Another Voice

The word “eucharist” comes from the Greek verb eucharistein meaning “to give thanks.” At Jesus’ Last Supper, he gave thanks, giving special significance to the bread and wine he passed to the men and women who were his disciples. Bread and wine had long been used in Hebrew religious practices. When Jesus said the bread and wine were his body and blood, he was speaking about giving his life for his followers.

Paul refers to the Christian practice of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11. Acts of Apostles mentions three occasions, when the early followers of Jesus gathered to give thanks and break bread together: Acts 2, Acts 20 and Acts 27.

The early eucharistic services were presided over by the men and women who were leaders of the local Christian communities. Ordination was not yet a requirement for eucharistic leaders, because it did not even exist at that time.

Early Christians understood, much better than the medieval Christians who came centuries after them, that social realities can be powerful spiritual realities. The Body of Christ, as Paul stressed, was the Christian community. The Gospel According to Matthew is very clear: Jesus says: “Where two or three gather together in my name, there I am, with them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Interestingly, when the Gospel According to John describes the Last Supper, it mentions the washing of feet but not Jesus’ actions with bread and wine. But the sixth chapter of John’s gospel does quote Jesus as saying, “I am the bread of life. . . This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Nevertheless, John is very strong in his affirmation of the presence of Christ in the community. In chapter 17 we read Jesus saying: “Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity.” (John 17:20-26)

 By the late first and early second century, the weekly ceremonial meal of the Christian communities was called a “Thanksgiving” (eucharistia). The Palestinian Christian leader Justin (100 – c. 165 CE) argued that the Christian Eucharist had replaced Hebrew sacrifices. Justin took a text from Malachi, the last book of the Hebrew Bible, and applied it to Christians in his own days: “Everywhere a pure sacrifice is offered to my name because my name is great among the nations, says the Lord almighty.” (Malachi 1:11)

A “pure sacrifice” in the ancient world was a religious meal, shared by individuals who were ritually “pure.”

Centuries later, in the the eighth and ninth centuries, the ritual changed from a community celebration to a priestly action and worship arrangements in churches changed significantly. The presider became the “celebrant” and no longer faced the people but faced the apse: standing before the altar with his back to the congregation.

The new priestly practice was first adopted in the basilicas of Rome and then became common practice across Europe. What was lost was the sense that the congregation was the Body of Christ. What had been a community ritual became the celebrant’s ritual. The celebrant “said Mass.” The congregation watched everything from some distance. The word “Mass” was derived from the concluding words of the ritual in Latin: Ite, missa est, “Go, it is the dismissal.”

By the eleventh century, the ritual performed by priests was no longer understood as a sacred meal but as a priestly sacrifice: a sacrificial offering of God’s Son to God his Father. Medieval theologians misinterpreted Justin’s quotation from Malachi. Key among them was Anselm (1033 – 1109) the Archbishop of Canterbury with his “satisfaction theory of atonement.” Anselm created a theological distortion with his understanding of God not as a loving Father but as a hard-nosed and vengeful judge, demanding the death of his own son. Quite a departure from “God is love.”

Not long after Anselm, the influential Dominican philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) introduced another important change in eucharistic understanding. He noted significantly that the Eucharist was different from the other sacraments because it was not just a sacred ritual, but Eucharist was a sacred object. Popular piety shifted to adoration of that sacred object: the eucharistic bread, called the “host,” from the Latin word “hostis,” meaning victim.

The changed understanding became official when the Fourth Lateran Council (1215 CE) decided that it was not necessary for Christians to receive communion regularly. The Blessed Sacrament (the name given to the consecrated bread), however, was to be adored. As a natural development of the changed focus to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the feast of Corpus Christi (eucharistic Body of Christ), was established in 1264 by Pope Urban IV (1195 – 1264) shortly before his death. The worship of the consecrated host greatly expanded into the public adoration of the host exposed on the altar. Monstrances, ornate display cases, were created to display the consecrated host. Stories about bleeding hosts and apparitions of Christ in the consecrated host were widespread.

Protestant reformers reacted to many eucharistic aberrations. The variety of Protestant teachings about the eucharist forced the bishops at the Council of Trent (meeting in twenty-five sessions between 13 December 1545 and 4 December 1563) to restate the meaning of the sacrament.

The Council of Trent produced three documents on the Eucharist, based on Aristotelian scholastic theology. The bishops declared that “Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really and substantially contained under the appearances of bread and wine.” This presence, due to “transubstantiation,” was based on medieval Aristotelian metaphysics. It was understood as “the real presence,” localized in the sacramental bread, and not just a spiritual presence. The bishops at Trent said nothing about the earlier ceremonial meal and nothing about the real presence of Christ in the Christian community, the Body of Christ.

As sacramental theologian Joseph Martos so often observed, the Catholic Church officially still recognizes the doctrines of the Council of Trent, but contemporary Catholics and Catholic theologians are quietly laying them aside.

Most contemporary theologians no longer speak about the Mass as a sacrifice. The term “transubstantiation” is virtually unknown to younger Catholics. Even the word “mass,” though still in popular use, is disappearing from the vocabulary of theologians and liturgists. Today more prefer to speak of the Mass as the “Eucharistic Liturgy.” (The English word “liturgy” is derived from the ancient Greek leitourgia, which means “a work or service for the people.”)

I remember when my former professor Edward Schillebeeckx (1914 – 2009) said we should stop talking about “transubstantiation.” He stressed that in the eucharistic celebration the bread and wine take on a new significance and proposed the term “transignification.”

