic celebration.

The letter also emphasised the importance of promoting the ongoing formation of ordained ministers so that the homilly may fully express its pastoral and spiritual effectiveness.

Finally, the Dicastery recalled that the Church’s current discipline already provides for numerous forms of proclaiming the Word and preaching that may be entrusted to lay members of the faithful outside the homily and outside the celebration of the Eucharist, in accordance with canon law and the proper nature of these different forms of proclaiming the Gospel.