Spare us, O Lord,...

... the assaults of confused men.

I would imagine that much of this blog's readership does not frequent the online pages of the National Catholic Reporter, known to many as The Fishwrap, or The National Schismatic Reporter, or The National Catholic Distorter, or The Harbor of Heretics, etc.

An article by a Monsignor Kevin Irwin - see credits at the bottom of the quoted text - leaves little doubt that divisive and shabby thinking is all too common among too many of our shepherds. Monsignor Irwin is upset that the first draft - a leaked draft - of the US Bishops' proposed document on the Eucharist lands short of his expectations.

https://www.scribd.com/document/536574988/USCCB-Draft-Document-on-Eucharist-The-Pillar

We should recall, dear readers, that Monsignor Irwin is writing for the NCR crowd, which has a readership that frequently descends into a full embrace of heterodoxy. It is a readership that has dedicated itself to a forum that is the epitome of irrelevance.

The draft of the U.S. bishops' proposed new document on the Eucharist, which has been circulated among the prelates and was leaked to several media outlets on Nov. 2, may not mention pro-choice Catholic politicians like President Joe Biden.

But, even still, the document reads as if it could have been created before the Second Vatican Council. (***Warning*** - Spirit of Vatican II rant to follow.)

It is written in such a way that I would propose the title — currently "The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church" — be made much narrower. Perhaps: "The Mystery of the Sacrificial Presence of Christ in the Eucharistic Species."

Sacrosanctum Concilium, the council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, emphasized that Christ is present in the assembly, proclaimed word, the eucharistic species and the person of the minister acting in persona Christi capitis ecclesiae. 

This is unmentioned. (Perhaps a "narrower" title might avoid adding to the confusion that the Church has been suffering from for the past 50+ years?)

Who is the audience for this document? Terms like "transubstantiation," "real presence," "venial/mortal sin" as well as "grave sin" require a familiarity with church language. (Yup! Literacy should be the product of effective catechesis, something the Church has also largely lacked since the 1970s.) Are these terms aimed at the people who no longer attend Mass and are not believers in the "real presence"? (Would-be Catholics should know the language of Catholicism, the language that has shaped countless saints who, knowing the etymology of the Faith, could express timeless language in a timely manner and idiom.)

For quite legitimate reasons, the bishops at the 16th-century Council of Trent framed their treatment of the Eucharist as "real presence" and "sacrifice." These are the two pillars of this document. That is to say it is framed in a Tridentine framework, not a Vatican II framework. Trent took place 400 years before Vatican II. (So? Why attack sound doctrine and the language used to convey and preserve the Church's teaching? Does Irwin think the audience is too dumb to understand a vocabulary that has always relied on explanation by competent authorities to preserve the teaching of Christ?)

What of the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, which begins its treatment of the Eucharist as "the summit and source" of the church's life and then comments on a number of names for the sacrament? (Are those terms, or the terms that follow, exempt from necessary explanation? We have a Catholic idiom, a language with many dialects - eastern and western, for starters - that invite serious investigation and reflection. Rather than dilute the wine down into a bland drink, why not invite people to sit down to table and savour the good wine (of Catholicism) by providing instruction about the deeper meaning of the word-art of the Catholic Faith?)

Among the other terms enunciated: the Lord's Supper; Supper of the Lamb; Breaking of Bread; assembly (synaxis); Memorial of the Passion and Death of the Lord; Holy Sacrifice (specifying it as "sacrifice of praise," "spiritual sacrifice," "pure sacrifice"); Holy and Divine Liturgy; Sacred Mysteries; Most Holy Sacrament; Holy Things; bread of angels; bread of heaven; bread of immortality; viaticum. (Viaticum - surely Irwin would agree that a translation and expansion of that term is warranted.)

Commenting on the two parts of the Catholic Mass, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, Sacrosanctum Concilium states: "The two parts, which, in a certain sense make up the Mass ... are so closely connected with each other that they form one single act of worship."

This is unreferenced by the bishops' draft. (Perhaps Irwin thinks he should have been consulted to produce a draft that intentionally tries to say too much?)

Unaddressed also is why should we gather for the Eucharist as a communal action in a world that is dominated by "the self," "mine" and "me." Such pronouns do not appear in the prayers of the missal. In today's culture, this document does not address the issue of privatization of the Eucharist — leaving the impression that adoration and the receiving of Communion is all that matters. In effect, the document's silence on these issues leads to a pious individualism. (Um,...no. Irwin's assertion that an unnecessary qualifier has been omitted is merely a strawman aimed at distracting attention away from the nature of the Eucharist.)

The document speaks of "eucharistic miracles," some of which are based on accounts of bleeding hosts. The problem here is that the church has never defined or described the Eucharist as "physical" in any way, always "sacramental." (The Church has taken a great deal of care in preserving the physical AND sacramental events in the life of the Church. She has rightly preserved the sacramentality of the Real Presence by formally acknowledging legitimate Eucharistic miracles. Irwin is attempting to introduce a false dichotomy.)

The miracle of the Eucharist is the Eucharist as celebrated in the church. Any notions of a physical presence of the Eucharist are simply heretical. (What?! That's a stretch) We "taste and see the goodness of the Lord" by taking wine, consecrating it and drinking what still tastes as wine. (Irwin talks like a Lutheran. Like Luther, his thinking tends to confuse the reality of the Eucharist by failing to distinguish between the 'accidents' that remain - taste, texture - and the full truth of the Real Presence and transubstantiation.)

A disproportionate part of the document is about worthiness, or confessing sins to a priest and seeking absolution. And all this at a time when there are fewer and fewer ordained presbyters. (So,... a lack of priests means people shouldn't attempt sacramental confession? By now, dear readers, there is little doubt that Irwin is grasping at straws in an attempt to derail what he imagines to be a flawed document, or to his mind a flawed approach, a document that sets about correcting misunderstandings about the Eucharist and does so by sharing what the Church has always believed. That is, if the leaked draft is actually an authentic draft produced for/by the bishops.)

Perhaps there could be a second document on "conscience," stressing the qualities that Pope Francis continually emphasizes: mercy and accompaniment. The current language in the document on those topics is dated and reflects much more of the 19th-century Baltimore Catechism than (even) the 20th-century Catechism of the Catholic Church. (Sarcasm, the first and last dull tool in the kit of the heterodox.)

Or perhaps it would be better for the bishops during their Nov. 15-18 meeting to decide to hire a new team of writers, with the hope of having a different draft of this text to review by next spring. ("New team of writers." Perhaps Irwin would like representatives from the schismatic Roman Catholic Womenpriests  to compose a document for the bishops? Why is it that some clergy insist on being giving the opportunity to impose their imprimatur when, in fact, their opinion (heresy) amounts to stupid is as stupid does?

Kevin Irwin

Msgr. Kevin Irwin is a priest of the New York Archdiocese who has served on the faculty of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America since 1985. He has served in many capacities in the school, including as dean from 2005 to 2011. He is the author of several books on liturgy, sacraments and the environment. (One might ask oneself whether or not Irwin's books are worth the paper they are printed on. Given his opinions expressed above, there is little to convince Catechism-loving Catholics that his books promote anything worth investing in.)