Already. The media pundits are off and running at the mouth and pen about the US Bishops who are holding their annual fall meeting this coming week. In all their theological expertise, writers from Savannah to Los Angeles are proclaiming that Joe Biden should not be forbidden to receive the Holy Eucharist.
I do not recall a Bishop telling members of the secular media what to write, so where do these media theological “experts” get off telling the Bishops what to discuss or write about? Pertaining to the practice of the Catholic Faith, where are their worn knees from hours of prayer or scarred hands from works of charity that Bishop Fulton Sheen talked about?
If the secular mouthpieces can have a say – assuring us Joe Biden was told he can continue to receive the Eucharist, that Joe Biden is personally opposed to abortion but…, and most Catholics think the right to abortion should remain (Broker, Savannah Morning News, Nov. 11), then I can have a say as well and I say NO to it all.
The Bishops are having a meeting to discuss several Church-related items. This is different from a secular meeting of governors who order people around in their states. The Bishops deal with, or should be dealing with, life and death matters – spiritual life and death matters, heaven and hell matters. I hope the prelates remember that, heaven and hell, life and death. Their most important task at this meeting is not to discuss climate or funds or even immigrants, but to discuss a letter to the faithful on the Holy Eucharist, truly a life and death matter in the spiritual realm, for by this memorial of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our altars we are saved.
Obviously re-instruction on such a basic tenet of the Faith is necessary, American Catholics are clueless on so many things. Witness that Savannah writer said 68% of Catholics do not want to see Roe v Wade overturned, meaning the right to kill a child to remain legal. At times, however, I wonder if the Bishops themselves need re-instruction.
Sadly, there are clerics including Bishops in their purple sashes, who suck up to the way of the world. Didn’t Jesus talk about this in last Sunday’s Gospel (November 7)?
In the course of His teaching, Jesus said to the crowds, “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets.”
These prelates need our prayers that they are worthy successors of the Apostles, ready to face martyrdom, even by the press, because if they turn to Jello on this issue, they lose. Period. All credibility will be gone. This is a letter on the Holy Eucharist, for God’s sake, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Who of us is worthy of Him? Who dares to disrespect Him? The Bishops cannot follow the misinformed crowd on a fake right that isn’t even in the Constitution. They cannot say it is okay for anyone in the country to gravely sin and yet approach the Sacrament.
As for Biden, being personally opposed but…cannot impose his views on others. If he was truly personally opposed, his actions and those of the administration that bears his name would be neutral, not promoting death to the unborn in his name, not working to procure abortions in his name by fighting the Texas restrictions in court.
Are we in impossible times?
Is it impossible for our Bishops to agree to a draft of a letter on the nature of the Holy Eucharist and the proper disposition for Its reception? A mere letter!
Are these leaders of souls not bound by God to call a sin a sin? Are they afraid to do this? Are they afraid of the media which is whipping up public opinion against the Church by saying this letter will be an outright call for a refusal to the Sacrament for Joe Biden by name? What does the media know? Or as Pontius Pilate said, “What is truth?” Not anything proclaimed by the church of the media.
As for Biden, he happily said the Pope told him to keep receiving Communion. Our parish priest commented that the Pope said nothing publicly, that he and the president had met for 90 minutes and their conversation was deemed “private.” He also noted that the Pope “did not run to the tabernacle and give Biden Communion.”
We are left to wonder. But I recommend reading the Epistle of St. Jude the Apostle, the last epistle before Revelation, a short little letter two pages long. It was truly written for our times and one comment from St. Jude touches on this very topic:
“Yet when Michael the archangel was fiercely disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, he did not venture to bring against him an accusation of blasphemy, but said, ‘May the Lord rebuke thee’”
Jude 1:9
Leave it to God to handle. A truly frightening prospect. And for us? This advice:
“But as for you, beloved, build up yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ unto life everlasting. And some, who are judged, reprove; but others, save, snatching them from the fire. And to others, be merciful with fear, hating even the garment which is soiled by the flesh.”
Jude 1:20-23
Our job is to pray, for our shepherds and for ourselves, to stay the course.
This article, Is It Impossible? is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/is-it-impossible/
Do not repost the entire article without written permission. Reasonable excerpts may be reposted so long as it is linked to this page.