The Roman Eucharist
Excerpt from WWN 10(03)

The ENI Bulletin for June 11, 2003 devoted a section of its news releases to the "Ecumenical Kirchentag" held in Berlin, Germany, from May 28 to June 1, this year. When this church congress was first planned in 1996, it was hoped that it could close with shared Eucharist by both Catholics and Protestants. This hope was dashed by the Encyclical of John Paul II released on "Holy Thursday," April 17.

During the congress, groups advocating church reform gathered in a large Protestant Church in East Berlin and celebrated the Eucharist presided over by a Roman Catholic professor of systematic theology, Gotthold Hassenhutti. He invited all to partake of the bread and wine. He claimed he had broken no church rule, stating, "I hope what we have done tonight will take place more and more often." Reaction was swift. Cardinal Ratzinger, the Vatican's chief doctrinal watchdog, condemned the event as a "political action." In another incident, action was taken in regard to a priest, Bernard Kroll, who received communion from a Protestant pastor at a service organized in Berlin during this same period to challenge the official Vatican rules as outlined in the Papal Encyclical. He had preached at this service which included a Protestant Eucharist. For his actions, he was prohibited from performing his normal priestly duties, or celebrating mass. His bishop, Walter Mixa of Eichstatt, sent him to a retreat with a mentor declaring "these measures are intended to give Father Kroll the opportunity to reflect and think about how he understands his priesthood." (ENI-03-0279).

Herein, Bishop Mixa stated the second factor in the Eucharistic question which blocks the road to ecumenical unity - the perceived powers of the priesthood of Rome. This we shall discuss first, as we review the directives set forth in the Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Yet in the light of the Roman position and in spite of the Roman reaction to protest events taken at the time of this Kirchentag," 16 German denominations, including Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches signed the Charta Oecumenica, a set of guidelines for promoting cooperation towards ' visible unity' of the church." (ENI-03-0257).

"Visible unity" not only involves the doctrine of the nature of the Eucharist itself, whether a commemoration as in "the Lord's Supper", or a transubstantiation as in the Roman Eucharist; but also the doctrine of "the sacrament of Holy Orders." This John Paul II made very clear. He stated:

Lastly the [Roman] Church is apostolic in the sense that she "continues to be taught, sanctified and guided by the Apostles until the Lord's return, through their successors in pastoral office: the college of bishops assisted by priests, in union with the Successor of Peter, the Church's supreme pastor." Succession to the Apostles in the pastoral mission necessarily entails the sacrament of Holy Orders, that is, the uninterrupted sequence, from the very beginning, of valid Episcopal ordination. This is essential for the Church to exist in a proper and full sense.

The Eucharist also expresses this sense of apostolicity. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, "the faithful join in the offering of the Eucharist by virtue of their royal priesthood," yet it is the ordained priest who, "acting in the person of Christ, brings about the Eucharistic Sacrifice and offers it to God in the name of all the people." For this reason, the Roman Missal prescribes that only the priest should recite the Eucharist Prayer, while the people participate in faith and in silence. [par. 281 ...

The ministry of priests who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders, in the economy of salvation chosen by Christ, makes clear that the Eucharist which they celebrate is a gift which radically transcends the power of the assembly and is in any event essential for validly linking the Eucharistic consecration to the sacrifice of the Cross and to the Last Supper. The assembly gathered together for the celebration of the Eucharist, if it is to be a truly Eucharistic assembly, absolutely requires the presence of an ordained priest as its president. [par. 29; emphasis his]

The awesomeness of the power claimed by Rome for the priest as he celebrates the Eucharist is only declared but not described in this encyclical [John Paul II's Ecclesia de Eucharistia]. To understand the blasphemy of the Roman Mass, one must turn to the writings of those whom the pope cites. One of those cited was the sainted doctor of Rome [par. 251, Alphonsus de Liguori who wrote on the "Dignity and Duties of the Priest." In a section on the "Grandeur of the Priestly Power," after noting

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what God did at the command of Joshua (10:14), de Liguori wrote:

But our wonder should be far greater when we find that in obedience to the words of his priests - Hoc est Corpus Meum - God himself descends on the altar, that he comes wherever they call him, and as often as they call him, and places himself in their hands, even though they should be his enemies. After having come, he remains entirely at their disposal; they move him as they please, from one place to another; they may if they wish, shut him up in the tabernacle, or expose him on the altar, or carry him outside of the church; they may, if they choose, eat his flesh, and give him for the food of others. "0 how very great is their power," says St. Lawrence Justinian, speaking of priests. "A word falls from their lips and the body of Christ is there substantially formed from the matter of the bread, and the Incarnate Word descended from heaven, is really found present on the table of the altar! Never did divine goodness give such power to the angels. The angels abide by the order of God, but the priests take him in their hands, distribute him to the faithful, and partake of him as food for themselves." (pp. 26-27)

