The USCCB, Abortion, and the Eucharist

 The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been in the news lately because of a document they voted to draft on the Eucharist — specifically because it will call a lot of attention to President Biden. He's got a determinedly pro-abortion stance while still regularly attending Mass and taking Communion. 

A couple of pieces on this caught my eye and I thought you might be interested too.

GetReligion, which is excellent for observing how the media covers religion, pointed out that although Joe Biden and Pope Francis are routinely lumped together as being "liberal" (per the NY Times, etc.) so that it sounds as if they are in complete agreement, the Pope is consistent about abortion being gravely wrong. Here's a bit but read it all here.

Any short list of classic Pope Francis remarks about abortion would have to include the 2018 speech in which he asked, using a Mafia image: “Is it just to resort to a contract killer to solve a problem?”

There was more: “Interrupting a pregnancy is like eliminating someone. Getting rid of a human being is like resorting to a contract killer to solve a problem.” While some people support abortion rights, Francis added: “How can an act that suppresses innocent and defenseless life as it blossoms be therapeutic, civil or simply human?”

Or how about this quote, drawn from a 2020 address to the United Nations?

“Unfortunately, some countries and international institutions are also promoting abortion as one of the so-called ‘essential services’ provided in the humanitarian response to the pandemic. … It is troubling to see how simple and convenient it has become for some to deny the existence of a human life as a solution to problems that can and must be solved for both the mother and her unborn child.”

While there is no question that Pope Francis is a progressive on many issues linked to economics, immigration and other political topics, he has continued — sometimes in blunt language involving evil and the demonic — to defend the basics of Catholic moral theology.

Ed Condon over at Pillar Catholic News, which I've begun reading and like a lot, has a good point about what might be needed before a Eucharistic document can really be taken in properly. How about reminding us Catholics that sin is real and has consequences for our souls? Which made me begin praying harder for Joe Biden because with great power comes great responsibility for moral choices in our nation. Here's a bit but read it all here.

During this past week’s debate, many bishops spoke about the context of sin and reception of Communion. Several of them were at pains to emphasize that “we are all sinners” and “no one is worthy” to receive the sacrament. This is true, to a point, and the reason why penitential rites are a central part of the Eucharistic liturgy.

But the Church, like any reasonable parent, makes clear distinctions between kinds of wrongdoing. A child sneaking chocolate is in need of correction, yes, but a child playing with fire needs a dramatic intervention to prevent graver harm.

...

Within the context of the conference’s discussion on Eucharistic coherence, the real problem, it seems, is not the number of pro-abortion politicians receiving Communion. It is the number of Catholics who don’t seem to acknowledge there’s actually such a thing as the state of grave sin, still less a terrible spiritual harm attached to it.

How to address this crisis may now become the elephant in the conference room at future USCCB meetings. One possible way forward, though, seems to suggest itself.

…

The bishops may find their efforts to revive belief in, and devotion to, the Eucharist prove a non-starter, unless Catholics can first be convinced why they need its salvific power. While a teaching document on the Eucharist is now being drafted, the bishops may find they need to first issue a similar document on sin and the sacrament of penance.

Body and Soul, But Truly One

Lately I've been troubled by seeing people say things like "I am a soul. I have a body." or "My body is like a car that I drive around." This is often evoked in aid of fighting racial prejudice. I get it. Beauty is only skin deep and so forth and so on. It comes from a noble impulse.

But it troubles me on a deeper level. It feels like a rejection of the body in favor of the soul. And that is an ancient idea rearing its ugly head again. Gnosticism in modern form.

Bishop Robert Barron sums up neatly, with a current example. (Emphasis added.)

Gnosticism was, and is, a multi-headed beast, but one of its major tenets is that matter is a fallen, inferior form of being, produced by a low-level deity. The soul is trapped in matter, and the whole point of the spiritual life is to acquire the gnosis (knowledge) requisite to facilitate an escape of the soul from the body. ...

