February 2007 – Page 5

Apple Vs. DRM?

If true, then

EXCERPT:

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

Canon Law Or Catechism?

A reader writes:

I wanted to comment on this section [i.e., Marriages in Church] but did not want to contradict what you have stated.

Don’t worry about contradicting me. That wasn’t a Rule 20 post, so there was no "e-mail me if you want to object to my answer" rule in effect.

I do have a question, why did you cite the Cannon Law and not the Catechism also?

CCC 1621 – 1624 give a good idea of where we are obliged to get married and why.

We, ordinary lay people, do not have access to the Cannon Law nor do we always understand it.

Why didn’t you include the CCC in your answer?

Well, the truth is that I was writing late at night and didn’t think to look in the Catechism, but there’s a deeper reason than that.

Part of my philosophy is going straight to the source documents
whenever possible. That’s why I quote from these documents regularly
when I’m writing and thus "show my work" (as my math teacher used to
insist), rather than simply giving the answer and expecting the reader
to just trust me. I’ve seen a lot of people–particularly clerics and professors–just say "This is the way it is" without giving the questioner a way to follow-up on the answer and verify that it’s correct.

I don’t have a clerical collar–or even a degree in the relevant fields–and so I have no institution endorsing my answers (particularly when I’m writing here on my blog). They have to stand or fall on their own merits, and it’s a lot easier on me–and builds confidence on the part of the reader–if I simply quote the relevant documents up front so that the reader can see for himself what they say. He is then in a position, or a better position, to evaluate whether the answer I am drawing from them is correct. It’s part of how I try to build and maintain a reputation for accuracy and reliability.

This approach means that I need to cite the most relevant, most authoritative documents I can, and in the case of the legal obligation of Catholics to celebrate sacramental marriages in Catholic churches, the most relevant and authoritative document is the Code of Canon Law. It is this document that creates the obligation in the first place.

It’s true that the Catechism is more familiar to most readers, but it is not a legal document and does not create legal obligations for the faithful. Instead, it is a teaching document that is meant to impart doctrine.

I thus cite the Catechism when I’m handling doctrinal questions, and I cite the Code when I’m handling legal questions.

Sometimes I provide links to the source documents on the Vatican’s website, though these two documents are so well-known and so often-quoted on my blog that I often assume that readers will know how to get to them if they want to look up the context of the parts I’ve quoted. That may be a bad assumption on my part–particularly in regard to new visitors to the blog–but I already spend more time than I should on the blog, and not adding a link to these two documents every time I quote them is an extra time-saving step for me.

This is probably a good place to link to them, though, so new readers will have a jumping-on point, so:

HERE’S THE CATECHISM

and

HERE’S THE CODE.

And as an added bonus,

HERE’S THE COMPENDIUM.

So–in keeping with my time limits–once I’ve identified the most relevant and authoritative documents to quote, I just use them and don’t generally have the luxury of quoting other documents in addition (something that would only cause my blog posts to expand beyond their current lengthy lengthiness anyway).

Thus I didn’t bother looking in the Catechism.

Had I done so, I might not have quoted CCC 1621-1624 in my answer, anyway. Of these paragraphs, the most relevant one is 1621, but it has some limitations in addressing the question. First, it only addresses the custom in the Latin Rite. That’s not too much of a limitation, though, since the person asking why marriages are celebrated in churches likely had the Latin Rite’s practice in mind. Second, and more significantly, the paragraph doesn’t really talk about why Latin Rite marriages are celebrated in churches. It talks about why they are celebrated (normally) in Masses.

If I used this as the basis of my answer, I wouldn’t have dealt with the situations of marriages which aren’t celebrated during Mass but nevertheless are celebrated in Catholic churches, and I wouldn’t have been able to appeal to the fact that the relevant canon in the Code of Canon Law draws a distinction between sacramental and non-sacramental marriages (which is highly important to answering the original question) since the Catechism doesn’t go into that.

I also would have had to extend the discussion by sketching the chain between normally having weddings during Mass and normally having Masses in churches. It was just a lot simpler to go straight for the spot in the Code where it says you’ve normally got to have sacramental marriages celebrated in churches.

That being said, CCC 1621 can shed extra light on the reasoning behind the law, and it’s worth looking at in that regard–as additional insight on the law, but not as law itself or as an exhaustive answer on the reasoning behind the law.

