Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, addresses the July 28 online panel hosted by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life / Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life
Washington D.C., Jul 28, 2021 / 17:05 pm (CNA).
The sacrament of confession must be part of the U.S. bishops’ discussions on worthiness to receive Communion, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States said on Wednesday.
Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, said at an online panel that the conversion of souls should be the bishops’ primary aim when teaching about reception of Holy Communion.
“The starting point cannot be to shame the weak, but to propose the One Who can strengthen us to overcome our weaknesses, especially through the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist,” Archbishop Pierre said at an online panel discussion on Wednesday.
“By the way, there is a link between the two [sacraments],” the nuncio added.
Archbishop Pierre addressed a July 28 online panel discussion of “Communion, Catholics, and Public Life,” which focused largely on a draft Eucharistic document of the U.S. bishops’ conference.
At their recent spring meeting, held virtually this year due to the pandemic, the U.S. bishops voted decisively to begin drafting a teaching document on the Eucharist. The meeting featured extensive debate both for and against moving ahead with the document at the time.
A proposed outline of the document covered various teachings on the Eucharist, including a subsection on worthiness to receive Communion – “Eucharistic consistency.”
That subsection received most of the attention at the bishops’ meeting. Some bishops opposed to drafting the document at the time argued that in addressing worthiness to receive Communion, the bishops would be seen as partisan players, rebuking Catholic politicians who oppose the Church’s teachings on abortion laws.
Some bishops critical of the motion also said that to pronounce who should and should not receive Communion would drive Catholics away from the Eucharist at a time when unity in the Church is needed.
Archbishop Pierre was asked about the episcopal deliberations on Wednesday. He admitted the difficulty the bishops faced in “discerning” what to do on the teaching document.
“The discernment is quite difficult, because there is always the danger to be overwhelmed by the tensions. And we know these tensions are quite often ideological tensions which may divide us,” he said.
“This is why we have heard about the risk of instrumentalization of the sacraments, and indeed, of the Eucharist,” he continued, noting “how to remain firm, faithful to the message of the Gospel and avoid any kind of ideological war.”
After the Nuncio spoke on Wednesday, two U.S. bishops participated in the online dialogue on Communion – Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, chair of the doctrine committee at the U.S. bishops’ conference (USCCB), and Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark.
As current chair of USCCB doctrine committee, Bishop Rhoades is currently in charge of drafting the teaching document on the Eucharist.
The idea for the document surfaced shortly after the election of President Joe Biden. A USCCB working group was established in November 2020 to deal with challenges of a Catholic in the White House – Biden – who contradicted Church teaching on life and marriage issues. Biden supports taxpayer-funded abortion and the redefinition of marriage, among other policies contrary to Church teaching.
The bishops’ working group recommended a teaching document on the Eucharist, to inform Catholics – especially Catholic politicians – of the need to conform their lives to Church teaching in order to receive the Eucharist worthily and avoid giving scandal.
Bishop Rhoades on Wednesday said the Eucharistic document is meant to be “a teaching document,” one “that would focus more broadly on the Eucharist as the source and summit of our identity as Catholics.” It is addressed to all Catholics and is not a political statement, he said.
Regarding worthiness to receive Communion, the Church already has taught that discipline in canons 915 and 916 of the Code of Canon Law, he said on Wednesday. Canon 915 states that those “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
The document, Rhoades emphasized, “will not be establishing national norms or a national policy” on admittance to Communion.
Bishop Rhoades added that it is the teaching of the Church that, in order to be properly disposed to receive Communion, a Catholic must “assent to the deposit of faith that’s contained in Scripture and Tradition that the Apostles entrusted to the Church.”
Meanwhile, Cardinal Tobin on Wednesday expressed some criticism about the decision to draft the document at the current moment. “This document was born in some confusion,” he said, warning that it would be received by many Catholics as a partisan gesture.
Cardinal Tobin noted that the USCCB established a working group and drafted a document on worthiness to receive Communion after the election of Joe Biden. They did not do so right after the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, he said, taking more than a year to set up any such working group during Trump’s presidency.
Part of the USCCB’s reason for setting up the working group in 2020 was Biden’s professed Catholic faith, and the added possibility of scandal with a Catholic in the White House contradicting Church teaching on grave moral issues.
Bishops should be consulting not only among themselves, but with the lay faithful on the Eucharistic document, Tobin said.
“I think what we need is a broader consultation with the American church on the mystery of the Eucharist,” Cardinal Tobin said, “not one that, like it or not, is perceived as a political action.”
Cardinal Tobin was also asked about recent reports on the use of the gay dating and “hookup” app Grindr by clergy and seminarians.
The Catholic news website The Pillar on July 20 published its investigation claiming that, according to records of app signal data, the cell phone of the USCCB’s associate general secretary regularly emitted Grindr data signals during parts of the years 2018-2020. The secretary in question, Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, became USCCB general secretary after the bishops’ November 2020 meeting. He resigned his post shortly before The Pillar published its investigation.