In 2019 a Pew Research Center survey found that most self-described U.S. Catholics did not believe in transubstantiation. Nearly 69% said they personally believed that the bread and wine used in Communion “are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” U.S. Catholic bishops were greatly dismayed – some even angry — and said something had to be done.

During their November 2021 annual meeting, The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) voted overwhelmingly (201 – 17) to launch a three-year Eucharistic revival initiative – to teach Catholics about the Eucharist — that will culminate this year, 2024, in a National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Most Catholics who reject the idea of Christ’s “real presence” in the Eucharist think it means that Christ is physically present in the Eucharist. In fact, Christ’s presence is not a physical presence.

But we do perceive spiritual realities, however, through physical realities. When one looks, for example, at the physical words on a page, one perceives things that are not physical, namely meanings or ideas. Our eyes look at black marks on a white background, but the mind perceives what the words mean.

Contemporary theologians understand all of the sacraments as ritual actions of words and gestures, which embody and reveal not only human realities but also divine realities. At his Last Supper, Jesus changed the meaning of a common Hebrew ritual to a memorial of his own death and resurrection. He changed the meaning of the bread and wine from what they signified for the Hebrew people to a sacrament of his body and blood.

Today we better understand that just as the Word of God is present in the reading of Sacred Scripture at each liturgy, so also Christ is present sacramentally in the bread and wine celebration shared in the Christian community as signs of spiritual communion with him. As Paul the Apostle stressed, Christians are the Body of Christ.

The worshiping Christian community, the Body of Christ, makes it possible for Christ to be present in the proclaiming of God’s word in the Scriptures, in the thanksgiving that it offers to God in remembrance of Jesus’ Last Supper, and in the giving and receiving of the eucharistic bread and wine.

If we believe the Christian community gathered for Eucharist is the Body of Christ, it is not enough to just believe it. We must also live it, practicing love of God and love of neighbor as outlined in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7).

Our Christian faith is not a relic of the past. It is a life-giving program for today and for tomorrow. We are called to be in dialogue with the times and the world in which we live, faithful to the Word of God, and striving to harmonize life and faith.

Jack

In many Christian denominations, Confirmation is a rite that often includes a profession of faith by an already baptized person. Confirmation is not practiced in Christian traditions that stress the importance of believer’s adult baptism.

Confirmation as a separate sacramental ritual in Western Christianity did not exist at first. Contrary to what some people still think, the historical Jesus did not “institute the sacrament of Confirmation.”  Its origin in early Christian communities was in the blessing that the baptizing overseeer (bishop) gave right after doing the baptismal water ritual. It was therefore part of Baptism.

The early practice changed, however, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 CE and the number of Christians grew tremendously. Very quickly there were more baptisms than a single bishop in each city could handle. Priests, therefore, began doing the baptizing.

What had originally been a bishop’s blessing administered after doing a baptism then became, in the fourth century, a bishop’s blessing separated in time and space from the water ritual. The episcopal rite was called a blessing or anointing, and in various places it was given names such as “Chrism” or “Consignation.”

In the fifth century, in what is today’s France, the post-baptismal blessing was called “Confirmation” and this name eventually gained wide acceptance. Many people really did not see the necessity for this Confirmation ritual, because Baptism was the key sacrament of initiation into the Christian community. For the most part, therefore, episcopal Confirmation fell into disuse.

In the ninth century, however, reform-minded French bishops made an attempt to revive Confirmation, suggesting that it bestowed “the gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Nevertheless, by the twelfth century, Confirmation was mostly only received by those who wanted to be members of the ordained clergy.

Another change, called “the bishop’s slap,” arrived in the thirteenth century. But the post Vatican II (1962 – 1965) reformed rite of Confirmation enacted in 1971 removed it. It had been added to the ritual in the 13^th century by Durandus of Saint-Pourçain (c. 1275 – 1332). He was a French Dominican, theologian, and bishop. The bishop’s slap happened, after the anointing, when the bishop (usually gently) slapped the confirmand’s cheek while saying, “Peace be with you.” The slap inspired military imagery and fostered an interpretation of confirmation as a maturity rite for new “soldiers of Christ.” Its meaning however was poorly understood and so it was removed in the 1971 reshaping of Confirmation.

In 1563 the Counter-Reformation Council of Trent stressed the importance of the Sacrament of Confirmation because the bishops believed it had been established by the historical Jesus. Their belief was not grounded in any documented history but in their own historic conjecture. They simply presumed Jesus had created it.

Historical understandings can and do change and better historical information brings changed institutional and personal understandings as well. Over the centuries, Confirmation has gone through a number of changes in understanding and ceremonies.

In the Eastern Catholic Church, the sacrament is called Chrismation and it is conferred immediately after baptism for infants along with their First Communion. In Western Christianity, Confirmation is ordinarily administered when a child reaches the age of reason or early adolescence. In Belgium, for example, young people are confirmed at age 12. In Germany Protestants were usually confirmed around age 14, Catholics about age 12.

In the United States the debate about Confirmation has been growing ever since the decision of the Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in 1972 that Confirmation should ordinarily be celebrated for adolescents in junior high. In the late 1970s and early 1980s a number of dioceses moved Confirmation to high school years, like a Christian Bar or Bat Mitzvah – a coming of age ceremony for boys and girls when they reach the age of 12 or 13. But in the late 1980s some dioceses moved in the opposite direction, celebrating Confirmation just before First Communion in second grade. There are of course variations. In the Diocese of Fargo, North Dakota, the sacraments of Confirmation and First Holy Eucharist are celebrated together at the same Mass. The usual age for the reception of these sacraments is third grade.