Hope this helps!

“On/In Earth As It Is In Heaven”

A reader writes:

I’m on the RCIA team for my parish, and this past week, a gentleman asked me if I could find out something for him about the Our Father. His mother says the line above as "in earth as it is in heaven" and he said she told him that’s how it used to be or that was how her translation of the Bible had it. I asked him what denomination she was, and he said just a regular Protestant, non-denominational.

I’ve tried checking out a few sites with different Bible translations and have not found any that say "in" earth. Wondered if you had any historical information as to this question.

This man is very very interested and knowledgeable about the Faith and is very much looking forward to the Easter Vigil and coming into the Church. I suspect he may be getting a little grief from his family, and the poor man is aggravated by, as he puts it, "a one letter difference," so I told him I would try to find out for him.

Your friend may be right that his mother is getting this from her ordinary translation of the New Testament. Many groups of Protestants still use the King James Version of Scripture as their ordinary translation, and in this translation it does read "in earth as it is in heaven" (SOURCE). So that’s likely where this is coming from.

As to the reasonability of the "on"/"in" translation, this comes from the Greek of the text. In the Greek New Testament, there is a difference in the prepositions that are present in the two phrases. The "earth" phrase is introduced by the preposition epi, which would naturally be rendered by "on," "upon" or something like that, while the "heaven" phrase is introduced by the preposition en, which would naturally be rendered by "in." So there is a distinction in the Greek between the two phrases.

The image that is conveyed by the Greek prepositions seems to be one in which the person saying the prayer is located on earth, which is below the heaven where God’s will is performed perfectly. We’re thus asking that his will be done on earth (i.e., down here) the way it is up there (i.e., in heaven).

This seems to be what the Greek translator has in mind, informing the English language translation, though if we want to trace this all the way back to its rootes, we have to go into the Aramaic.

Here we find something different.

It’s always hard to translate prepositions from one language to another, because prepositions can mean a variety of things, and their meanings don’t perfectly overlap from one language to another. That’s a problem that happens with all words, but it particularly happens with prepositions.

If we look at common Aramaic versions of the Our Father (LIKE THIS ONE), we find that the preposition introducing both the "earth" phrase and the "heaven" phrase is b-, giving us bish-maya ("in/on heaven") and b’ar-ah ("in/on earth").

The distinction between the two thus likely wasn’t there in the original Aramaic of this prayer. Jesus probably said b-heaven and b-earth, which could be translated "in heaven" or "on heaven" and "in earth" or "on earth." It was up to the translator to decide what was best.

The Greek translator decided that–in Greek–it sounded more natural to say "in (en) heaven" and "on (epi) earth," and many English translators looking at the Greek have decided similarly, leading to the standard English translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The translators of the King James Version seem to have decided differently, rendering the preposition as "in" in both cases.

But this is not an essential point. It’s a matter of translation (specifically, a matter of English translation that does not apply to other languages), and I suspect that your friend’s difficulties with his family may involve weightier matters in the end.

Still, let’s keep him–and them–in prayer.

Marriages In Church

A reader writes:

I’ve been looking for a really solid explanation of why Catholic weddings are ordinarily required to be in a Church. I have many friends that often ask me this question, but sadly I think my answers are not as good as they could be. Obviously, having a wedding in a Church emphasizes the sacramentality thereof, and it is a testimony to the faith community’s part in the couple’s life.

Thank you for your assistance.

There are two ways to approach the answer to this question. The first is the canonical approach. Catholic weddings are ordinarily celebrated in a church because the Code of Canon Law provides the following:

Can. 1118 §1. A marriage between Catholics or between a Catholic party and a non-Catholic baptized party is to be celebrated in a parish church. It can be celebrated in another church or oratory with the permission of the local ordinary or pastor.

§2. The local ordinary can permit a marriage to be celebrated in another suitable place.

§3. A marriage between a Catholic party and a non-baptized party can be celebrated in a church or in another suitable place.

Since most Catholics are either marrying other Catholics or baptized non-Catholics, section 1 applies, which indicates that the marriage is to be celebrated in a parish church unless the local ordinary (typically the bishop) or the pastor gives permission for it to be celebrated in another church or oratory (meaning, due to another canon we won’t go into, another Catholic church or oratory).