In justifying the transformation that he has undergone, [Bruce] Jenner consistently says something along these lines: “Deep down, I always knew that I was a woman, but I felt trapped in the body of a man. Therefore, I have the right to change my body to bring it in line with my true identity.” Notice how the mind or the will — the inner self — is casually identified as the “real me” whereas the body is presented as an antagonist which can and should be manipulated by the authentic self. The soul and the body are in a master/slave relationship, the former legitimately dominating and re-making the latter. This schema is, to a tee, gnostic — and just as repugnant to Biblical religion as it was nineteen hundred years ago. For Biblical people, the body can never be construed as a prison for the soul, nor as an object for the soul’s manipulation. Moreover, the mind or will is not the “true self” standing over and against the body; rather, the body, with its distinctive form, intelligibility, and finality, is an essential constituent of the true self. Until we realize that the lionization of Caitlyn Jenner amounts to an embracing of Gnosticism, we haven’t grasped the nettle of the issue.

Bishop Robert Barron, Vibrant Paradoxes

Our bodies matter. Try thinking noble thoughts and rising above when you've got a 24-hour bug. It reminds us that our body and soul are inextricably intertwined.

That, after all, is one of the most wonderful and mind blowing things about the Incarnation. Jesus became man. GOD became man, body and soul together.

Did Jesus get the flu and lie limply after throwing up? We don't think about that but it's very possible because illness is part of the human experience and no one is more human than Jesus.

When he was resurrected his body mattered so much that he still had the marks of crucifixion. And he was still body and soul ... eating fish more than once to prove it. Jesus shows us that the whole package matters. It's one of the reasons Catholics clothe the poor, feed the hungry, built hospitals to help the sick, visit prisons, and do so many other corporal works of mercy. Our bodies matter.

Heck, the final resurrection will reunite our bodies and souls. That's how much our bodies matter.

Undoubtedly, body and soul are different but in a mysterious way they are also one. On that note I'll leave you with this bit from the Catechism.

II. "BODY AND SOUL BUT TRULY ONE"

362 The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.

363 In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man.

364 The human body shares in the dignity of "the image of God": it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Hendrick ter Brugghen, The incredulity of St. Thomas

Chick-fil-A and a Teachable Catholic Moment About Marriage and Homosexuality

Deacon Ken took yesterday's readings where people were hungry, added Chick-fil-A's incident of last week and gave us a fantastic homily that clarifies two very important points of Catholic teaching.

Please do carefully read the entire thing.

Or you may listen to it (or download it from the link), if you prefer, since he recorded it. (Mass scripture readings are here.)

Homily for 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In today's Gospel story, thousands of people flocked to the place where Jesus was because they were hungry.  They had witnessed, or had heard about the event that took place in the part of the gospel that we read last week where Jesus had fed the 5000 men.  We don't know how many women and children there were but he fed a whole lot of people and they had their fill.  That food came from just a couple of fish and some loaves of bread.

Well, when they heard that Jesus had left, they tracked him down, they followed him, they found him and they showed up because they were hungry.  But Jesus pointed out to them rather quickly that they needed to strive for something more than food.

This past Wednesday, thousands of people flocked to Chick-fil-A restaurants all around the country to eat lunch or dinner.  And they were hungry too.  Some of them were just hungry for chicken and they didn't know about the events that were taking place and so they were quite surprised to see the thousands of people who were showing up in the restaurants all over this country.

The rest may have been hungry for food as well but their greater hunger was to make a statement of support for the president of the company who had, in an interview, witnessed to his Christian faith and had openly spoken his support for the traditional definition of marriage as being one between one man and one woman.

Others were there as a statement of support for his right to speak his principals without suffering the persecution that arose from some segments of our society.

Now if you've been following this you know that a firestorm arose around the country as his statements and his position were taken to be by some, rather than pro-marriage, they were taken to be anti-gay.  Boycotts were called for, even a couple of mayors of some large cities had proclaimed that they would do whatever they could to prevent Chick-fil-A from expanding in their cities.  So Wednesday's events were to counter those boycotts as well as to express their support.

So I thought that in the midst of this controversy which is making national news, that today might be the right time, a good time, without all of the emotion and all of the words being slung, to clearly outline two things.  To have a teachable moment.  To really outline two things about this subject as they relate to our Catholic faith. 

