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How one Protestant’s pursuit of the Fourth Cup led him to the Catholic Church

“From the moment my pastor raised the question,” says noted author and theologian Dr. Scott Hahn, “I knew I had to find the answer.”

September 25, 2018 Paul Senz The Dispatch 2 Print

"The Last Supper" (1824) by Alexander Ivanov [WikiArt.org]

Dr. Scott Hahn has one of the most well-known conversion stories in recent memory, having made his way, over the course of years, from Presbyterianism and virulent anti-Catholicism to the Catholic Church. (The conversion story of Scott and his wife Kimberly, titled Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism, is available from Ignatius Press.) An well-known speaker, author, and scholar, Hahn teaches theology and Scripture at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and has written several best-selling books, including Rome Sweet Home, The Lamb’s Supper, and the Catholic Bible Dictionary. He is the General Editor of the Ignatius Study Bible series, and is also the founder and president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.

A recent book details another facet of Hahn’s conversion and journey into the Catholic Church. The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross (Image, 2018) focuses on a facet of the Last Supper and the Passion of Our Lord that has been little noticed, or even ignored, over the centuries. The book recounts Jesus’ Passover meal with his apostles immediately preceding his betrayal by Judas, crucifixion, and death, and then explains the mystery of the “fourth cup” and how understanding this aspect of Jewish tradition can lead to a deeper understanding of the profound connection between the Last Supper, the Eucharist, and the Cross of Christ.

Hahn brings his notable biblical expertise to bear on this topic, weaving the explanation of the “fourth cup” with the personal story of how it affected his journey of conversion. He recently corresponded with Catholic World Report about his new book.

CWR: In The Fourth Cup, you recount the development of your understanding of the “Fourth Cup,” which turned into a talk that you’ve given many times over the years. Can you summarize that story? What prompted you to put this all down in a book after all these years?

Scott Hahn: I was in my last year of seminary, preparing to serve as a Presbyterian pastor. My Christianity was evangelical in style, Calvinist in substance. I was attending the church of my choice, which was pastored by a man who was one of my intellectual heroes. One day he was preaching on Our Lord’s words from the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30), and he asked the question: What is finished? He admitted that he didn’t know the answer.

I was determined to find the answer. As I searched I discovered the importance of the Passover as the context of Jesus’ Passion. Then I discovered some strange details in his celebration of the Passover. I noticed that Jesus apparently skipped the final cup in the ceremony, and he drew attention to the fact that he was doing so. His Passover was unfinished until a particular moment in his suffering.

The more I researched these matters, the more “sacramental” the moment seemed to me — and the less I was able to relate it to the doctrine I had learned in seminary. It was not long before I found myself inexorably drawn to the Catholic faith.

CWR: That story helps illustrate the real importance of theology and of understanding Scripture; it’s not just an intellectual pursuit, but a vitally important aspect of our daily lives. Why did it bother you so much that you did not know the answer to the question: “What was finished?”

Hahn: Well, the Scripture preserved a definitive statement — literally definitive — delivered by God incarnate. Words don’t get more important than that. From the moment my pastor raised the question, I knew I had to find the answer. But, as you point out, the ability to raise the question and the desire to answer it both presume a love for Jesus Christ. It’s not just a crossword or sudoku puzzle. It’s a matter of life and death. My pastor and I shared that strong devotion to Jesus.

CWR: Once you came to your conclusion about “the fourth cup,” how did this change how you viewed the Catholic faith in the Eucharist? What effect did it have on your journey to the Church?

Hahn: It was an accelerant. Every time I found an answer, the answer raised more questions — and everything seemed to point to the divine origin and abiding authority of the Catholic Church. I stood to lose a lot. As a Catholic I could not pursue the ministry or academic careers that had been my dream. My wife, Kimberly, was not yet on the same page, and I worried that our marriage might be in danger. Everything I loved I seemed to be in danger of losing. But the evidence I found — and kept finding — convicted me and gave me no options.