At first glance, the canonical answer may not seem that enlightening: "Catholic weddings are normally held in Catholic churches because that’s what the law says." Big deal. We probably could have guessed that, and the reader is likely wanting an answer from the other perspective, which is why does the law say this? What’s the reason for the law?

Here is where a close reading of the canon is helpful. It’s always at least a little risky to speculate on the motives behind the law, but the structure of this canon gives us a pretty clear indication of the reason for the law, and it indicates that the reader is on the right track.

If one party is Catholic and the other is either Catholic or another Christian then section 1 wants to locate the ceremony in a Catholic church or oratory, though with permission of the local ordinary it can be celebrated in another suitable place (such as a Protestant’s home church if the Catholic is marrying a Protestant), according to section 2.

The permission of the local ordinary goes out the window, though, if the Catholic is marrying a non-baptized (i.e., non-Christian) person. In that case it can happen in a Catholic church or in any suitable place, no permissions needed.

This suggests that there is a difference between the marriages of Catholics to other baptized people (Catholic or not) and the marriages of Catholics to non-baptized people. In the former case, sections 1 and 2 apply. In the latter case, section 3 applies.

Since all Catholics are baptized, that means that this canon draws a distinction between marriages that occur between two baptized people (sections 1 and 2) and marriages that don’t occur between two baptized people (section 3).

Now: What’s the big difference between marriages between two baptized people and marriages that aren’t between two baptized people?

That’s right: The former are sacramental and the latter are not.

So the reader is on the right track in identifying the sacramentality of the marriage as the key issue.

I’d be inclined to put it like this: Marriage between baptized persons is a sacrament, and sacraments are normally performed in church. To a significant extent, that’s what churches are for. They’re the places we (ordinarily) perform our sacraments.The reasons for this seem to be twofold:

1) Churches are places specially consecrated to God, making them sacred, and sacraments are sacred actions, making it natural to perform them in churches.

2) Sacraments are also ecclesial (church-related) acts, and it is thus natural to perform them in the presence of the church when possible. Churches (considered as buildings) are places where the church (considred as people) meets, and so it is natural to perform ecclesial acts in the presence of the members of the church in the house in which they meet.

There are exceptions to this. In some cases there is a good reason to vary from the practice. For example, sick people often can’t get to church, so the anointing of the sick is often administered to them where they are. But in the main, the two above reasons are good reasons why sacraments–including marriage–are normally performed in churches.

It doesn’t have to be that way, which is why canon law allows exceptions, but it is fitting that it be this way, which is why canon law establishes this preference.

As the green CLSA commentary on the Code of Canon Law puts it:

Since the marriages of two baptized persons are sacraments, they are not merely private or familial celebrations, they are ecclesial events. The spouses declare their consent "before God and the Church" and live out that commitment in and with the support of the local ecclesial community. It is, therefore, fitting that this celebration should take place in the parish church. It is here that the local community is "gathered together by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, and the mystery of the Lord’s supper is celebrated, ‘so that the whole fellowship is joined together by the flesh and blood of the Lord’s body’"[p. 1337].

Looks Like The Folks At Chrysler Have It Under Control, Too

MORE.
(CHT to the comboxer who provided the link!)

BTW, folks who can’t see these YouTube videos need the Macromedia Flash 7 plugin.

Hangin’ Around

Square dancing is a very social and sociable activity that has lots of politeness rituals associated with it.

For example, at the beginning of the evening, it’s customary for all the dancers to greet each other with handshakes and hugs. Then, at the beginning of a tip (that’s a pair of two individual dances; typically a hoedown or "patter" call, followed by a singing call–and BTW, square dancing is where we get the word "hoedown") it’s customary for all the men in a square to greet everyone in the square. Then at the end of a tip everyone applauds. Then, after applauding, everyone in the square individually thanks everyone else in the square for dancing with them. And at the end of the evening everyone gives the caller a big round of synchronized applause and a "Thank you!" and then shakes his hand.

All this greeting and thanking means that it’s very useful for square dancers to wear name tags–particularly when you have dances where people from more than one club are present.

And so clubs typically have name badges. They usually have the dancer’s name, the club’s name and logo, and they are often given to a dancer at the time he graduates from a mainstream square dance class and is formally invited to join the club. (Till then, student dancers are typically given informal stick-on or pin-on name tags that have their name written in magic marker.)