There's tons and tons of material out there.  You can read it, research yourself.  And hopefully very soon, this week, maybe even by the end of the day because he was here at an earlier mass, our webmaster will have posted links to the documents that I'm going to quote from today on our website.  And I just wanted to make this clear and concise which is why I'm up here today instead of down there and why I have notes.

First point, our US Bishops have made very clear that the Church's teaching is that marriage is, and must continue to be, defined as the union of one man and one woman.  This definition is not new.  This definition comes not from man, and not from government, it comes from God.  We see it in the beginning, the book of Genesis.  God created man in His image; in the divine image he created them; male and female he created them.  God blessed them saying to them: be fertile and multiply.  Fill the earth and subdue it.

In a pastoral letter the Unites States Conferences of Catholic Bishops that was issued in 2009 called Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan the Bishops state:

"We Bishops feel compelled to speak against all attempts to redefine marriage so that it would no longer be exclusively be the union of the man and the woman as God established and blessed it in the natural created order."

Further down they reiterate:

The Church has taught through the ages that marriage is an exclusive relationship between one man and one woman.  This union once validly entered and consummated gives rise to a bond that cannot be dissolved by the will of the spouses.  Marriage thus created is a faithful privileged sphere of intimacy between the spouses that lasts until death.

And so this profound, this beautiful document goes on and on to talk about the beauty of a sacramental marriage between a man and a woman. I encourage you to read this pastoral letter Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan.  And our Bishops have been very vocal recently about supporting this definition of marriage and opposing any effort to change the definition of marriage.  So that's point number one.

Point number two. And I want to make this briefly but pointedly, is that this stance by the Church is not a hate filled action or statement against men and women who are gay.  That's what all the controversy was about in the Chic-fil-A event.  It's not an anti-gay action.  There is no place in our faith or in our church for hatred or discrimination.  Period. 

As Catholic Christians, we're called to listen and to embrace the words of the statement from a document entitled Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care for Homosexual Persons. And this was from the then Cardinal Ratzinger, better known now as Pope Benedict XVI. He was, in 1986, when this was published, the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.  It says:

"It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action.  Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastor wherever it occurs."

So hateful actions against someone who is gay has no place in our lives.  Furthermore I think it's important to make this point and I would venture a guess that not many of you have ever heard this.  And I'm summarizing here some statements in Ministering to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Being a homosexual is not a sin.

Being a homosexual is not a sin.  Entering into homosexual acts, that's a sin.

Just as entering into any intimate act of a man and a woman outside of the sacrament of marriage is a sin.

Therefore we, you and I, must help nurture our friendship with those who are gay.  We must nurture our friendship with God so that the virtue of chastity among all of us is both embraced and strengthened.

So please, I encourage you to be open to God's truth.  I encourage you to pray about this.  To embrace the Church's teachings about marriage.  To reject the worldly position that somehow embracing the traditional understanding of marriage, which has been that way since the very beginning, that somehow that's a hateful action against those who are homosexual. 

Knowing that for some this may be a bit challenging, I think we should now look back at the Gospel story for help in understanding how we can accomplish the works of God.

How we can grow closer to the Lord so that there is no place in our hearts for straying from the truth or rejecting the Church's teachings.  So there's no place in our hearts for having hatred or malice.  Remember in the Gospel the people said to Jesus, "What can we do to accomplish the works of God?"  And His response to them was, "This is the work of God.  That you believe in the one He sent."  There is the bottom line.  To believe in Jesus Christ.

Because you know what?  Just like the people in the Gospel, whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or admit it or not, you and I are hungry for more than just chicken.  We're hungry for the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives.  In our hearts.  Opening our hearts to God's message, opening our hearts to His Son, knowing the one He sent are so essential to us being the men and women that God calls us to be.

God, as we heard in that first reading, is the one who fed the Israelites in the desert with manna.  That same loving God sent His only son to be for us the Bread of Life.  Not just the food that feeds our worldly hunger, but the food that fills the God shaped vacuum that is within each one of us.  That God shaped vacuum that can only be satisfied and filled by the presence of Jesus Christ. 

He is the food that gives life, eternal life to those who believe.  He is the food that overcomes hatred with love.  He is the food that brings us closer to Him so that we constantly seek His will and not the will of the world.