In another section on the "Importance of the Priestly Office," de Liguori writes:

The dignity of the priest is estimated from the exalted nature of his offices. Priests are chosen by God to manage on earth all his concerns and interests. "Divine," says St. Cyril of Alexandria, "are the offices confided to the priest." St. Ambrose has called the priestly office a divine profession. A priest is a minister destined by God to be a public ambassador of the whole Church, to honor him, and to obtain graces for all the faithful. The entire Church cannot give to God as much honor, nor obtain so many graces, as a single priest by celebrating a single Mass; for the greatest honor that the whole Church without priests could give to God would consist in offering to him in sacrifice the lives of all men. But of what value are the lives of all men compared with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which is a sacrifice of infinite value? What are all men before God but a little dust? . . . Thus, by the celebration of a single Mass, in which he offers Jesus Christ in sacrifice, a priest gives greater honor to the Lord, than if all men by dying for God offered to him the sacrifice of their lives. By a single Mass, he gives greater honor to God than all the angels and saints, along with the Blessed Virgin Mary have given or shall give to him; for their worship cannot be of infinite value, like that which the priest celebrating on the altar offers to God. (pp. 24-25)

In justification of the assumption that the sacrifice of the Mass is superior to the Virgin Mary, de Liguori quotes St. Bernadine of Sienna as addressing Mary: "Holy Virgin, excuse me, for I speak not against thee: for the Lord has raised the priesthood above thee." Then he summarizes Bernadine's reasoning:

The saint assigns the reason of the superiority of the priesthood over Mary; she conceived Jesus Christ only once; but by consecrating the Eucharist, the priest, as it were, conceives him as often as he wishes, so that if the person of the Redeemer had not yet been in the world, the priest, by pronouncing the words of consecration, would produce this great person of a Man-God. "0 wonderful dignity of the priests," cries out St. Augustine, "in their hands, as in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, the Son of God becomes incarnate." Hence priests are called the parents of Jesus Christ: such is the title that St. Bernard gives them, for they are the active cause by which he is made to exist really in the consecrated Host.

Thus the priest may, in a certain manner, be called the creator of his Creator, since by saying the words of consecration, he creates, as it were, Jesus in the sacrament, by giving him a sacramental existence, and produces him as a victim to be offered to the eternal Father. As in creating the world it was sufficient for God to have said, Let it be made, and it was created - He spoke, and they were made, - so it is sufficient for the priest to say, "Hoc est corpus meum," and behold the bread is no longer bread, but the body of Jesus Christ. "The power of the priest," says St. Bernadine of Sienna, "is the power of the divine person; for the transubstantiation of the bread requires as much power as the creation of the world." And St. Augustine has written, "0 venerable sanctity of the hands! 0 happy function of the priest! He that created (if I may say so) gave me the power to create him; and he that created me is himself created by me!" As the Word of God created heaven and earth, so, says St. Jerome, the words of the priest create Jesus Christ. (pp. 32-33).

In his Encyclical, the Pope connected the Eucharist with the sacrament of Penance. Citing the decrees of the Council of Trent that "one must first confess one's sins" before receiving the Eucharist, he stated:

The two sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance are very closely connected. Because the Eucharist makes present the redeeming sacrifice of Calvary, perpetuating it sacramentally, it naturally gives rise to the continuous need for conversion, for a personal response to the appeal made by St. Paul to the Christians of Corinth: " We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." If a Christian's conscience is burdened by serious sin, then the path of penance through the sacrament of Reconciliation becomes necessary for full participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. (Par. 37)

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This again brings into play the assumed power of the priests. The sainted de Liguori describes this power. He writes:

The priest holds the place of the Saviour himself, when, by saying "Ego te absolvo," he absolves from sin. This great power, which Jesus Christ received from his eternal Father, he has communicated to his priests. "Jesus," says Tertullian, "invests the priests with his own powers." To pardon a single sin requires all the omnipotence of God. . . . But what only God can do by his omnipotence, the priest can also do by saying, "Ego te absolve a peccatis tuis," for the forms of the sacrament, or the words of the forms, produce what they signify. How great would be our wonder if we saw a person invested with the power of changing a negro into a white man; but the priest does what is far more wonderful, for by saying "Ego te absolvo" he changes a sinner from an enemy into a friend of God, and from the slave of hell into an heir of paradise.

Cardinal Hugo represents the Lord addressing the following words to a priest who absolves a sinner: "I have created heaven and earth, but I leave to you a better and nobler creation; make out of this soul that is in sin a new soul, that is, make out of the slave of Satan, that the soul is, a child of God. I have made the earth bring forth all kinds of fruit, but to thee I confide a more beautiful creation, namely, that the soul should bring forth fruits of salvation." The soul without grace is a withered tree that can no longer produce fruit; but receiving the divine grace, through the ministry of a priest, it brings forth fruits to eternal life. (pp. 34-35).

