Priest gives communion on the feast of the Holy Family in St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 27, 2015. / Alexey Gotovsky/CNA
Washington D.C., Jun 7, 2021 / 20:01 pm (CNA).
The U.S. bishops next week will deliberate and vote on whether to draft a teaching document on the Eucharist – despite the recent request of some bishops to delay such a discussion.
At the bishops’ virtual spring meeting scheduled for June 16-18, one agenda item that has received scrutiny is consideration of “Eucharistic consistency.” The agenda item is a “proposal to draft a formal statement” on “the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church.” The proposal comes from the bishops’ doctrine committee.
In a May 22 memo to the U.S. bishops, the president of the conference – Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles – explained that the proposal for such a document came from the doctrine committee. The committee followed the administrative procedures for securing an agenda item on the matter, he said.
Further, the proposed outline of the document “reflects recent guidance from the Holy See,” Archbishop Gomez said, referring to a May 7 letter from the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, to Gomez and, by extension, the U.S. bishops.
Gomez added that “the focus of this proposed teaching document is on how best to help people to understand the beauty and mystery of the Eucharist as the center of their Christian lives.”
The conference will not be voting on any final text of a document, but simply on whether to begin drafting a document, he said. If the bishops approve the motion, they will still have the opportunity to deliberate and amend the document when presented in final form at a future meeting.
In its proposal, the bishops’ doctrine committee explained the two-fold need for a teaching document on the Eucharist.
First, the bishops’ three-year strategic plan – approved in November 2020 – has a Eucharistic title, “Created Anew by the Body and Blood of Christ, Source of Our Healing and Hope.” Second, a special working group of the bishops – convened in the aftermath of Joe Biden’s election to the presidency – recommended a teaching document on “Eucharistic consistency.”
That term has its roots in the 2007 closing document of the Aparecida conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops – a document which then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had a hand in developing. Used in the document, the term refers to the need for Catholic leaders and legislators to defend life and the family against grave evils such as abortion and euthanasia.
Making specific reference to “legislators, heads of government, and health professionals,” the document states, “We must adhere to ‘eucharistic coherence,’ that is, be conscious that they cannot receive holy communion and at the same time act with deeds or words against the commandments, particularly when abortion, euthanasia, and other grave crimes against life and family are encouraged.”
Although individual U.S. bishops have talked about the matter of Communion for pro-abortion politicians in recent months – given that President Biden is Catholic and supports taxpayer-funded abortion – the bishops’ Eucharistic document would be “addressed to all Catholics.”
“In light of recent surveys, it is clear that there is a lack of understanding among many Catholics about the nature and meaning of the Eucharist,” the doctrine committee’s proposal stated.
In 2019, a Pew Research report found that fewer than one-third of Catholics (31%) surveyed believed in the Real Presence, and more than two-thirds (69%) believed the Eucharist to be merely a symbol. Several bishops at the time, citing the survey, emphasized the need for catechesis on the Eucharist.
A proposed outline of the Eucharistic document reveals a comprehensive catechesis on the Eucharist, covering both the sacrament itself and how Catholics must live in accord with the Commandments in their daily lives.
The outline covers teachings such as the “Real Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist, a “recovery of understanding the Eucharist as sacrifice,” “the importance of Sunday as a day of obligation,” the need for beautiful liturgies, Catholics living as a “Eucharistic people” in daily life, the Eucharist as a “call to conversion,” and the importance of practicing the works of mercy.
The third part of the document also includes a section on “Eucharistic consistency,” and “the nature of eucharistic communion and the problem of serious sin.” It cites the teaching of St. Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, “A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
Some bishops had recently moved to delay the discussion on the Eucharist, citing a Vatican letter to argue against a virtual discussion of such a serious topic.
Archbishop Gomez had written to the Vatican in March, informing them of the plans for the spring meeting. On May 7, Cardinal Ladaria responded to Gomez, addressing the topic of Communion for public officials who support permissive legislation on grave evils such as abortion.
If the bishops were to issue any “national policy” on Communion in these situations, he said, they would first need “serene” dialogue among themselves to ensure unity on Church teaching. Then individual bishops should dialogue with the Catholic politicians in their jurisdictions, to better understand their positions and their “comprehension of Catholic teaching.”
Only after that, he said, should the bishops discern how best to move forward on the matter. Any action they take should ensure consensus, respect the authority of individual bishops in their own dioceses, be framed within the broader context of general worthiness to receive Communion among all Catholics, and must not appear to list abortion or euthanasia as the only grave moral issues, he said.
After the Vatican sent its letter to the bishops, Cardinal Blasé Cupich of Chicago led a letter by some bishops to Gomez, asking that the planned discussion on the Eucharist be delayed. The gravity of the issue necessitated an in-person discourse, Cupich argued, and should first be addressed by provinces or regional groups of bishops before the entire conference deliberated on it.
Gomez, in his May 22 memo, said that the discussion will take place as planned at next week’s meeting. Such a motion is in line with the administrative procedures of the conference and the requests in Cardinal Ladaria’s letter, he said.
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Sadly, The Times signed their names erroneously. The 1971 letter listed them properly. These “Lords” (peers) are members of the upper chamber of British parliament but not one is an aristocrat. All appointed due to their service in arts, culture, commerce, social justice, etc. and especially music and drama.
entitling the article “British lords” just compounds the error.
I think it’s disgusting that CNA gives traction to ANY statement regarding the Catholic Church and its liturgical expression to the British who turned apostate almost to a man 500 years ago.
Just to illustrate the cultural and moral absurdity of paying attention to anything the British House of Lords has to say about the Catholic Church, the lead-in to the CNA article refers to them as: “A distinguished cadre of British public figures.” Bianca Jagger is distinguished? Now really! I think the folks over at CNA who write such nonsense ought to be fired.