The Pillar has since published stories saying it reviewed data of Grindr app usage at rectories in the Newark archdiocese, and at the Vatican. The Archdiocese of Newark responded last week that it would investigate the allegations.
Cardinal Tobin on Wednesday said that priests could not be using the apps after having taken vows of celibacy, but also noted the “ethics” surrounding the gathering of the phone app data.
“All of us as Catholics take promises,” he said, noting vows made related to the sacraments of Baptism, Matrimony, and Holy Orders. “We should keep our promises, and we should repent when we don’t keep our promises,” he said.
For priests who have taken vows of celibacy, having a dating app on their phone “is asking for trouble,” Tobin said.
He also noted the “very questionable ethics around the” gathering of phone app data, and added that the information The Pillar shared with the Newark archdiocese “is very general.” Tobin would not comment further on the story.
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Yet another steroid fueled popularity contest promoting fraudulence…
Bergoglio is on a warpath to make a handful of recent popes saints. I wouldn’t doubt if he’s going to nominate himself as a saint before he passes…yet, Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s canonization is on a shelf collecting dust…
Let’s make this a lot simpler. It is obvious and undeniable that every pope before Vatican II was a reactionary sinner who is rightfully consigned to the outer darkness and thence forth eternally ignored while every after Vatican II pope is a glorious “Santo Subito” because of course The Council. Once a new pope is elected, he will automatically be called “Saint” in to avoid the tedious and pointless delay and expense in having to wait until he dies and some rigamarole has to be done in the Saint-making sausage factory to beautify and canonize.
Let’s start now and not waste any time: “St. Francis the Great.”
This is good news. John Paul 1, was indeed a saintly man.
What did he actually do that was saintly? Smile for the cameras? John Paul I accomplished precisely zero as pope except being made pope by the same lobbies that made Roncalli as John XXIII and Montini as Paul VI. If he is made a saint, we should all be made saints automatically and thus dispense with the Church, the sacraments, grace, and even Christ Himself.
I, for one, do believe that the Holy Spirit, who works in mysterious ways, does lead the Cardinals to vote for a person that is needed by the Church at the time.
And you know this how? Because he had a cute and innocently-looking smile? Because we should feel sorry for him because he was robbed of years as Pope? Please give us an explication of what you’re aware of regarding his holiness?
Was it the fact of his just being another ordained man saying shallow silly things about the wisdom of Humane Vitae that made him “saintly?”
“saying shallow silly things” says the person who does so regularly.
Be man enough to be specific.
Problem for Team Francis:
A – its chief theologian Cardinal Kasper, promoted by sycophants of the Pontiff Francis such as “Eminence” Cupich, writes and teaches that the faithful “probably don’t need to believe” in the miracle accounts attributed to Jesus as testified by the apostles and evangelists in the New Testament, for example those in this list including the calming of the sea, the Transfiguration, the raising of the widow’s son, the daughter of Jairus and Lazarus, and especially the bodily resurrection of Jesus, which “appearances” were not “objectively TANGIBLE events…it is a mistake to interpret what happened as…a miraculous event…[which] “knocked them over” …. This would lead to the grotesque conclusion that those who first preached faith…were dispensed from faith by having seen…. [the appearances] “were actual encounters with Christ present in the spirit.” (Kasper, Jesus the Christ, the denial of the bodily resurrection being on p. 139 of the 1976 edition).
B – While the contemporary Catholic Church absolves the faithful from believing miracle accounts attested in the Gospels by mere evangelists and apostles, yet the faithful can nevertheless be assured that the “miracles” certified by the Church of Pachamama are all to be believed.
Not a very convincing testimony, your Eminences and Excellencies.
One more comment; I thought to be declared a ‘saint’ in the Church, there would have to be ‘2’ miracles attributed to this person. On here, apparently there was only ‘one’ attributed to JPI. These awards to sainthood seem to be flying off the shelf since Frank took over the ‘holy Chair of Peter…’
Pope John Paul II was shot while he was going to view the Shroud of Turin. When John Paul I died, there had been a three-part series on the Shroud of Turin featured in the Kansas City Star. I remember well how this unfolded. Above the headline banner, in red print, was the announcement of the featured articles each of the three days. Having an interest in the Shroud, and having seen the first article, I was anxious to read the second one. I purchased the newspaper the second day, and the headline that morning announced the death of Pope John Paul I. There, above that headline were two images in red of the crucified Christ, with the notice of the second installment of the series on the Shroud presented in red lettering between them. Rather strange.
Just because you’re not a canonized Saint doesn’t mean you’re a lesser saint. Popes and religious have hordes who labor on promoting their sainthood. Lay people, especially obscure saintly people, don’t have such tireless and savvy advocates. That’s okay because in heaven a saint is a saint. Just strive to be a saint.
Yawn.
I heard rumors that Pope John Paul I was poisoned due to him wanting to investigate corruption in the Vatican Bank. IF true, he would be saintly and likely a martyr, although most of these averments come from unverified sources in the Vatican rumor mill, without any proof to substantiate them thus far.