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Saturday 2 August 2008

Don't you dogs DARE drink the margaritas before the pork roast is done

Between "scientists" who have gone from childish to evil in one swell foop, and careless, careless "worshippers" putting on their own performance art at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, I've been thinking a great deal lately about desecration and risk management.
Is the former a necessary risk the Church must assume to avoid denying the sacrament to those in need of His grace?
Can we have "closed Communion" without any actual closures?
I seem to be doing copious amounts of thinking about this, (admittedly without having anything that even approaches a level of coherence that I dare call "a thought." )
It's roiling around in my brain and soul, and I am upset and hopeful and confused and curious.
A new to me blog, (.... I'ze GOTSTA update my blogroll,) with some thinking about some of the same things, or at least tangents off a similar initial incident.
(Incidentally, Himself has a cousin, a protestant minister, who has no problem at all taking communion at Masses at which he finds himself on family occasions. And he cannot possibly claim ignorance of what the Church asks, so he is clearly deliberately flouting the "rules.")

Why does the unbeliever even WANT to receive the Blessed Sacrament?
Nolite dare sanctum canibus neque mittatis margaritas vestras ante porcos
I have not had much opportunity lately to write, nor have I had occasion to do so since we have mined out so many apologetic topics here. In fact, the myriads of equestrian corpses with post mortum blunt trauma wounds are stacked so high that it is likely to drive away all but the most determined apologist, Catholic or Protestant.
But recently, I have seen something come up more than once which really drives me to ire and is something I have decided to address. The broader topic is the Catholic practise of closed communion, something that has been practised in the Church since the earliest days. And in spite of the many objections often made by Protestants, the fact is that all but the tiniest minority of Protestants practise it. Protestants will not hesitate to bar Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mohammedans, &c. from their table. True, most Protestants would allow fellow Protestants to commune with them, but they all (with the exception of the extremely liberal Episcopalians) draw the line somewhere.
Nevertheless, these same Protestants, when confronted with the Catholic practise of closed communion, object vehemently, insisting that all Christians should be allowed to take the Sacred Host at a Catholic Mass. What is their reasoning? Most of them insist that we are all part of the same religion and therefore should all share the same Sacraments. Following this line of reasoning, all baptised peoples should be equally admitted at everybody’s version of the Eucharist, be they Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Catholic, Orthodox, &c.
But from the earliest days of the Church, there were many people who possessed valid baptisms who were denied the Catholic Sacraments for their unreconciled public sins or their association with hereticks or schismatics. The ancient teaching of One, Holy, Catholick, and Apostolick Church is foundational to understanding this. Not everybody who is baptised is automatically in the Church regardless of what he believes or does. And despite what the Protestant and Catholic false œcumenists say, the Catholic religion and the Protestant religion are not the same religion. As if this needed demonstration, here are a list of things that the few Protestants I have in mind most assuredly reject in the teachings of the Catholic Church:
We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff. [Unam Sanctam]
We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful. [Fulgens Corona]
We teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable. [Pastor Æternus]
There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors. [Fourth Lateran Council]
By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. [Constitution Munificentissimus Deus]
An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints. [Catechism of the Catholic Church]
Now these doctrines are not mere side issues. These doctrines are central to salvation, dogma, truth, and the person of Christ. These are issues over which Catholics and Protestants disagree substantially and cannot be brushed aside as irrelevant or unimportant. One question immediately comes to mind. Why in the world would a Protestant who denies such things vociferously even want to have Sacraments from a religion who believed and taught all of these things, and taught that they must be believed for salvation?
One such Protestant,
Jon Amos, writes:
I tend to think as charitably as possible of [Catholics]…to the extent that I try to forget that there are actually Catholics out there, like you, who zealously cling to the worst and most dangerous-to-body-and-soul of Catholic errors.
Of course, part of being a Catholic is believing what the Catholic Church teaches. If I wanted to be a Protestant, I would not have gone through the trouble of being reconciled to the Church. According to Mr. Amos, however, the only truly faithful Catholics are those who reject the Church’s teachings. For more on this, read his comment