Concluding thoughts: Meaningful sacraments are not just rituals that celebrate beliefs, but rituals that truly celebrate lived realities. If Confirmation is truly a rite of passage, it needs to facilitate and celebrate a genuine change in people’s lives. A dynamic and meaningful Confirmation should connect people, whatever their age, with an experienced spiritual reality: an experience of the Sacred in the depth of our human lives. Such an experience gives people what we so desperately need today: faith, hope, and courage to journey forward.

Perhaps we all need to spend more time studying and reflecting on Christian spirituality, as a good friend said recently, “where we see the glimmer of the living Spirit peeking through, calling us forward, and joining us together, healed, whole, and holy.”

I personally would like to see Confirmation as a ritual of adult commitment to the Christian way of life: a faithful commitment to caring for others and to the spiritual transformation that results from living according to the Gospel. But I would say that Confirmation in many places is a sacramental ritual still in evolution.

Jack

P.S.   Readers have asked me for a couple book recommendations about sacraments. Two books by sacramental theologian friend Joseph J. Martos (1943 – 2020) are on the top of my list: Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Catholic Church. Be sure to get the version updated in 2014. The other Martos book I really like is Honest Rituals, Honest Sacraments which he completed in 2017.

The Synoptic Gospels (Mark 1:9–11; Matthew 3:13–17; Luke 3:21–23) mention the ritual immersion practiced by John the Baptizer in which Jesus himself participated. Matthew 29:18–20 also portrays the risen Lord, in a post-Resurrection narrative, commanding his disciples to baptize using a Trinitarian formula. The words came not from the historic Jesus, biblical scholars suggest, but from early church practice around the year 80 CE.

The word “baptism” is derived from Latin and Greek words meaning to immerse or to plunge in water. Historically people have participated in Baptism by being dipped or immersed in water, having water poured on their heads, or even just splashing some water on the head of the person being baptized.

John the Baptizer was an itinerant Hebrew preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the first century CE. John used Baptism as the central symbol of his pre-messianic movement. Most scholars agree that John baptized Jesus and that certainly some of Jesus’ disciples had been participants in John the Baptizer’s religious movement. Being baptized by John demonstrated a desire to refocus one’s life and make a commitment to follow God’s law in anticipation of the Messiah’s arrival.

For Jesus, his Baptism marked a moment of personal discernment and preparation for his own public ministry, which was far greater than the ministry of John the Baptizer.

That a ritual immersion in water was important in the earliest decades of the Jesus movement is clear from the many references to it in the New Testament. When Paul speaks of being “immersed in one spirit” and “into one body,” he is talking about the ritual’s marking an entrance into the community and sharing a communal spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13). But Paul did not develop an elaborate theology of Baptism. Borrowing from Hebrew ideas with which he was familiar, Paul saw it as a symbolic immersion and an initiation not only into the community of believers but into the very way of life that Jesus himself had lived.

The earliest and best second-century source on believer’s Baptism is the Didache or “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” 100-110 CE. It reveals how Hebrew Christians saw themselves and how they adapted their practice for Gentile Christians. The Didache not only establishes moral qualifications for the adult who is about to undergo Baptism but also requires the baptismal candidate to fast for a day or two.

Originally the minister of Baptism was the overseer (bishop). Later presbyters (priests). But over the years, official RCC teaching about the minister of Baptism has evolved. A layperson can baptize when a priest or deacon is not readily available. This, for example, has been happening for some time in Austria and Switzerland. Most recently, in March 2022, Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck, Bishop of Essen, Germany, appointed 18 lay pastoral and parish workers – 17 women and one man – as extraordinary baptismal ministers, for a three-year period. Then in November 2023, Bishop Gebhard Fürst, in the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart in Southwestern Germany, commissioned 26 theologically trained, non-ordained, men and women to administer the sacrament of Baptism in his diocese.

Infant Baptism? Traditionally, advocates of infant Baptism say that its practice dates back to the apostles. Yet there is no proof for this assertion. No clear evidence for infant Baptism exists before the third century.

Baptism began as a ritual for adults. But it developed greatly in the third century, and by the fourth and fifth centuries, Baptism had become a several-weeks-long adult exercise involving prayer, instruction, and learning the creed: all leading up to the actual baptismal washing on Easter. The ceremony was usually conducted by the overseer (bishop) of the Christian community.

Although some infants were being baptized in the third and fourth centuries, infant Baptism did not really become widespread until the fifth century, thanks to the introduction of his Original Sin understanding by Bishop Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430 CE).

For many traditionalist Christians, the doctrine of “Original Sin” is firm and definite. In fact, however, there are no biblical and no historical indications that Jesus knew of or believed this doctrine. Neither did the early church. Original Sin is a theological construct created by Augustine of Hippo in the late fourth century. Augustine taught that through sexual intercourse all humans inherited a tainted nature. He identified male semen as the means by which Original Sin was inherited and passed on. He stressed however that the historic Jesus of Nazareth was free of Original Sin because he was conceived without any semen.