The ears of the Vatican have been deaf to the voices of Catholics who desire the Latin Mass to continue. Perhaps they’ll experience an “ephphatha” moment, however, if non-Catholic celebrities desire it to continue. The current regime seems big on celebrities.
I confess I don’t know what to make of this.
What to make of this? Well, there might be another shoe to fall. Try this…
One of the signatories to the letter is the Catholic Julian Fellowes, writer of the “Downton Abbey” popular TV series—where the last lines of the last episode effectively cast the entire series on British social change as an apologetic for inevitable social and cultural acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle. As with possible further quarantining of TLM, even binary human sexuality and marriage (and Humanae Vitae?) are already secularly redefined and scripted as just another museum piece.
So, as a possible Vaticanista response to the British House of Lords, TLM as just another “‘magnificent’ cultural artifact” for the museums…very synodal, that.
The simple fact that Francis is trying to abolish a form of worship that has been with us for almost 2,000 years – Need anything more be said?
Stop this “Mass of Ages” nonsense. Be more nuanced. Take the difference between “essence” and “form.” The Mass in its “essence” (meal, sacrifice, real presence) is unchanged for 2,000 years. Through this span of time it has undergone reforms in its “form” (ritual order, ceremonial flow, languages). The essence of the Novus Ordo (1969 Missal) is the same as that of the Vetus Ordo (1962 Missal). The form of the Vetus Ordo is not 2,000 years old.
Why, may I ask, do people get up at 5 in the morning EVERY SUNDAY and set out for the Latin Mass 100 miles away, on the way passing by a church – only 5 miles from their home – where the Novus Ordo is celebrated?
What is the ‘Vetus Ordo’?
In conclusion – “This is a painful and confusing prospect, especially for the growing number of YOUNG CATHOLICS, WHOSE FAITH HAS BEEN NURTURED BY IT.” (EM)
I noticed you placed meal before sacrifice. The mass is first and foremost the same sacrifice that Christ went through but in a non physical way. The old mass express that clearly, the new mass subdues it for ecumenical consideration. By the way, the two liturgies are not the same.
Good for Tom Holland and God bless him. I’ve enjoyed listening to his podcasts: The Rest is History.
What’s the point? Is it to achieve uniformity, to dispose the faithful to a new hermeneutic of Gospel perspectives? Or is it more, that the TLM is emblematic of an inadmissible past destined for annihilation, as are doctrines condemning homosexuality, the requirement to bear the cross for repentance of sins, conversion of manners for reception of the holy Eucharist, the essential nature of the Mass as sacrifice?
Why doesn’t His Holiness speak clearly on this straining issue within the universal Church? We are dismayed, we are cast into darkness while a Roman pontiff presides at a distance as if possessed of superior knowledge while the sacrifice of the Mass is offered [was the same when presiding during the Vatican lawn worship of an Amazonian idol a portent of this moment?]. Is the doctrine of Christ’s bloody sacrifice a retention of an expired past?
Pope Francis possesses the authority to eliminate what is emblematic of a long, sacred history of worship, witness by the blood of our martyrs. But he has zero authority to change the hearts of the faithful from authentic worship of our crucified Lord.
MIND-BOGGLING TRAGEDY OR CRIMINALITY (for which we must thank God)
Can we be honest?
The whole history of the Church since the early 1960s (excepting a few saintly, heroic individuals who are widely disparaged or forgotten) is one big mind-boggling tragedy, or moral crime.
Only the decades-long Communist domination of Russia and Eastern Europe is comparable, in my mind.
Well, I can think of one other comparable situation in U.S. history:
In the 1940s and 1950s, Congressional and FBI investigations into covert Communist influence in Hollywood lead to hundreds of Communist screenwriters, actors, and directors being blacklisted (meaning none of the movie studios would hire them).
But by the 1960s, all the formerly blacklisted Communists were welcomed back into Hollywood as heroes and martyrs, and Hollywood began producing an endless stream of films that inspire immorality, godlessness, rebellion against moral authority, unrestrained violence, unrestrained lust, sex outside of marriage, divorce, unrestrained greed, etc.
But I guess this is all happening as per divine “permissive will.”
As such, following the Little Flower, I guess we should thank God even for these tragedies and crimes.
We should get one with seeking and touching the all-pure God in the little chapels of our souls.
Just to add a discursive footnote:
Humiliated and discredited after his 1950-53 accusations, Senator Eugene McCarthy (“McCarthyism”) also was subject to a minutely researched and different narrative (William F. Buckley, Jr. and L. Brent Bozell, “McCarthy and his Enemies: the Record and its Meaning,” Regnery, 1954/1961). Lots of attention to names, maneuverings and personal histories, to hearing transcripts, and to a few other key hearings curiously never conducted.
My summary recollection is that the new Senator McCarthy was seen as simply too green in his rhetoric, and that he miss-stepped by charging personalities as card-carrying communists, rather than more accurately as demonstrated serious security threats. Usually not full-blown Communists, but soft-headed “anti-anti-Communists.”
At one point (for one example) we learn that between 1948 and 1952, the period overlapping the McCarthy hearings (1950-1953), the State Department did in fact release 15 security risks, but it is not clear to the authors how many of these were among those named by McCarthy. A contrarian narrative, incisive and scholarly.
Back to Hollywood–As president of the screen actors guild, Ronald Reagan detected and resisted that domain of influence/infiltration (as a result, he switched political parties in 1962), and later as President of the United States was key to cutting the head off the snake–the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The corruption of Hollywood might claim that ironic benefit to civilization.
Well, it is not as if Pope Benedict, and all The Popes after Vatican lI did not recognize The Latin Mass is a Treasure.
Pray for the restoration of The Papacy as instituted by Christ.