Fable-Time in Chicago
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine... But shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” –
2 Timothy 4:3-4
They say that all clouds have silver linings. Alas, one should suppose it even applies to the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (hereafter, USCCB). Observe the silver lining as you look at the preparations for the USCCB’s Eucharistic Revival announced several months ago (eucharisticrevival.org). Wading through the usual “happy-talk” typical of most of the work of the USCCB, a Catholic will happily arrive at a bit of seriousness (mirable dictu!). Bishop Cozzens, chair of the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress (sanctioned by the USCCB) announced four walking pilgrimages beginning in May 2024, commencing in San Francisco. They continue at the tomb of Blessed Michael McGivney in New Haven, Connecticut, then at the U.S. Mexico border near Brownsville, Texas, and onwards to the headwaters of the Mississippi, in Northwestern Minnesota. They will conclude, shortly before the Congress, which begins in Indianapolis July of 2024.
Bishop Cozzens wrote that the pilgrimage aims “to invite everyone; young people and whoever wants to pilgrimage with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament across the country from four sides of the country, praying and seeking their own deeper walk with Jesus, as we process the Blessed Sacrament towards Indianapolis”. He elaborated upon the plan: “teams will partner with local dioceses to undertake major processions with the canopy and cross and servers and people singing hymns and praying and things like that (sic).”
Quite unprecedented, and deserves applause. Troubling, however, is the pesky little detail that 73% of Roman Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence. So while some of the 27% will thrill to this important procession, what of the rest of the Catholic population who remains agnostic regarding this doctrine, or in outright denial?
Spokesman for this problem seems to be Cardinal Cupich, Chicago’s Prince.
He is a bit chilly to the whole idea of Eucharistic processions in general, and the Church’s traditional doctrine in particular. The Chicago Archdiocese has told organizers of the Eucharistic pilgrimage that, while pilgrims may travel through the archdiocese during their processional walk to Indianapolis, they are expected to reserve the Eucharist in a ciborium, rather than process with the Eucharist exposed in a monstrance, as the pilgrimage will do in other areas of the country.
This is a startling departure from a traditional manifestation of devotion to the Holy Eucharist for centuries. And therefore quite concerning. His reservations seem to rest on the de rigeur reinventions so dear to the theological ‘knowledge-class’ of the iconoclastic Seventies. With a deft legerdemain they left Eucharistic doctrine in shambles, smuggling into the Church nova (to both the doctrine of the Church and its sacred traditions) as communion-in the-hand, extraordinary ministers, standing for Communion, tabernacle-less churches and committee designed ‘liturgies’ appearing more like folk jamborees than the immemorial Sacrifice of Calvary.
The good Cardinal has carefully finessed his position in a short book Take, Bless, Break: A Strategy for Eucharistic Revival. He writes: “although there are many positive elements in eucharistic adoration it can engender narrowness, and even distorted perceptions of the sacrament itself.”
This is nothing less than veiled embarrassment of the Church’s teaching. His sentences could have been torn from the pages of the revisionist Eucharistic theology that has brought us to the present crisis we are suffering. Through such refined attenuations dissenting theologians over the past decades have crafted a slippery slide away from the exalted Eucharistic theology taught by the Church for millennia. No such protean language has ever been used by the official Magisterium of the Church. Never in two thousand years has she equated a robust and explicit adoration of the Eucharist (or in St. John Paul II’s charming phrase, “Eucharistic wonder.”) as ‘narroweness’. Yet this attitude has become entrenched as ‘official’ church teaching taught in not a few seminaries and houses of formation.
The official teaching of the Church tells quite a different story.
St. Pope Paul VI repeated the ironclad tradition of the Church in his Mysterium Fidei, a document quoted by the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
“the Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession.”
No hedging here, as Cardinal Cupich’s statement seems to convey.
