Before the Fact

[Editor’s Note: This post was scheduled at 12 PM Eastern on Friday, June 18th; see a postscript from Regina after the results at the end.]

I am in the odd position of finishing this on Friday morning for publication Saturday. I want to write about the bishops’ decision on a proposal to draft a document on “Eucharistic Coherence.” The problem is that “The bishops voted on the proposal on Thursday and results will be made public Friday,” according to Michael O’Loughlin in America. How like the Bishops and their great concern for transparency! I hope there’s a leak. Meanwhile, I am going to highlight a few of the forty articles I collected just in the month of June 2021 that might be helpful no matter what the “results” are.

The Thursday debate in the O’Loughlin article is a fun read. Christopher White in NCR is more serious with longer quotations, and includes the discussion on the agenda the day before. Wednesday 59% of the bishops voted against allowing all who wanted to speak to speak,  another blow to transparency.  White also has a long article online and in the print edition of June 25 on those bishops in favor of the document, with extensive quotes from a variety of sources favoring delay. 67 bishops wrote a letter to that effect, but I have not been able to find their names.  

Was “Eucharistic Coherence” in your catechism? Not in mine. A very 21^st century approach: create new terminology to obfuscate the issue. Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, said that “the terms ‘eucharistic consistency’ and ‘eucharistic coherence’ originate in Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 exhortation on the Eucharist, “Sacramentum Caritatis” (‘The Sacrament of Charity’).” I might have known. Rhodes is eager to say that this document is about a National Eucharistic Revival being planned to evangelize about “a full treatment of the Eucharist,” which a 2019 poll found was not well-understood by most Catholics. He also is eager to say that it’s not about Joe Biden. 

Bob Shine of New Ways Ministry expands the issue, but in a way that Rhodes would not intend. Shine writes, “the spirit behind the document needs no vote to succeed, and it could be quite damaging… LGBTQ people know too well about the less public, but no less damaging instances where sacraments are withheld over a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or relationship status.” He does another good review of the situation. 

If you prefer to listen, executive editor Heidi Schlumpf of NCR was on NPR’s Morning Edition with a more basic explanation of receiving communion. NCR published an early editorial online and in print June 11; it is one of the few ironic treatments of both the politics and the theology at stake. Peter Steinfels in Commonweal doesn’t appreciate the irony because to him it becomes ambiguous. Of course, one uses irony for some relief from straightforward arguments, which Steinfels then presents. 

So does Steven P. Millies, associate professor of public theology and director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, who writes in America about “The Battle Over the Brand of U.S. Catholicism.” This long article is my favorite for its review of theology back to Leo XXIII, as well as from Vatican II to the present. Milles’ central thesis is that the church has never really come to terms with democracy. Francis is trying – see everything on Synods – but even he does not fully grasp how Catholics act in this public sphere. Lay people control the brand as much as the clergy does. “The existing theology we have around the state is suited better to monarchs who are above the law than to elected leaders who are bound by the rule of law,” Milles argues, and considers whether a “self-reflective” decision by the USCCB will be the “last hurrah” for an irrelevant Catholic Church that will not disappear but be abandoned by thousands of Catholics. 

Other important articles among the many:  “Pope: Eucharist is bread of sinners, not reward of saints,” “On examining the president’s conscience: Why the US bishops should scrap plans to exclude “pro-choice” politicians from the Eucharist,” “Why are American Catholics obsessed with the politics of Communion? (Hint: Because we’re American.),” and “Priests’ group objects to ‘camouflaged’ use of Eucharist as a weapon.” A full half-hour press conference by the USCCB Accountability Team of Catholic Organizations for Renewal, including a terrific statement by WOC executive director Kate McElwee, is available as well. It’s about several issues facing the bishops. 

NCR is collecting articles about this topic in one place, and America is devoting a lot of space to it as well. If no decision has been reached before we have to post this, and it has not been blasted all over your local media, social and otherwise, you can check both sites to see what the “results” are. Certainly we will be living with them for the foreseeable future. 

1 pm Friday: The bishops voted in favor, by a vote of 73 percent in favor and 24 percent opposed, according to the New York Times. The Washington Post included the numbers: 168 to 55, with six abstentions. That’s the measure of the Francis bishops on whom so many of our hopes depend.