That pastoral purpose should be more than sufficient but it’s a no-brainer when you consider the justification for forming a national eucharistic congress detailed on page 7 in the 2021-2024 USCCB’s Strategic Plan. Conference of Catholic Bishops said, “as bishops, our desire is to deepen our people’s awareness of this great mystery of faith, and to awaken their amazement at this divine gift, in which we have communion with the living God.” Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. In a wonderful follow-up statement on the pastoral purpose for writing this document, Archbishop José H. This issue came to the fore this past week when the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) voted overwhelmingly to issue a teaching document on the beauty and power of the Holy Eucharist. We recognize that spiritual institutions such as churches run on these bonds of trust.īut bishops themselves owe a measure of accountability to Christ and His flock for those same matters. Rather, the dignity of every person as a child of God struggling in this world, and the loving outreach of God, must be the heart, soul, face and substance of the church’s stance and pastoral action.An Open Letter to the Fifty-Five Catholic Bishops who Voted Against Drafting a Teaching Document on the Most Holy Eucharist Catholic Action for Faith and Familyįaithful Catholics know that we owe respect and obedience to our shepherds in matters of faith and morals. community into those who refrain from sexual activity and those who do not. The distinction between orientation and activity cannot be the principal focus for such a pastoral embrace because it inevitably suggests dividing the L.G.B.T. The church’s primary witness in the face of this bigotry must be one of embrace rather than distance or condemnation. It is a demonic mystery of the human soul why so many men and women have a profound and visceral animus toward members of the L.G.B.T. women and men in the life of the church, and shame and outrage that heinous acts of exclusion still exist. There were widespread calls for greater inclusion of L.G.B.T. Catholics beyond the issue of the Eucharist. It is important to note that the synodal dialogues have given substantial attention to the exclusions of L.G.B.T. Yet in pastoral practice we have placed it at the very center of our structures of exclusion from the Eucharist. Sexual activity, while profound, does not lie at the heart of this hierarchy. The church has a hierarchy of truths that flow from this fundamental kerygma. The heart of Christian discipleship is a relationship with God the Father, Son and Spirit rooted in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The effect of the tradition that all sexual acts outside of marriage constitute objectively grave sin has been to focus the Christian moral life disproportionately upon sexual activity. This means that all sexual actions outside of marriage are so gravely evil that they constitute objectively an action that can sever a believer’s relationship with God. persons from the Eucharist flows from the moral tradition in the church that all sexual sins are grave matter. It will be objected that the church cannot accept such a notion of radical inclusion because the exclusion of divorced and remarried and L.G.B.T. Unworthiness cannot be the prism of accompaniment for disciples of the God of grace and mercy. For this reason, the church must embrace a eucharistic theology that effectively invites all of the baptized to the table of the Lord, rather than a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist. Here lies the foundation for Pope Francis’ exhortation “to see the Eucharist not as a prize for the perfect, but as a source of healing for us all.” The Eucharist is a central element of God’s grace- filled transformation of all the baptized. Grace acts in history ordinarily it takes hold of us and transforms us progressively” (No. As Pope Francis stated in “ Gaudete et Exultate,” “grace, precisely because it builds on nature, does not make us superhuman all at once…. The third element of Catholic teaching that supports a pastoral stance of inclusion and shared belonging in the church is the counterpoised realities of human brokenness and divine grace that form the backdrop for any discussion of worthiness to receive the Eucharist. At America, Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego writes:
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