Tolerating Holiness

The Religion News Service reports that next week “the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome will host an academic conference on Eucharistic adoration, where the speakers will include six prominent cardinals, focusing on the rediscovery of the practice.” The story relates the growing interest and participation in Eucharistic adoration under Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, noting its particular appeal to college students. Notre Dame’s Richard McBrien, however, finds the trend troubling. Eucharistic adoration is a “step back into the Middle Ages,” he says in the story. Talking about adoration almost as if it is a vice, he pronounces that the practice should be “tolerated but not encouraged.”