Augustine believed as well that sexual desire itself was a consequence of Original Sin. Oddly enough, as a young man, Augustine had had few qualms about sexual desire and engaging in sexual relationships. When an 17 years old student in Carthage, he began a long-term relationship with a mistress. He had at least one son, who died as a teenager, named Adeodatus i.e. “a gift from God.” He left his mistress at the prompting of his mother, Monica, who wanted him to marry a young heiress in Milan. That did not happen. Augustine did find another mistress. But then he had an anti-body and anti-sex “conversion,” and became a celibate priest.

Most importantly we need to understand Augustine’s Original Sin impact on infant Baptism. Augustine held that when unbaptized infants died, they went straight to hell as a consequence of Original Sin. Remember that infant mortality in those days of course was quite high. Augustine therefore became a strong advocate of infant Baptism, and in the church, thanks to Augustine, infant Baptism would become the norm.

Quite honestly, Augustine’s negative understanding of human sexuality and his creation of the Original Sin doctrine have always been theologically problematic.

Back to adults. Some post-Reformation Christian traditions strongly rejected infant Baptism. The Anabaptists, started in 1527, believed that Baptism was valid only when candidates freely acknowledged their faith in Christ and requested to be baptized. The word “Anabaptist” comes from the Greek word ana meaning “again” as in “baptized again.” Anabaptist groups today include mainly the Amish, the Brethren, and the Mennonites.

Other contemporary Christian traditions, of course, stress the importance of adult believer’s Baptism. “Baptists” form a major branch of Evangelical Christianity distinguished by baptizing adult professing Christian believers and doing so by immersion.

In many ways I can resonate with the stress on adult Baptism, but I doubt very much that infant Baptism will disappear. Regardless, Baptism is not a thing. It is an initiation into the community of believers. The communIty of believers, therefore, has a major responsibility to support and promote the healthy Christian development of all of all of its members. Just as parents, family, and friends promote the physical, mental, and intellectual development of babies and children, so too parents, family, and Christian communities bear a heavy responsibility to promote and support the Christian faith and values development of their babies and children.

Yes, there is “continuity and change” in all of the sacraments. Meaningful sacraments are not just rituals that celebrate beliefs but those that truly celebrate lived and living realities. A dynamic and meaningful sacrament should connect people, whatever their age, with an experienced spiritual reality: an experience of the Sacred in the depth of our human lives.

Jack

In the ancient narrative about Noah and the great flood, it rained 40 days (Genesis 7:12). Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days (Exodus 24:18). In the New Testament, according to the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Jesus spent 40 days of prayer before beginning his public ministry (Mark 1:12-13, Matthew 4:1-11, and Luke 4:1-13).

And now of course our season of Lent begins on February 14. It also lasts 40 days — if the 6 Sundays in Lent are excluded.

Lent – the name comes from lencten the Old English word for the spring — is our special time for reflection and renewal.

The annual forty-day spiritual renewal period of Lent was actually created in 325 CE by the bishops at the First Council in Nicaea, now İznik Turkey.

During Lent 2024, in response to several requests, I would like to offer some updated theological reflections about the sacraments – Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Marriage, and Holy Orders. I did this some years ago, I realize. But our theological understandings develop, and I also have some new Another Voice followers.

Theology mediates between faith and culture, as the Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan, S.J. (1904 – 1984) once said. As the cultural context changes, so too does theology. That means of course that all theology, including official doctrinal statements, is provisional. Context is important. Theology is always related to the context in which it is done. It is related to the “signs of the times,” to use a phrase popularized by Pope John XXIII (1881 – 1963), when he convened the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965).

In our contemporary historical context people have big questions: Who, or what is God? What do we really know about the man Jesus of Nazareth? Women priests? Why not? Do we really need a church? Human sexuality and gender issues? What is normal and what is natural? Life beyond this life? Do we listen to the questions of older people? Does this life really have meaning? Is the Roman Catholic Church still understood as the “one, true church”? And what kind of Christian community will nourish the faith life of tomorrow’s Christians? Do we really listen to young people today?

There are of course abundant questions about the sacraments. Did Jesus create them? How have sacraments changed over the centuries? What is an invalid sacrament? Are Anglican and Protestant sacraments valid? In 1898, for example, in his apostolic letter Apostolicae curae Pope Leo XIII (1810 – 1903) declared all Anglican ordinations to be “absolutely null and utterly void.” Leo had many good qualities but had a very short-sighed view of sacramentality. He found Anglican orders invalid because of changed ordination rituals and understandings, written by Thomas Crammer (1489 – 1556) and introduced under King Edward VI in 1550 and 1552.

Thomas Crammer of course was a key leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 to 1555. As archbishop, he put the English Bible in parish churches, drew up the Book of Common Prayer, and composed a litany that remains in use today. Then he was condemned by the Vatican as a heretic and burned at the stake in 1556, as ordered by the newly installed “Catholic Queen,” Mary Tudor, also known as “Bloody Mary.”

In our contemporary context, changes do not always come easily. On February 3^rd for example, as I was writing this reflection, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the DDF, issued a doctrinal Note entitled “Gestis verbisque,” (“By gestures and words”) stressing that the words and elements in the rites of each sacrament cannot be changed because such changes render the sacrament “invalid.” The recent DDF Note stressed as well that “changing the form of a sacrament or its object is always a gravely illicit act and deserves exemplary punishment.” Some people seem blind to new understandings or even hostile to change.