Over time, name tags tend to get embellished in various ways. For example, it’s common for dancers to drill holes in the bottom of their name tags and then attach small, little dangly things to them. These dangly things are known, appropriately, as "dangles."

Some dangles are given on particular occasions. For example, if you attend a particular club’s anniversary dance, you might be given a dangle that commemorates the event. Or, if you visit a distant square dance club while travelling, you might be given a travel badge commemorating your visit (not all of these are dangles, though; some are pin-ons).

Some dangles don’t commemorate anything special and are just for fun. These are appropriately known as "fun dangles," and you can typically buy them at big square dance events. They often have cute sayings or pictures on them.

Some dangles take the form of bars that stretch across the width of the dancer’s name tag. These are often used to indicate what office a dancer holds or used to hold.

I keep my name tag pinned to the front of my vest, so I don’t forget to wear it when I go dancing (transferring it from one shirt to another would be a sure recipe for me to forget), but I haven’t had any dangles up to now (in part because I don’t have a drill with which to attach anything to my name tag). I haven’t even received travel badges when I’ve visited other clubs travelling.

But at last Friday’s dance I was given my first one.

Help With The Dark Side

A reader writes:

Before I came to Christ (and the Church) I was thirteen years old. One time, I played a fortune-telling game, and the dark side made some dire predictions about my life. Only bad things: Never getting married, never graduating college, dying at age 27, etc…

I heard of other people quija boards, and all the predictions always come true. I’m am very scared. Do you know of any cases when occultic predictions failed to come true?

Yes. False occultic predictions aren’t just a dime a dozen, they’re a dim a billion. The failure rates for psychics and such are staggeringly high, at least when their predictions have any degree of specificity to them, like the ones allegedly made about you.

Back when I was a teenager, before I was a Christian, I also had an interest in the occult. I didn’t get into ouija boards, but I read a lot of books about psychics like Edgar Cayce and Jeanne Dixon, both of whom made numerous predictions that failed to come true.

An example would be a series of cataclysmic "earth changes" that Cayce and other psychics said would occur between 1958 and 1998, including the earth’s poles flipping, California and most of Japan sliding into the sea, the rising of the continent of Atlantis, and it was all building ujp to the second coming of Christ and the dawning of the Millennium.

Well, as time rolled along, these things started not happening, and the psychics started to get nervous as we got closer to 1998. Some predicted that the things would happen in 1999, 2000, or 2001 instead.

Needless to say, they didn’t, and today this body of predictions–which was hot stuff in prior decades and the subject of numerous books–has been embarassedly swept under the collective rug of the psychic community, with very little being said about it today.

I don’t know who’s been telling you that predictions of ouija boards are never wrong, but they’re just telling you a scare story. They’re most likely remembering a few predictions that happened–due to pure random chance–to come true and they’re forgetting all the false ones (a phenomenon known as the "file-drawer effect," where things that tend to confirm a theory get remembered and things that tend to disconfirm it get overlooked).

The bottom line is that if ouija boards were infallible then no force on earth would stop people from using them constantly to corner the market and make tons of money. They’d also put all the other psychics out of business, and ouijaboardology would be a respected science being studied and taught at countless universities, with massive funding by private foundations.

That ain’t the world we live in, so ouija boards ain’t infallible. FAR from it.

So set your mind at rest about that.

Also, since you’ve now come to Christ and the Church, you have their protection in a way that you didn’t before, so draw confidence from that as well.

And know that this is a problem that will dissipate with time. As soon as you get married, graduate college, or turn 28, you’ll have your own personal disconfirmation of the predictions.

NOTE: To further help our friend out, I invite readers to mention psychic/occult predictions (particularly ones involving ouija boards) that they are aware of that have proven false!

Atlas Shrugged

A reader writes:

Hey Jimmy, any thoughts on "Atlas Shrugged"? I’ve yet to read it, but I’m wondering if it makes any good points, and was also curious what the bad ones might be. A friend has forced me to read it, so I thought it’d be best to get your thoughts first. Thanks!

Well, I can’t generally offer thoughts on works of fiction like Atlas Shrugged, and most have both good and bad points, but in this case I do happen to know something about the work and its author, Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand was a 20th century immigrant to the US who advocated a particular philosophical system that she dubbed "Objectivism," because of its supposedly objective viewpoint.