here.
Mr. Amos continues:
That said, my position is – and has been for some time – that Holy Communion is what it is, regardless of what Catholics say it is or believe it to be. And it’s for this reason that I receive without hesitation whenever I go to a Catholic Mass (rare as that may be). I know it’s against the rules, but the rules are against Jesus’s rules, so screw them. I also know that there are probably folks there (including even maybe the priest) who, like you, are wilfully committing idolatry, but that doesn’t make the Mass idolatry, just as an idolater performing Holy Baptism doesn't make the Baptism idolatry.
It is hardly even believable. This man obviously has little respect for the Catholic faith, less respect for Catholics who actually take their faith seriously, and finally, no respect for the laws of the Church. Now I ask you, why would any such soul who had so much scorn for the Catholic Church want anything to do with the Catholic Mass? Let us suppose that Jon Amos is correct and that the Catholic Church teaches bad and dangerous “body-and-soul” heresies, and that Catholics are idolaters as he believes. Where does Jesus ever say that you should involve yourself in the rituals of idolatrous hereticks?
He does not believe what the Catholic Church teaches, neither about herself, nor about the Sacraments, nor about salvation, nor about anything. Yet he insists that the Catholic Mass is “Jesus’ meal” and that both he and every other soul on the planet are entitled to eat it. Why does he even think it is the same religion as his? On a side note, I wonder why he just does not become Catholic if the “faithful” Catholics reject the Church’s teachings? Of course, I know why – he does not believe the teachings of the Church and obviously acknowledges the folly of joining a religion with which you do not agree. So why he continues to insist that the Catholic Church is the same religion as his is beyond me. By his own words, they are not even close.
If my church is celebrating the meal that Jesus instituted for His whole church and you can’t receive with us, our divisions are being deepened, not healed. Our Lord has given us this wonderful sacrament - a meal that is (among many other things) powerfully, mysteriously unifying, but, no, we know better than Him. What a shame. If it's Jesus’ meal for all of His people, and if we recognize one another as brethren, we must be able to commune together.
This is what continues to baffle me. The Catholics do not think that you are part of His people, and historically Protestants have denied that Catholics are part of His people. There is one tiny minority here, a veritable church-of-one that has asserted his own authority in all these matters, declaring that what he believes and only what he believes are “Jesus’ rules” and that all others are guilty of dividing the Church.
What the Catholics think of the Sacrament is extremely different from what he thinks it is, yet he continues to insist that they are really the same. And amidst all this inane double-talk is the absurd claim that everything he is espousing is really Jesus’ teaching.
Yet Mr. Amos
insists, against every rational cue:
…if the priest won’t serve me, I’ll go get in another line, mumbling to myself, “Bullshit. This is not your table, man. This is Jesus’ table.”
One thing here is for sure: it is not your table either, Mr. Amos. The priest who denies you the Sacred Host is merely being faithful to his bishops and to his Church. By your theft of the Host, you are not being faithful to anyone or anything other than your own precepts, which have no place in the history of the Church and no place in Catholic theology.
I do not expect you to become Catholic, or to change your position on the Church, or anything else. But if the Catholic Church does not allow you to receive her Sacraments because you are not Catholic, the absolute very least you could do is show some decency and some respect for the Church. Your ecclesial community probably does not allow its own share of things in its liturgy. I would never dream of showing up to disrupt your worship in any way, or do things contrary to what your sect allows. I may not agree with anything which your sect does, but interfering with another person’s religion is just rude.
Stealing the hosts may make you a progressive in your own mind, but it does nothing to further Church unity. If you want unity in the Church, pray for unity and encourage your bishops to seek dialogue with the Catholic Church. Please do not profane Catholic Sacraments as a means to unity. There are legitimate means to promote unity amongst Christians. This is not one of them.

1 comment:

lvschant said...

You have such interesting posts! I have a little different question about Communion and non-Catholics... If a non-Catholic actually believed that the HOly Eucharist is what we say it is -- Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ -- how could they not become Catholic? HOw could they attend services at another church and not feel cheated? This is a great mystery to me.

My question for Mr. Amos would be why he thinks the Church has it right on how to have a valid Consecration, but on nothing else? And doesn't he have any fear in receiving the Holy Eucharist unworthily?