These concepts though not detailed in his current Encyclical, form the basis for the Pope's dictum in regard to "communion" at ecumenical gatherings such as the Ecumenical Kirchentag held this year in Berlin. The Pope declared pointedly:

The Catholic Church's teaching on the relationship between priestly ministry and the Eucharist and her teachings on the Eucharistic Sacrifice have both been the subject in recent decades of a fruitful dialogue in the area of ecumenism. We must give thanks to the Blessed Trinity for the significant progress and convergence achieved in this regard, which leads us to hope one day for a full sharing of faith. Nonetheless, the observations of the [Second Vatican] Council concerning the Ecclesial Communities [Protestants] which arose in the West from the sixteenth century onwards and are separated from the Catholic Church remain fully pertinent: "The Ecclesial Communities separated from us lack that fullness of unity which should flow from Baptism, and we believe that especially because of the lack of the sacrament of Orders they have not preserved the genuine and total reality of the Eucharistic mystery. (par. 30, emphasis his).

The Worship of Man-made Bread

In the Wilderness of Temptation, Satan tempted Christ to turn stones to bread, now in the Sacrifice of the Mass, his minions profess to turn bread into the Man-God, Christ Jesus. But it is not a momentary thing. It becomes an object of worship and adoration. In the current Encyclical, John Paul II wrote:

The worship of the Eucharist outside of the Mass is of inestimable value for the life of the Church. This worship is strictly linked to the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The presence of Christ under the sacred species reserved after the Mass - a presence which lasts as long as the species of bread and wine remain - derives from the celebration of the sacrifice and is directed towards communion, both sacramental and spiritual. It is the responsibility of Pastors to encourage, also by their personal witness, the practice of Eucharistic adoration, and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in particular, as well as prayer of adoration before Christ present under the Eucharistic species. (Par. 25).

After citing his own worship "in silent adoration" before "the Most Holy Sacrament," he testifies that from this experience he has "drawn . . . strength, consolation and support." He then exhorts:

This practice, repeatedly praised and recommended by the Magisterium, is supported by the example of many saints. Particularly outstanding in this regard was Saint Alponsus Liguori, who wrote: "Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the sacraments, the one dearest to God and the one most helpful to us." (ibid.)

Further, the Pope calls attention to an Encyclical of Paul VI which admonishes that "in the course of the day the faithful should not omit visiting the Blessed Sacrament" declaring that "such visits are a sign of gratitude, an expression of love and an acknowledgement of the Lord's presence." (ibid.)

"Visible Unity"

The pope in this Encyclical ties the concept of "visible unity" with the Sacrament of the Eucharist. He stated:

Ecclesial communion, as I have said, is likewise visible, and finds expression in the series of "bonds" listed by the Council when it teaches: "They are fully incorporated into the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of

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Christ, accept her whole structure and all the means of salvation established within her, and within her visible framework are united to Christ, who governs her through the Supreme Pontiff and the Bishops, by the bonds of profession of faith, the sacraments, the ecclesiastical government and communion." (par. 38; emphasis his)

That there be no misunderstanding in what he is saying, the Pope reiterated this outline for visible unity by declaring:

The ecclesial communion of the Eucharistic assembly is a communion with its own Bishop and with the Roman Pontiff. The Bishop, in effect, is the visible principle and the foundation of unity within his particular Church. It would therefore be a great contradiction if the sacrament par excellence of the Church's unity were celebrated without true communion with the Bishop. . . Likewise, since "the Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity of the Bishops and of the multitude of the faithful," communion with him is intrinsically required for the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Hence the great truth expressed which the Liturgy expresses in a variety of ways: "Every celebration of the Eucharist is performed in union not only with the proper Bishop, but also with the Pope, with the episcopal order, with all the clergy, and with the entire people. Every valid celebration of the Eucharist expresses universal communion with Peter and with the whole Church, or objectively calls for it, as in the case of the Christian Churches separated from Roman. (Par. 39; emphasis his).

Mark this closely: in the light of this clear pronouncement on what only will constitute "visible unity," given on April 17, six weeks later, sixteen German denominations signed the document, Charta 0ecumenica at the Kirchentag setting forth guidelines for promoting cooperation towards "visible unity." Further, the Constitution of the World Council of Churches (WCC) states that the first of its functions and purposes is "to call the churches to the goal of visible unity in one faith and in the one eucharistic fellowship expressed in worship and in common life in Christ, and to advance towards that unity in order that the world may believe." (So Much in Common, pp. 40-41) And further, the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC has as its stated aim "to proclaim the oneness of the Church of Jesus Christ and to call the churches to the goal of visible unity in one faith and one Eucharistic fellowship." (Faith and Order Paper #111, p. viii). And still further, on this Commission is a Seventh-day Adventist theologian appointed by the Central Committee of the WCC.