This viewpoint has significant resonances with the Libertarian political movement, and advocates of Objectivism tend to be Libertarian politically (though not all Libertarians are Objectivists). This means that they tend to be economically liberal (in the historic sense–i.e., in favor of laissez-faire capitalism) while being socially liberal as well (e.g., not opposing abortion or homosexuality).

Objectivism tends to support a form of individualism that leaves open to the individual certain forms of freedom that Catholic theology would hold are immoral (e.g., it sometimes exalts selfishness as a virtue). It also tends to be strongly anti-religious.

While I have not read a great deal of Ayn Rand’s works (though I have read some), I can report that she uses her fiction–such as Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged–as vehicles for her philosophical thought.

I can also report that she is not taken seriously as a philosopher by real, academic philosophers.

I suggest looking into the following online articles from Wikipedia for more info:

* AYN RAND

* OBJECTIVISM

* OBJECTIVIST MOVEMENT

* ATLAS SHRUGGED

Sounds Like The Folks At Rockwell Have Everything Under Control

Now I know what’s been missing from my life ever since Star Trek Voyager went off the air.

Sisters Preaching The Homily

A reader writes:

I found you in the search engine looking for information on preaching by the laity.

Our Congregation of Sisters is having a general assembly. A few Sisters are upset by the fact that we have asked Sisters to give the homily each day after the Gospel. Each of the members of the Steering committee and liturgy committee received a scathing letter today, flaunting Canon law codes that specifically forbid this practice.

Do you know of any loophole "allowing" Sisters to preach at liturgies during their "closed" liturgies which take place in their own motherhouse or conference centers?

Thanks so much for any help you can give us.

I assume that the passage from the Code of Canon Law which appeared in the letter that your steering and liturgy committees received was this one:

Can. 767 §1. Among the forms of preaching, the homily, which is part of the liturgy itself and is reserved to a priest or deacon, is preeminent; in the homily the mysteries of faith and the norms of Christian life are to be explained from the sacred text during the course of the liturgical year. [SOURCE]

In citing this, the authors of the letter are correct. The homily is reserved to the priest or deacon, and lay people–including sisters–are not permitted to preach it. This is a norm that, prior to the 1983 Code of Canon Law, had certain exceptions, but these were eliminated with the release of the 1983 Code.

Not even a bishop has the ability to dispense from this norm, as was established by the Pontifical Commission for the Interpretation of Legislative texts when it issued the following authentic interpretation:

The doubt: Whether the diocesan bishop is able to dispense from the prescription of
c. 767.1, by which the homily is reserved to priests and deacons.

The response: Negative. [SOURCE]

The 2002 General Instruction of the Roman Missal (American edition) also stresses the reservation of the homily to the priest or deacon:

66. The Homily should ordinarily be given by the priest celebrant himself. He may entrust it to a concelebrating priest or occasionally, according to circumstances, to the deacon, but never to a lay person. In particular cases and for a just cause, the homily may even be given by a Bishop or a priest who is present at the celebration but cannot concelebrate. [SOURCE]

And the Holy See has expressed the same thing in Ecclesiae de Mysterio and Redemptionis Sacramentum. The former states:

The homily . . . also forms part of the liturgy.

The homily, therefore, during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, must be reserved to the sacred minister, Priest or Deacon to the exclusion of the non-ordained faithful, even if these should have responsibilities as "pastoral assistants" or catechists in whatever type of community or group. This exclusion is not based on the preaching ability of sacred ministers nor their theological preparation, but on that function which is reserved to them in virtue of having received the Sacrament of Holy Orders. For the same reason the diocesan Bishop cannot validly dispense from the canonical norm since this is not merely a disciplinary law but one which touches upon the closely connected functions of teaching and sanctifying.

For the same reason, the practice, on some occasions, of entrusting the preaching of the homily to seminarians or theology students who are not clerics is not permitted. Indeed, the homily should not be regarded as a training for some future ministry.

All previous norms which may have admitted the non-ordained faithful to preaching the homily during the Holy Eucharist are to be considered abrogated by canon 767, 1. [section 3:1; SOURCE]

And the latter states:

[64.] The homily, which is given in the course of the celebration of Holy Mass and is a part of the Liturgy itself, “should ordinarily be given by the Priest celebrant himself. He may entrust it to a concelebrating Priest or occasionally, according to circumstances, to a Deacon, but never to a layperson. In particular cases and for a just cause, the homily may even be given by a Bishop or a Priest who is present at the celebration but cannot concelebrate”.