Chicago’s Cardinal’s tepid approach (to put it kindly) to the Holy Eucharist is exhibited by his embarrassment at processing with the Sacred Host enthroned in the Monstrance. This prohibition is a far cry from the sanguine words of St. Pope John Paul II in his Ecclesia de Eucharistia:
Let us take our place, dear brothers and sisters, at the school of the saints, who are the great interpreters of true Eucharistic piety. In them the theology of the Eucharist takes on all the splendor of a lived reality; It becomes “contagious” and, in a manner of speaking, “it warms our hearts”. Above all, let us listen to Mary most Holy, in whom the mystery of the Eucharist appears, more than in any one else, as a mystery of light. Gazing upon Mary, we come to know the transforming power present in the Eucharist. In her we see the world renewed in love. Contemplating her, assumed body and soul into heaven, we see opening before us those “new heavens” and that “new earth” which will appear at the second coming of Christ. Here below, the Eucharist represents their pledge, and in a certain way, their anticipation: “Veni, Domine Iesu.” (Rev 22: 20).
One is hard put to find Cupich’s grave worries about ‘narrowness’ in the Pope’s words. The Cardinal deploys one of the most effective strategies of the Dissenters: invent a problem, then propose a solution. From beginning to end, a parody of Catholic orthodoxy.
But wait. Cupich expresses further concerns: “Eucharistic Adoration can ‘privatize’ one’s relationship to the sacrament and to the Lord Himself, overlooking the communitarian dimension of Eucharistic worship.” This statement either betray of woeful lack of understanding of the Church’s teaching regarding the Most Holy Eucharist or a carefully designed deconstruction of that teaching. Cupich’s strategic muddled thinking is blatantly contradicted by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2007 Posy-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis:
With the Senate assembly, therefore, I heartily recommend to the church's pastors and to the people of God the practice of eucharistic adoration, both individually and in community. Great benefit would ensue from a suitable catechesis explaining the importance of this act of worship, which enables the faithful to experience the liturgical celebration more fully and more fruitfully. Wherever possible, it would be appropriate, especially in densely populated areas, to set aside specific churches or oratories for perpetual adoration. I also recommend that, in their catechetical training, and especially in their preparation for First Holy Communion, children be taught the meaning and the beauty of spending time with Jesus, and help to cultivate a sense of awe before his presence in the Eucharist.
The Pope concludes:
The personal relationship which the individual believer establishes with Jesus present in the Eucharist constantly points beyond itself to the whole communion of the church and nourishes a fuller sense of membership in the body of Christ. For this reason, besides encouraging individual believers to make time for personal prayer before the sacrament of the altar, I feel obliged to urge parishes and other church groups to set aside times for collective adoration. Naturally, already existing forms of eucharistic piety retain their full value. I am thinking, for example, of processions with the Blessed Sacrament, especially the traditional procession on the solemnity of Corpus Christi, the 40 Hours Devotion, local, national and international eucharistic congresses, and other similar initiatives.
The adoration of the Sacrament is social for in the Holy Eucharist is Christ’s ineffable love for the Church and the whole human race. When a Catholic adores the Sacrament he grows in caritas for Christ and all whom Christ loves. What greater social engagement can exist than this. To accuse Eucharistic Adoration of ‘individualism’ is wholesale denial of Eucharistic doctrine as it has been embraced by the Church for her entire existence.
Cardinal Cupich leans heavily upon Fr. Louis Camelli, his delegate for formation and mission, as well as theological advisor. He wrote in the March issue of America magazine, “the heavy emphasis that the revival places on eucharistic devotions, such as processions, adoration, 40 hours and eucharistic miracles does not capture the heart of the matter.”
Actually, the heart of the matter is the instrumentalization of the Holy Eucharist: no longer is It an end in Itself, but only a means to a more worthy end. This serious error is seen in the enthusiasm for “theme” Masses. Another attempt at instrumentalizing the Holy Eucharist. The Mass and the Holy Eucharist exist only for the adoration of the Blessed Trinity and the salvation of the human race. Even the honor of the saints or the votive Masses for certain intentions are all subordinated and in service to the exclusive purpose for which the Holy Mass and Sacred Eucharist exist.
Theologians like Fr. Camelli have been involved in this long game of prevarication for sixty years. It has clogged their learned theological journals and been standard fare in the mainstream of Roman Catholicism. It has birthed the current sad state of not only crippled Eucharistic practice, but Sacred Liturgy, church architecture and compromised priestly identity itself.
St. Paul’s epistle to Timothy gives dire warning about times to come “when they will not endure sound doctrine, but will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears…and shall be turned unto fables.” Well, those ‘times’ are here. And we are up to our ears in ‘fables’.
It certainly may seem fable-time in Chicago. But I fear fable-time may have arrived in more places than the Windy City.