CWR: The Fourth Cup is a great companion to books such as your book The Lamb’s Supper, or Dr. Brant Pitre’s Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist. Why is it important to understand the deeper context and meaning behind what we read in Scripture, and what we do at Mass?

Hahn: Because this is the story of our lives — my life and your life. We cannot understand ourselves until we understand what God has done for us. In the pages of the Bible, the Old Testament and the New, we see how he has planned our salvation from the foundation of the world. He didn’t become acquainted with me at my birth, or even at my conception. God created the world for your delight. He guided the history of Israel so that you could be saved.

CWR: In writing the book, did you gain any new insights into the topic? Having given the talk so many times over all these years, is there anything left to learn?

Hahn: Not only in writing the book did I gain new insights, but in rewriting it, and proofreading it, and then again in rereading it for the TV series based on its story. God’s revelation is inexhaustible.

CWR: The book is very readable and exceptionally approachable for readers who don’t have a background in theology. Do you think it is important for the average Catholic to be able to understand the deeper context of Scripture in general, and the Last Supper in particular?

Hahn: Absolutely. God doesn’t call us all to be theologians, but we should all burn with the desire to know more about the Word of God. And if we’re not feeling the fire, we have an even greater need to study. The more we learn about Jesus, the more we’ll want to know about it. Our study of the Scriptures shouldn’t be over till we too can say, “It is finished.”

CWR: Can this book be helpful to a Protestant who questions the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist? How so?

Hahn: I think so. The theme has been around as a talk and in articles I’ve written, and many people cite the presentation as a milestone along the way to conversion, including my good friend, Marcus Grodi, host of the EWTN program, The Journey Home. The book will make the case in a stronger way, with greater evidence.

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About Paul Senz 147 Articles
Paul Senz has an undergraduate degree from the University of Portland in music and theology and earned a Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry from the same university. He has contributed to Catholic World Report, Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly, The Priest Magazine, National Catholic Register, Catholic Herald, and other outlets. Paul lives in Elk City, OK, with his wife and their four children.

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In Poland, lawmakers condemn disputed report about John Paul II abuse cover-up

March 10, 2023 Catholic News Agency 2
Pope St. John Paul II in 1979. / L’Osservatore Romano

Denver, Colo., Mar 10, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

Polish lawmakers denounced a documentary alleging that when he was a cardinal and archbishop in Poland, Pope St. John Paul II covered up alleged child sexual abuse committed by priests.

“There are those who are trying to stir up not a military conflict, but a culture war here in Poland,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a video posted to Twitter March 8. “I stand in defense of our beloved pope, like most of my fellow citizens, because I know that as a nation we owe a lot to John Paul.”

On Thursday, Poland’s Parliament passed a resolution in defense of the former pope that “strongly condemns the disgraceful media smear campaign, largely based on the documents of communist Poland’s machinery of violence, against the great pope, St. John Paul II, the greatest Pole in history.”

Polish lawmakers in the Sejm, the national Parliament lower house, voted 271 to 43 to pass the resolution. Two centrist opposition parties declined to vote on the resolution, while members of the leftist opposition party voted against it.

Referring to the report’s use of material taken from communist secret police files, the resolution said it was “an attempt to discredit John Paul II using material that even the communists did not dare use.”

The Polish Catholic Bishops’ Conference had challenged the allegations presented in the documentary and noted the need for “further archival research.” In a March 7 statement, the bishops said that two claims of cover-up in the report had already been refuted. The third new claim, they said, was based on the unreliable files of the communist government’s secret police.

John Paul II is a national hero in Poland for his resistance to Soviet communism. He became a globally known figure for his charismatic, thoughtful presentation of Catholic Christianity and his unprecedented global travels. Pope Francis canonized him as a saint in 2014.