[65.] It should be borne in mind that any previous norm that may have admitted non-ordained faithful to give the homily during the eucharistic celebration is to be considered abrogated by the norm of canon 767 §1. This practice is reprobated, so that it cannot be permitted to attain the force of custom.

[66.] The prohibition of the admission of laypersons to preach within the Mass applies also to seminarians, students of theological disciplines, and those who have assumed the function of those known as “pastoral assistants”; nor is there to be any exception for any other kind of layperson, or group, or community, or association. [SOURCE]

In light of these, I cannot offer you a loophole allowing sisters to preach the homily at liturgies that are not open to the public, for no such loophole exists. The Holy See is really serious about this. Not even the local bishop can dispense from this norm, and one certainly cannot depart from it on one’s own personal initiative. The Code of Canon Law also provides:

Can. 846 §1. In celebrating the sacraments the liturgical books approved by competent authority are to be observed faithfully; accordingly, no one is to add, omit, or alter anything in them on one’s own authority. [SOURCE]

Although the laity cannot preach the homily, there are instances in which they can preach. The Code of Canon Law provides:

Can. 765 Preaching to religious in their churches or oratories requires the permission of the superior competent according to the norm of the constitutions.

Can. 766 Lay persons can be permitted to preach in a church or oratory, if necessity requires it in certain circumstances or it seems advantageous in particular cases, according to the prescripts of the conference of bishops and without prejudice to can. 767, §1. [SOURCE]

The American conference of bishops has established the following complementary norm regarding lay preaching:

Preaching the Word of God is among the principal duties of those who have received the sacrament of orders (cc. 762-764). The lay faithful can be called to cooperate in the exercise of the Ministry of the Word (c. 759). In accord with canon 766 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops hereby decrees that the lay faithful may be permitted to exercise this ministry in churches and oratories, with due regard for the following provisions:

If necessity requires it in certain circumstances or it seems useful in particular cases, the diocesan bishop can admit lay faithful to preach, to offer spiritual conferences or give instructions in churches, oratories or other sacred places within his diocese, when he judges it to be to the spiritual advantage of the faithful.

In order to assist the diocesan bishop in making an appropriate pastoral decision (Interdicasterial Instruction, Ecclesiae de Mysterio, Article 2 §3), the following circumstances and cases are illustrative: the absence or shortage of clergy, particular language requirements, or the demonstrated expertise or experience of the lay faithful concerned.

The lay faithful who are to be admitted to preach in a church or oratory must be orthodox in faith, and well-qualified, both by the witness of their lives as Christians and by a preparation for preaching appropriate to the circumstances.

The diocesan bishop will determine the appropriate situations in accord with canon 772§1. In providing for preaching by the lay faithful the diocesan bishop may never dispense from the norm which reserves the homily to the sacred ministers (c. 767§1; cfr. Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code of Canon Law, 26 May 1987, in AAS 79 [1987], 1249). Preaching by the lay faithful may not take place within the Celebration of the Eucharist at the moment reserved for the homily. [SOURCE]

Ecclesiae de Mysterio also provides:

2. A form of instruction designed to promote a greater understanding of the liturgy, including personal testimonies, or the celebration of eucharistic liturgies on special occasions (e.g. day of the Seminary, day of the sick etc.) is lawful, if in harmony with liturgical norms, should such be considered objectively opportune as a means of explicating the regular homily preached by the celebrant priest. Nonetheless, these testimonies or explanations may not be such so as to assume a character which could be confused with the homily.

3. As an expositional aide and providing it does not delegate the duty of preaching to others, the celebrant minister may make prudent use of "dialogue" in the homily, in accord with the liturgical norms.

4. Homilies in non-eucharistic liturgies may be preached by the non-ordained faithful only when expressly permitted by law and when its prescriptions for doing so are observed. [section 3; SOURCE]

While the law does not permit your sisters to preach the homily at Mass, or to preach something else at the time reserved for the homily during Mass, the law does allow for the possibility of their preaching in other contexts and–provided the requirements of the passages quoted above in this post are met–it would permit them to preach in some form at your upcoming general assembly.