"The Centre" of Romanism

While "the mystery of the Trinity is the central doctrine of the Catholic faith" and the basis of "all the other teachings of the Church" (Handbook for Today's Catholic, p. 11), the Pope in this Encyclical declares that "the Church was born of the paschal mystery," referring to the Passover Supper in the upper room. "For this very reason," he states, "the Eucharist, which is in an outstanding way the sacrament of the paschal mystery, stands at the centre of the Church's life." (Par. 3; emphasis his). He declares that "the Church draws her life from Christ in the Eucharist." (Par. 6, emphasis his).

Speaking of his own experience, he indicated that from the time he first became the pope, "as the Successor of Peter," he marked "Holy Thursday, the day of the Eucharist and of the priesthood, by sending a letter to all the priests of the world." This year, his twenty-fifth, he wished to involve "the whole Church more fully in this Eucharistic reflection" by "pointing out with new force to the Church the centrality of the Eucharist" (Par. 7). You will observe that connected with the Eucharist, he links "the priesthood," those who are declared able to create the Man-God out of a piece of bread. He comments:

If the Eucharist is the centre and summit of the Church's life, it is likewise the centre and summit of priestly ministry. For this reason, with a heart filled with gratitude to our Lord Jesus Christ, I repeat that the Eucharist "is the principle and central raison d'etre of the sacrament of the priesthood, which effectively came into being at the moment of the institution of the Eucharist. (Par. 31).

Communion with Rome

The whole objective of the Ecumenical movement is "communion." In this Encyclical, the Pope declared that "the Eucharist creates communion and fosters communion. " He cites the Apostle Paul's letter to the divided Corinthian Church (I Cor. 11:17-34) and states "the Apostle urged them to reflect on the true reality

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of the Eucharist in order to return to the spirit of fraternal communion." (Par. 40, emphasis his). From this point, the Pope makes a very significant observation:

The Eucharist's particular effectiveness in promoting communion is one of the reasons for the importance of Sunday Mass. I have already dwelt on this and on the other reasons which make Sunday Mass fundamental for the life of the Church and of individual believers in my Apostolic Letter on the sanctification of Sunday Dies Domini. (Par. 41)

Citing a more recent Encyclical, Novo Millennio Ineunte, he stated, "I drew particular attention to the Sunday Eucharist, emphasizing its effectiveness for building communion. 'it is' - I wrote - 'the privileged place where communion is ceaselessly proclaimed and nurtured. Precisely through sharing in the Eucharist, the Lord's Day also becomes the Day of the Church, when she can effectively exercise her role as the sacrament of unity.'" (ibid.)

All of this recalls the statement made by Cardinal Edward Cassidy, then President of the Vatican Council for Promoting Church Unity, at a news conference while in attendance at the 1991 Seventh Assembly of the WCC in Canberra, Australia. The same issue arose - the ban on the sharing of the Eucharist. To the question, Cassidy responded that the "sharing of the eucharist is the ultimate sign and seal of church unity, and thus a step with many and major doctrinal implications." (EPS 91.02.74; emphasis mine).

The mark of Romanism is more than just "the Day of the Church," it also includes what is done on that day, "the Sunday Eucharist," the blasphemous Mass. The simplicity by which this " mark" of Rome may be received is given in the Handbook for Today's Catholic. The section is captioned, "How to Receive Communion." Observe closely the language used:

Holy Communion may be received on the tongue or in the hand [See Rev. 14:9] and may be given under the form of bread alone or under both species.

When the minister [priest] of the Eucharist addresses the communicant with the words "The Body of Christ," "The Blood of Christ," the communicant responds, "Amen."

When the minister [priest] raises the Eucharistic bread or wine, this is an invitation for the communicant to make an Act of Faith, to express his or her belief in the Eucharist, to manifest a need and desire for the Lord, to accept the good news of Jesus' paschal mystery.

A clear and meaningful "Amen" is your response to this invitation. In this way you profess your belief in the presence of Christ in the Eucharistic bread and wine as well as in his Body, the Church. (p. 42).

Pause and take time to analyze what is being said in the above paragraphs. The "Act of Faith" is the acceptance of the Roman teaching of Transubstantiation - the bread and wine becoming the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. The clear and meaningful "Amen" indicates two things: 1) Your acceptance of the blasphemy, and 2) Your full unity with Rome.

The day is not far distant when the test will come to all who deny "the day of the Church" and who refuse to worship a piece of bread as their Saviour.