The background to this February DDF declaration goes back to an issue brought before the doctrinal office in August 2020 by a number of conservative priests from Phoenix Arizona who doubted the validity of their baptisms because the priest who had baptized them as babies had changed the prescribed words from “I baptize you” to “we baptize you.” The Vatican concluded that in such cases the sacrament had to be considered “invalid.” People who therefore were “invalidly baptized” had to be baptized again, then married again, or ordained again. A real sacramental tempest in a Catholic teapot. Perhaps Rome is now trying to appease conservative Catholics who are still upset about the 2023 December 18 DDF decision allowing blessings for same-sex couples?

Thinking about invalid baptisms, I started thinking about my own father who for most of his life was a baptized Protestant but decided to become a Catholic in later life. Much to his chagrin he had to be baptized again because the parish priest told him his “Protestant baptism” was “invalid.” (Named “Waldo Emerson,” after the U.S. philosopher and poet, he was informed by the baptizing priest – who was really a very kind man — that he also needed a “Christian name.” He took “Joseph” my brother’s name. I was his “godparent” baptismal sponsor. And he was baptized on my sister’s birthday. It was a moving event back then and still is many years later.)

Knowing and understanding history is important. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by Pope John Paul II (1920 – 2005) in 1992, still stresses authoritatively that the seven sacraments were instituted by Jesus. This understanding was carved in stone by the Counter-Reformation sixteenth century Council of Trent. Contemporary historical theologians and biblical scholars, however, find no direct evidence that Jesus of Nazareth ever created a well-defined and complete set of seven sacramental rituals, such as appeared in the church several centuries after his death and resurrection.

In fact, before the thirteenth century, there was no talk of just seven sacraments, because Christians had a variety of rituals and symbols. Christian practices and Christian beliefs were far from uniform and far from what they would become. Marriage, for example, was not considered a sacrament until the the Council of Verona in 1184 CE. What WAS considered a sacrament before that time was the solemn consecration of virgins. Well, issues of sex and gender in Western Christianity, especially after the fifth century, have often been problematic. But there were exceptions as well. What is perhaps less well known is that for centuries women had been ordained as deacons and abbesses, and even as presbyters and bishops. This was certainly the case until the 12th century. [See Gary Macy’s book – The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West]

Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) and other Protestant reformers rejected the sacramentality of medieval Catholicism. Using the New Testament, they acknowledged Baptism and Eucharist, which are both explicitly mentioned in the scriptures. But they regarded the other five as ecclesiastical inventions.

In response to Luther and the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent, meeting for twenty-five sessions between 13 December 1545 and 4 December 1563, initiated a Catholic Counter-Reformation. The greatest weight in the Council’s decrees was given to the seven sacraments, in some detail, refuting the claims of the Protestant Reformers. The bishops, not so well anchored in Christian history but fiercely anti-Reformation, insisted on the numbering of the sacraments as seven and that all seven were directly instituted by Jesus before his death and resurrection.

It is important for us today to have a clearer sense of the evolution of sacramental rituals. But that is not enough. Sacramental actions today need to regain their dynamism, which involves everyone in the Christian community and not just a hierarchy of ordained men.

As my good friend and sacramental theologian Joseph Martos (1943 – 2020) so often said, the sacraments are not things to be “administered” and “received.” All mechanistic definitions of the sacraments must be rejected. Early Christian rituals were grounded in life experiences such as conversion, community, commitment, and self-giving. Grace is not a thing given by sacraments. Grace is our participation in Divine Life. Our Christian way of life is a process of growth in the Spirit, not a doctrinal declaration.

I hope you will find my Lenten reflections informative and helpful.

Jack

Globally more voters than ever will head to the polls in 2024. At least 64 countries, representing a combined population of about 49% of the people in the world, will hold national elections. The results will be consequential for years to come.

In the United States, political-religious polarization continues to grow. A few days before the January 23^rd New Hampshire Primary, the right-wing organization CatholicVote.org endorsed former President Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary. The organization sees the former U.S. president as a great leadership “General” and “Someone who knows the truth and is willing to fight for it.” It is a dangerous time when we live in a world in which everyone has an opinion that is based on little or no trustworthy information.

According to NORC — the National Opinion Research Center — at the University of Chicago, confidence in U.S. democracy remains low. Most of the public think democracy could be at risk depending on who wins the presidential election next year, including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans.

We live in a time of tremendous socio-cultural change. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, rising authoritarian “leaders” with their distorted dogmatism are a growing danger around the globe. Cheap slogans become truth statements. Fiction becomes reality. Authoritarian “leaders” — with their closed systems of power and authority — gradually or quickly shift into doing whatever they want, because too many people, anxious about social change, close their eyes, stop thinking, and unquestioningly submit to strong authoritarians who take charge but are fundamentally undemocratic, tyrannical, and immoral. As the authoritarian dictator Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945) supposedly said “How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.”

The big challenge in the 2024 elections is evaluating the socio-political ethics of candidates for political office. Honesty, human rights, human dignity, compassion, and collaboration are the values that ethically healthy leaders promote.

This week I have five observations about the character traits of ethically unhealthy leaders. They are warning signs that should alert people and call for serious pre-election reflection.

1. Ethically unhealthy leaders care more about self-interest than other-interest. They set themselves above the rules that apply to others, seeking the upper hand rather than working with others collaboratively.

2. Ethically unhealthy leaders offer fantasy in place of reality, insults in place of inspiration, and rely on fear to gain the upper hand by stirring up conflict and inciting violence.

3. For ethically unhealthy leaders, power and control are far more important than respect and civility. Their key words and actions are what threatens, belittles, blames, shames, and physically or emotionally harms others.

