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Tuesday, October 04, 2005
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Reports from the Front
Catching up on a few reports on the Synod of the Eucharist via Zenit:
Synod a Chance to Rediscover "Amazement," Says Relator
The most crucial issue for the Synod of Bishops is to rediscover the "Eucharistic amazement" that helped to propel the Christian faith worldwide, said the assembly's general relator.
"The difficulties lie in how to rekindle amazement, generated by the Eucharist, in the many non-practicing baptized persons," Cardinal Scola acknowledged.
"Therefore, the announcement and the personal and community testimony of Jesus Christ to all men are necessary to incite vital and open Christian communities," he said. "Outside of this Eucharistic and sacramental communion the Church is not fully constituted: The Eucharist makes the Church." From this conviction, the cardinal deduced, among other things, the reason why "Eucharistic Communion" requires "ecclesial communion," which led him to pose the question of "intercommunion" -- the possibility that non-Catholic persons might receive communion in the Eucharist -- as one of the issues that will be studied further by the assembly. (more)
Question of Communion for the Remarried Arises
Cardinal Angelo Scola, the general relator of the synod, today mentioned "the diffused tendency of the divorced-and-remarried to Eucharistic Communion, beyond what the teaching of the Church indicates."
"Many of these get divorced and remarried" without annulments, the cardinal continued. "Following the practice of Christian life, some of these manifest serious unease and at times considerable suffering when faced with the fact that the union after the marriage blocks their full participation in sacramental reconciliation and Eucharistic Communion."
Recalling the teachings of Pope John Paul II's postsynodal exhortation "Familiaris Consortio," the cardinal said: "Those divorced and remarried need to be supported by the whole Christian community in the knowledge that they are not excluded from ecclesial communion. Their participation in the Eucharistic celebration permits, in every case, that spiritual communion, if correctly lived, which mirrors the sacrifice of Jesus Christ himself." (more)
Ordaining the Married Isn't an Answer, Says Cardinal
The cardinal considered it superfluous to reiterate "the profound theological motives which have led the Latin Church to unite the conferring of ministerial priesthood to the charism of celibacy."
Instead, he posed this question: "Is this choice and this praxis pastorally valid, even in extreme cases such as those mentioned above?" In some countries, remote Christian communities only have Sunday Mass. In parts of the Philippines, some priests celebrate up to nine Masses on a Sunday. "Being intimately tied to the Eucharist, ordained priesthood participates in its nature of a gift and cannot be the object of a right.
If it is a gift, ordained priesthood asks to be constantly requested for," responded Cardinal Scola, 63. In fact, the cardinal continued, it "has become very difficult to ascertain the ideal number of priests in the Church, from the moment in which this is not a 'business' which should be equipped with a determined quota of team managers." (more)
UPDATE: Be sure to check out Michael Liccioni's comments at Sacramentum Vitae.
# posted by Jamie : 8:15 AM
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