The controversy follows the Monday broadcast of journalist Marcin Gutowski’s documentary on the news channel TVN24. The documentary repeated allegations that the future pope, then Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, relocated two priests, Father Eugeniusz Surgent and Father Jozef Loranc, despite knowing they were accused of sexually abusing minors. Gutowski also aired a new claim about a third priest.

The broadcaster TVN, owned by U.S.-based conglomerate Warner Bros Discovery Inc., the largest private media network in Poland, has been a leading critic of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party since it took power in 2015.

Lawmakers had proposed a law to force TVN’s then owner, Discovery Inc., to sell most of its ownership stake by barring any non-European entities from owning more than a 49% stake in television or radio broadcasters. The proposal strained tensions with the United States and prompted thousands of Poles to protest in the streets. President Andrej Duda vetoed the bill in late 2021, Bloomberg news reported.

Poland’s foreign ministry invited the U.S. ambassador to a meeting “to inform him about the situation and its consequences in the form of reducing Poland’s capacity to deter a potential enemy and diminishing its resilience to threats.”

“The potential effects of these actions are identical to the goals of hybrid war aimed at leading to divisions and tensions in Polish society,” Poland’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization website says hybrid methods of warfare include “propaganda, deception, sabotage, and other nonmilitary tactics.”

It is not clear from the ministry’s statement whether the requested meeting with the U.S. ambassador concerned U.S. ownership of TVN.

The bishops’ March 7 statement was jointly authored by Father Adam Zak, the Polish bishops’ coordinator for the protection of minors, and Father Piotr Studnicki, director of the bishops’ Office of the Delegate for the Protection of Children and Youth.

The statement said that allegations the late pontiff covered up abuse in the case of two priests had already been reported by Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek in December 2022. Overbeek’s book “Maxima Culpa” was published in Polish this week, Reuters reported.

The bishops said Overbeek’s work had been refuted by two other journalists, Tomasz Krzyżak and Piotr Litka. According to Krzyżak and Litka, Wotjyla removed Loranc from his parish, suspended him from priestly service, and then forced him to live in a monastery where the civil authorities ultimately arrested him. After Loranc was released from prison, he was allowed to celebrate Mass but not catechize children and youth or hear confessions.

Surgent, who would be imprisoned for abuse, was a priest of the Lubaczów Diocese. Wojtyla made “several decisions” regarding this priest but he left “the final word on possible sanctioning” to the Bishop of Lubaczów.

The third claim from Gutowski’s broadcast has not been previously reported. It concerns an alleged cover-up of sexual abuse of young boys allegedly committed by Father Boleslaw Saduś. Wojtyla allegedly knew of the accusations against the priest but recommended him to an Austrian diocese without noting this.

The documentary presented evidence “not on the basis of a prosecutorial or judicial investigation but on the files of the security services of the People’s Republic of Poland,” the bishops’ statement said, adding that it is “impossible to determine” the nature of the acts attributed to the priest on these sources.

The Security Service was the secret police and counter-espionage agency for the atheistic communist government that ruled Poland and sought to subvert and control the Catholic Church in the country.

Gutowski interviewed several victims and a man who said in the 1970s he informed Wojtyla about Surgent’s abuse, the Associated Press reported.

In a March 9 statement, TVN24 said the documentary is “the result of many months of work, based on multiple-source documents, eyewitness accounts and — most importantly — (it) gives voice to the victims themselves.” The report underwent “several stages of verification” and was made following “the highest journalistic standards.” The role of independent media is “to show the facts, even if they are difficult and painful to accept.”

The Polish bishops’ conference noted that today there is much greater awareness about the damage of sexual abuse and the development of church procedures to respond.

“To all those who were harmed in this way by the clergy years ago and still bear the consequences of the evil experienced, we as the Church provide acceptance, listening, and support,” the statement said.

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2 Comments

  2. I really enjoy all Dr. Hann’s books. He mentioned a TV Series that was made based on his book. Can you let me know what the name of the series is and if it is already availabe? Thank you!

    Reply

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