4. Ethically unhealthy leaders separate people into bad and good categories – “them vs us.” The bad people are dangerous. They must be isolated or eliminated.

5. Ethically unhealthy leaders ignore ethics. For them the end justifies the means. They offer the same exception to their loyal supporters who behave unethically, saying they’ve done nothing wrong.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

The challenge for all of us is to really inform people and encourage them to critically evaluate candidates. The ethical issues are much bigger than whether or not a candidate says he or she is against abortion. Yes. We need to seriously discuss the abortion questions, but in this coming election the big questions are stressing the responsibility to be informed voters, to reflect and to evaluate a candidate’s integrity, trustworthiness, and competency.

Right now, I am thinking about the observation of the U.S. American writer Isaac Asimov (1920 – 1992): “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

I am thinking as well about the warning of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (c. 424 – 348 BCE) who wrote: “The price good people pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil people.”

Doomsday scenarios are not my thing. But our challenge is very real.

Jack

Catholic Church leaders in Africa and Central Asia prohibit the blessing of same-sex couples, despite recent Vatican approval. In fact, Catholic bishops in several countries have objected to the Vatican’s, and Pope Francis’, recent approval of blessings for same-sex couples, underscoring the divisiveness of the issue in the global Catholic Church.

The Catholic bishops of Africa and Madagascar issued a unified statement refusing to follow the Vatican declaration allowing priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples and asserting that such unions are “contrary to the will of God.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a brief statement focusing mostly on its assertion that same-sex couples remain ineligible for liturgical blessings and reiterating the church’s position that marriage is a union of a man with a woman.

Some bishops in Germany and Belgium, however, have long defied the earlier Catholic Church ban on blessing same-sex unions, even going so far as to produce a rite of blessing for same-sex couples.

Anti-LGBTQ policies and punishments, elsewhere, remain strong. In Africa, for example, 33 of the 54 nations across the continent have laws that make same-sex activity a crime punishable with fines and even lengthy prison sentences. In Somalia and some of the states of Nigeria people can even be legally put to death for same-sex behavior.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1992, is still in effect and considers sexual activity between members of the same sex to be a grave sin and same-sex attraction as objectively disordered.

Nevertheless, on Monday, December 18, 2023, in an official declaration “Fiducia supplicans” issued by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and approved by Pope Francis, it is now permissible for priests to bless same-sex couples as long as they are not part of regular Church rituals or liturgies. [The “Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith” (DDF) was originally founded by Pope Paul III in 1542 and was then known as the “Inquisition.”]

With this new declaration the DDF and Pope Francis have firmly established the possibility of blessing same-sex couples and remarried divorcees as a pastoral option. Pope Francis also emphasized, however, that blessing same-sex people should not be equated with blessing their sins! His remark reminded me of the earlier 2021 DDF declaration which had stated flat-out that the church couldn’t bless the unions of two men or two women because “God cannot bless sin.”

So now the Vatican takes small steps in the right direction? Time will tell. One of my theologian friends observed that the December 2023 DDF document is akin to kindly giving a glass of water to a starving person, but only a glass of water.

In any event, in view of recent developments, an historical-critical perspective is helpful…

LOOKING AT SACRED SCRIPTURE AGAIN

Up to now, the traditional religious condemnation of same-sex behavior had been based on: Genesis 19:1-11; Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; Romans 1:26-7; 1 Corinthians 6:9; and 1 Timothy 1:10. In the light of contemporary biblical scholarship, however, it is impossible to affirm that these texts provide a solid foundation for condemning same-sex behavior today.

The Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament texts should not be taken literally but should be interpreted in terms of the authors’ times, culture, and social contexts – an historical-critical interpretation.

The understanding, back when the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament were composed, was that all human beings were naturally heterosexual and, therefore, any same-sex behavior was unnatural, a perversion, and immoral. That biblical assumption is now understood as incorrect, because some people are, by nature, same-sex oriented.

Relying upon the historical-critical method, it is clear that the traditional condemnation of same-sex behavior lacks legitimacy. Change does happen. The old understanding of human sexuality is time-bound. A new understanding has already begun taking shape. As an older Catholic historical theologian, I have often chuckled that in 1943, the year I was born, the Vatican endorsed a more critical study of Scripture based on an increase in historical knowledge. The Vatican recognized explicitly that “past ages” did not have “all the information which was needed for their clearer exposition.” Historical development.

No doubt the most influential biblical account leading to the condemnation of same-sex behavior has been the biblical account about Sodom in the book of Genesis (Genesis 19:1-28). A contextual exegesis, now agreed upon by most contemporary biblical scholars, shows that a same-sex condemnation based on the Sodom account is really not an accurate biblical interpretation. Scripture scholars today are in agreement that Inhospitality was the real sin of Sodom. The residents of Sodom refused to offer shelter to the two visiting angels who entered their city that evening.

If one asks why God would destroy Sodom because of inhospitality, one must realize that hospitality in ancient Near Eastern culture was highly valued. Travelers were vulnerable to all kinds of cruel treatment such as robbery, assault, rape, and murder. The clearer sin in both the Hebrew text and the original Hebrew context was the sin of inhospitality. Even the historical Jesus, in the Gospel of Luke, affirmed this inhospitality interpretation, in his reference to Sodom when his disciples were not welcomed in a town with hospitality. (Luke 10:8-12)

A CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE

The heterosexual – “other-sex” – orientation is an innate, deep-seated, and stable orientation to, predominantly, persons of the opposite sex. It is natural. The homosexual – “same-sex” – orientation is a similarly innate, deep-seated, and stable orientation to, predominantly, persons of the same sex. It is natural. A person’s sexual orientation is neither chosen nor readily changeable. It simply is. And… sexual acts – whether heterosexual or homosexual – are moral when they are natural and expressed in a truly human, just, and loving manner.

