Catholic Replies
Editor’s Note: Following up on a recent question about how much money the U.S. bishops get from the federal government, an article in LifeSiteNews reported that the Obama Administration is pouring hundreds of million of dollars into Catholic institutions and charities. “We’ve got the most virulently anti-life administration in the history of the United States,” said international child rights advocate Elizabeth Yore, “and the Catholic Church is propping up the administration. I find it very troubling that the Church is cooperating with the Obama Administration.”
She said that in fiscal year 2016 alone, hundreds of millions of dollars found their way to the USCCB, Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, and the International Catholic Migration Commission — “jaw-dropping grants to carry out the Obama agenda.” The American Catholic hierarchy is placing other causes ahead of life issues, said Yore, “relegating the pro-life ministries to the doctrinal ash heap and committing funds and personnel to promote environmental and migration issues. Migration pays very well; pro-life pays nothing. . . . Catholics are witnessing the bureaucratic destruction of the pro-life movement in chanceries and the elevation of migration and immigration in its place.”
Yore said that these grants may explain why there is virtual silence about pro-abortion Hillary Clinton from our bishops, but outspoken criticism by some bishops of Donald Trump for opposing the influx of thousand of Muslim refugees from Syria and other countries into the United States.
Q. When my wife quoted the words that Jesus said on the cross, Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”), a man got all upset and berated her, contending that only a priest can utter those words. What do you say? — B.B., Florida.
A. Since when are laypeople not allowed to quote the words of Jesus from Scripture? Does that include His admonition to love God and neighbor, and even one’s enemies? Are we not allowed to say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” or any of the other beatitudes? How many thousands of sermons and talks have been delivered on the seven last words of Christ, including the one you mentioned? We would ask this man to explain what appears to be a very unreasonable position to take.
Q. How do we defend the Catholic observance of the Sabbath on Sunday, when the preacher I saw on television said that it should be Saturday, as prescribed by God in the Old Testament? Also, how do we defend the Catholic use of aspersion for Baptism, when the preacher I saw on television said that it should be only immersion, as Jesus was baptized? He said that the Catholic Church changed to infant Baptism because the clergy did not want to change clothes every time there was a Baptism. — M.W., via e-mail.
A. On the first question, while the Sabbath was Saturday in the Old Testament, the Lord’s Day was changed by the Church to Sunday in the New Testament because that was the day Jesus rose from the dead and the day on which the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles on Pentecost. See Acts 20:7, where it says that the disciples gathered “to break bread,” i.e., celebrate the Eucharist, “on the first day of the week,” which was Sunday. The Church had the authority to make this change because Jesus said, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).
On the second question about the manner of Baptism, the Church has from ancient times permitted Baptism either by immersion or by pouring the water on the candidate’s head. (Aspersion, or sprinkling, with water is illicit, although it would be valid provided the water touches the person while the baptismal formula is being recited.) There is of course no truth to the allegation that the Church switched to infant Baptism because the clergy did not want to keep changing out of their wet clothes.
The Baptism of infants goes all the way back to apostolic times. In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul on two occasions (Acts 16:15 and 16:33) baptized entire households, which presumably included parents and children, including infants. There is also evidence of infant baptism in the early Church. In the third century, for example, Origen (185-255) wrote that “the Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving Baptism also to infants.” In the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom (347-407) said that “we baptize even infants, though they do not have sins [of their own], so that there may be given to them holiness, righteousness, adoption, inheritance, brotherhood with Christ, and they may be His members.”
We wonder, too, about the 3,000 persons who were baptized by the Apostles on the first Pentecost (cf. Acts 2:41). Were they all baptized by immersion on that one day, or were some of them baptized by having water poured on them?
Q. We have a deacon, a convert, who’s been suspended from giving Sunday homilies as he preaches on Catholic doctrine and it makes people “uncomfortable”! What can we do? — J.E.L., Iowa.
A. We are afraid to ask what doctrines the deacon addressed that made people uncomfortable. Would we be off the mark in guessing that he presented in clear terms the Church’s teaching on contraception, or abortion, or homosexual behavior, or no Holy Communion for those who are divorced and civilly remarried? Or maybe he talked about Hell, as Jesus often did. That would make some modern Catholics uncomfortable. A seminarian friend of ours helped out in a parish this past summer and happened to mention Hell to the pastor. “Oh, no,” he was told, “we don’t talk about Hell.”
What can you do? Get as many of your fellow parishioners as you can to sign a petition, expressing support for the deacon and for the content of his homilies. If this effort has no effect, and if you cannot get the solid food you are seeking, then go to another parish.
Q. At a recent Sunday Mass, the pastor gave his homily about Luke 14, where Jesus dined at the home of a Pharisee and admonished that one should not take the highest place at the table. The priest said that Jesus dined with sinful people and fed sinful people in the miracle of the loaves and fishes. In addition, the priest said that Jesus excluded no one from drinking the wine at the wedding in Cana. Since everyone, including non-Catholics, is invited by the Lord to attend Mass, the priest said, no one should be excluded from eating and drinking at the table of the Lord. Finally, he applauded the effort by some in the Church to “bend the rules” and allow more people to receive Holy Communion. Would I be wasting my time by contacting the superior of this pastor? — J.D.H., California.
A. No, it can’t hurt to contact the priest’s superior, but speak to the priest first. When you do, mention that neither at the miracle of the loaves and fishes nor at the wedding in Cana was Jesus giving people His true Body and Blood. Yes, He was foreshadowing the Eucharist by feeding them ordinary bread and wine, but this was before the Last Supper when Jesus for the first time transformed bread and wine into His Body and Blood.
As for “bending the rules” about Holy Communion, why not also “bend the rules” about other Church teachings? Apparently, some of the early Catholics in Corinth were doing exactly that. So St. Paul admonished them, saying that “whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many among you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world” (1 Cor. 11:27-32).
Since Jesus is truly present in Holy Communion, one must be free from mortal sin in order to receive Him worthily. To make sure that a sacrilegious Communion does not occur, St. Paul said that we must examine our consciences first so as to avoid profaning the Body and Blood of the Lord and risking condemnation. He certainly associated with many sinners, but He never said that it was all right for them to receive Jesus while in a sinful state.
