The Pope's 'spin' on Eucharist

	Bishop Robert J. Banks

We have heard a lot about "spin" in the last few years. It refers to the efforts made by public relations people and commentators to have people think the "right" way about speeches.

Related article ... From April 25, 2003 issue: • Bishop comments on Pope's new Eucharist encyclical

For instance, after a talk by President Bush, the White House has a corps of people that tries to help the press report the talk in a way that reflects, as favorably as possible, what the President wants to say. The President's opponents will shape their comments on the speech in a way that highlights its weaknesses or omissions.

We usually associate "spin" with the political scene, but it also pops up sometimes when the Church is involved. For instance, Pope John Paul II recently issued an encyclical on the Eucharist that received front-page coverage in our daily newspapers. The encyclical runs for 78 pages and is both a theological explanation of the Eucharist and a plea for its proper celebration.

The Associated Press coverage headlined the parts that restricted reception of Communion and celebration of the Mass. Some Catholic commentators also put that kind of "spin" on the document, saying that the Pope had lumped together members of the Mafia and divorced persons as public sinners who should not receive Communion.

I suppose you could say that I also tried to "spin" the document when I was asked for a comment on the encyclical as it was being presented in the press. I said that the Pope was trying "to remove any uncertainty and hesitation about where the Church is going by restating what has been stated often before..."

My column now gives me another opportunity to comment on the Pope's encyclical. Don't be surprised if my comments tend to be favorable.

What struck me first about the Pope's letter was its very personal tone. I think this encyclical is the most personal that he has ever written. His deep personal devotion to the Eucharist is clearly the motivation for the document. He begins by recalling the opportunity he had to celebrate Mass in the upper room in Jerusalem where Jesus is said to have celebrated the Last Supper. He then moves on to describe how the Mass recapitulates all that happened in Jesus' passion, death and resurrection.

Then he writes, "I would like to rekindle this Eucharistic 'amazement' by the present Encyclical Letter..." He goes on to say, "I cannot let this Holy Thursday 2003 pass without halting before the 'Eucharistic face' of Christ and pointing out with new force to the Church the centrality of the Eucharist.

"From it the Church draws her life. From this 'living bread' she draws her nourishment. How could I not feel the need to urge everyone to experience it ever anew?"

The Pope's lifelong love of the Eucharist explains his deep concern about what has been happening in regard to the Eucharist in recent years. "In some places the practice of Eucharistic adoration has been almost completely abandoned." "Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, [the Mass] is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet." "Furthermore, the necessity of the ministerial priesthood, grounded in apostolic succession, is at times obscured..." "How can we not express profound grief at all this?"

To address these problems, the Pope basically sets forth in the remaining pages the millennial teaching of the Church concerning the Eucharist. He begins with a chapter on the Eucharist as the sacramental re-presentation of the central event of our salvation, Jesus' death and resurrection. His emphasis is on the reality of this sacramental re-presentation, and especially on the real and objective presence of Jesus' body and blood in the Eucharist. He closes the chapter by recalling St. Paul's teaching that it is unworthy of a Christian community to partake of the Lord's Supper amid division and indifference towards the poor.

"Grow" has become a favorite word of mine, so I was pleased that the Pope's next chapter started with how the Eucharist "grows" the Church. He also focused on the Eucharist's power to unify the Church.

In the next chapter about the "Apostolicity" of the Church, the Pope quickly moves from the Eucharist's roots in the Apostles and their successors to the ministry of the priest, ordained by the bishops. This ordination, that can be traced back to the Apostles, is necessary for the valid celebration of the Eucharist. And the ministry of the priest to celebrate Mass "radically transcends the power of the congregation."

This need of priestly ordination for the celebration of the Eucharist has consequences in our relationship with those "Ecclesial Communities" who do not have the sacrament of Orders. We respect their celebrations of the Holy Supper, but we do not receive Communion because it could lead to ambiguity about what we believe concerning the Eucharist.

The Pope then has several paragraphs on the absolutely central importance of Mass in the lives of priests and parishes, which naturally leads to words on the importance of promoting priestly vocations.

In the next chapter, the Pope connects our communion with the Church with the reception of Communion. He makes it very clear that the traditional rule about confessing mortal sins before receiving Communion still holds. While the judgment of sinfulness belongs to the person involved, when a situation involves outward conduct that is clearly contrary to moral norms, then persons who "obstinately persist in manifest grave sin" are not to be admitted to Eucharistic communion.

As far as I can see, the Pope never mentioned divorced persons in his letter. It was the "spinning" commentators who have made the point that divorced persons would be in that category listed above.

I would make a couple of points about this. First, the Church's long-standing prohibition about not receiving Communion refers only to divorced persons who are now remarried to someone else, even though the Church considers their first marriage still to be in existence. Second, this was a situation parish priests had to deal with when I was first ordained 50 years ago; it is not new.

Most importantly, the Pope, in a letter that summed up the discussions of bishops from all over the world in the 1980 Synod on the Family, wrote that persons who are divorced and civilly remarried should "not consider themselves as separated from the Church... they must share in her life. They should be encouraged to listen to the Word of God, to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer... Let the Church... sustain them in faith and love." That does not sound as if the Pope considers such Catholics to be the equivalent of mobsters. He sounds like someone who appreciates their difficult situation and reaches out with love and understanding.

In the next couple of sections of his new letter on the Eucharist, the Pope strongly urges us to be faithful to Sunday Mass, and reminds priests and bishops of their obligation to celebrate the Mass in accord with the established liturgical directives. He also reminds us that we cannot anticipate the unity of Christians by opening the celebration and reception of the Eucharist to everyone.

All of this has been, of course, standard teaching for decades if not centuries. The one new ingredient in the Pope's letter was his concluding section on Mary as "Woman of the Eucharist." I shall have to save that for a future column.

In summary, then, the Pope is very personally and very seriously concerned about much of the current talk and practice concerning the Eucharist, not as a liturgical policeman, but as someone in love with our Eucharistic Lord.