FOR FURTHER READING

Creighton University theologians, Todd A. Salzman (who completed his doctorate in theology at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1994) and Michael G. Lawler, have written extensively about Catholic sexual morality. I strongly recommend their book The Sexual Person, Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology, Georgetown University Press, 2008. Their book provides a helpful context for current ethical debates about marriage, cohabitation, sexual orientation, and reproductive technologies.

Todd and Michael contend that the Catholic Church is inconsistent in its teaching. It adopts a dynamic, historically conscious anthropology on social ethics; but it still adopts a static, classicist anthropology on sexual ethics. They propose a definition of human sexuality that finds love and truth in all just and loving heterosexual, lesbian, gay, and bisexual acts.

Historical-critical thinking is important. We observe. We reflect. We can change.

Jack

This week some more thoughts about actions in the New Year…

A good friend sent me a note about my “Another Voice” post of last week:

“Most of our words are too hollow for conveying the meaning of all that is rushing us along. For the sake of loving our grandchildren, I hope we can find, in one another’s voices, the new words that are beacons for digging through the rubble of what is happening, for sustaining life when we find it, and bringing new hope– hand to hand– for personal wholeness and social cohesion where the old civilization has crumbled once again.”

Our language is important and meaningful language springs from thoughtful observations about meaningful life experiences.

I have seven observations and questions:

• 1 The historical Jesus, whose Hebrew name was Yeshua, belonged to the Hebrew faith tradition and had a keen knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. He did not establish a new religion. He did not set up a church. His disciples worked out those things later. Jesus lived and called people to a new way of life. His early followers were called “followers of the Way” because the early Jesus movement was known as “The Way” (Acts 9:2; Acts 24:14). The name “Christianity” did not occur until Antioch, several years after Jesus’ resurrection. (Acts 11:27).

— Thought-starter: How do we live and promote the Way of Jesus today? How can we best live and describe it? How can we really inspire and motivate people? Are so many of our traditional words too hollow? Why are so many people dropping out of Christianity? While Christianity is currently the predominant religion in Latin America, Europe, Canada and the United States, the religion is declining in many of these areas, particularly in Western Europe, North America, and Oceania.

• 2 Historically, in Jesus’ days a rabbi would begin to take on students at the age of 30. It was at the age of 30 that Jesus, we believe, began his public ministry. Jesus’ disciples were not a group of middle-aged men but a group of young men and women, probably under the age of eighteen and some perhaps as young as 15. They were inspired by his example, teaching, and wisdom.

— Thought-starter: Where do young men and women today get their Christian inspiration? What do we need to do? Whose wisdom do they admire today? Do we understand their life experiences and their language? How can we speak meaningfully to them about Jesus?

• 3 As the post-Resurrection community of Jesus’ disciples and followers began to grow, non-Hebrew members also joined.

— Thought-starter: How do we welcome God-seekers today – young and old — especially those turned-off by organized religion?

• 4 Post-Resurrection followers of Jesus had growing concern about passing on the heritage of Jesus the Christ to future generations. This called for religious structuring: the composition of the Gospels AND the formation of Christian faith communities with their own rituals, symbols, and leadership.

— Thought-starter: What kinds of institutional structuring and re-structuring do we need today, especially in view of institutional misogyny, clericalism, and doctrinal rigidity? Is it helpful, for example, to say priests can bless same-sex couples but that their sexual expression, according to the Catholic Catechism is still “intrinsically disordered”? Why not simply acknowledge that same sex unions can indeed be healthy marriages?

• 5 In the earliest Christian communities men and women held leadership roles and presided at celebrations of Eucharist. At first there was no ordination. No separate clergy. Later ordination was introduced, not to transfer some kind of sacramental power but for quality control. Only qualified men and women could lead Christian communities.

— Thought-starter: How do we provide quality-controlled Christian leadership today? Should we have annual performance appraisals for clergy and bishops? And if they don’t pass? Should parish councils interview candidates and select their own pastors?

• 6 Religion is not faith. Religion is a system of beliefs, rituals, and symbols designed to help people understand their faith experience. We use religion. We don’t worship it. Religion is healthy when it points to the Sacred. It is unhealthy when it only points to itself not to the Sacred.

—Thought starter: Are our religious words, rituals, and symbols pointing people to the Sacred? How should they be adapted today?

• 7 What about our official statements of belief? Our creeds? The Nicene Creed, is accepted as authoritative by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and major Protestant churches. It was promulgated – at the insistence of Constantine, who was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 CE — at the Council of Nicaea (325). Curiously, the Nicene Creed says nothing about what Jesus had taught, beyond the idea that God is a Father. It says nothing about loving one another, about compassion, or forgiveness, or helping the poor and needy, or renouncing violence, or building bridges with one’s enemies. Thanks to Constantine and his Council of Nicaea, institutional Christianity shifted its identity focus from correct Christian conduct to doctrinal fidelity and institutional obedience. It was indeed a major shift.

—Thought starter: How do we make a changed institutional focus? A focus on Jesus-style Christian conduct? Is it time for a new statement of belief? This may take some time yet for the institutional churches, but it will happen. Right now, however, how about gathering a group of friends and writing your own creed? I once asked a group of my university students to do that. The results were amazing and deeply moving. Much better than what Constantine’s fourth century bishops came up with.

Jack

We are historically conscious people. We realize that the present and the future come to us out of our past. What happened yesterday — and what we did yesterday — shapes what happens today. What happens today, of course, shapes tomorrow.

We move along as we grow and change. In 1942, T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965) wrote the following words in his poem Little Gidding: “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.” Eliot’s words inspired my blog “Another Voice” which I launched in 2010. My focus, as an historical theologian, has been contemporary religious and ethical issues. I am not all-knowing and readily admit that I am not infallible, but I do try to stay alert to new biblical and historical discoveries, and my eyes open to what is happening today.

A friendly reader suggested, once again, that I “avoid politics and stick to theology.” I understand his concern, but I would also stress that our contemporary Christian responsibility is to be critical observers about all aspects of our shared human life. Politics, especially today, warrants critical observation and commentary from a Christian values perspective.

So, we move on into the New Year…

In 2024, I hope that with all our voices we can discover the truth that is so often hidden or totally distorted in news reports, far-right and far-left political and religious rhetoric, and in social media. I am thinking right now, for example, about the billionaire megalomaniac who bought Twitter in October 2022 and transformed it into “X” which quickly became a haven for disinformation, white supremacism, and Neo-Nazi sympathizers.

Yes, we need to work together to combat ignorance. But as the Irish playwright and political activist, George Bernard Shaw (1850 – 1956), often said: “Beware of false knowledge. It is more dangerous than ignorance.” Authoritarian leaders, in their authoritarian dogmatism, thrive on false knowledge and denigrate — and often destroy — people anchored in critical observation and critical thinking.

Authoritarian dogmatism of course destroys democracy. The big challenge around the globe in 2024, will be selecting and promoting honest, well-informed, and critical-thinking leaders. In this new year we may very well see one of the starkest erosions of liberal democracy since the end of the Cold War.

In Europe, extreme nationalist and far-right parties are growing in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, and even Finland and Sweden.

Globally, more voters than ever will head to the polls in 2024. At least 64 countries, representing a combined population of about 49% of the people in the world, will hold national elections. The results will be consequential for years to come.

In the United States, of course, elections are scheduled for November 5, 2024. On January 8^th President Biden already launched his re-election campaign with a strong speech at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Meanwhile the 45^th president and his far-right-Christian supporters have launched his re-election campaign, proclaiming him a “sent by God” messianic figure who will MAGA — “Make America Great Again.” Well, the election year 2024 is already in full swing. [Although many of his supporters believe the 45^th president created the loaded slogan, MAGA, it was popularized by Ronald Reagan as a campaign slogan in his 1980 presidential campaign.]

Twenty twenty-four will truly be an historic U.S. election year. The people of the United States will be deciding if their country will remain a real democracy or succumb instead to neofascism and autocracy. During this presidential election year, the president and vice president will be elected. In addition, all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate will be contested to determine the membership of the 119^th United States Congress.

We need to courageously denounce the purveyors of misinformation and absolute falsehood. As Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948) once famously said: “non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.” We need to support, defend, and encourage good leadership.

We need to help build and support communities of truth-seekers and truth-speakers, within our friendship groups, parish communities, and professional associates. As we do this, we must emphasize the key values for communities of trust and truth:

(1) A focus on the human heart not just the brain: stressing active care, concern, and compassion for others. Jesus stressed love of neighbor. He didn’t say “just think nice thoughts about the other.”

(2) An openness to the deeper dimensions of our human experience. Call this a kind of meditative spirituality. Reality is much richer and more amazing than many people realize. Creator is with us, calling us to be creative.

(3) A stress on critically questioning all the information that bombards us day and night. Is everything now relative and up for grabs? What does the search for truth mean today?

(4) A stress on the genuine human values of fairness, trustworthiness, and honesty.

My warmest regards as we journey into this New Year. We do not have to be pessimists. But we do have to be observant and thoughtful and constructive realists.

Jack

PS And I want to sincerely thank all who responded to my 2023 Another Voice annual appeal.

A very Happy New Year.

May 2024 be a year of health and happiness.

And may we all help each other to be critical observers and thinkers.

May we strive to find and tell the truth in a society disfigured by popular illusions, lies, and falsehood. May we work together to find hope for people living in fear and despair.

Jack

(Another Voice returns in a couple weeks.)

As we prepare for Christmas 2023 celebrating the birth of Jesus, our
contemporary world is shaken by political turmoil and violent warfare.
Nevertheless, for more than two thousand years, the abiding spirit of Jesus has called all of us to a new way of living. Jesus was kind and caring to everybody. What bothered him was any system, civil or religious, that caused people to suffer.

The dangerous polarization of so much in our society, including religion, has claimed many victims. But Jesus’ presence and message remain our hope and our challenge today and for tomorrow.

We need to be alert to what is happening. And we need to act.

As my friend Archbishop Jean Jadot (1909 – 2009), Apostolic Delegate to the U.S.A. from 1973 to 1980, often reminded me: “Now is the time to look ahead. Just as we can look at the sky at night and tell what the morning will bring, so we must be able to read the signs of the times to prepare for the future.”

May we keep our eyes open. The future is in our hands.

“As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945): Reflections on Advent and Christmas.

My very best wishes for Christmas 2023 and the New Year!
Jack

Another Voice will return in mid-January 2024