When Does the Pope Speak Infallibly?

Posted on February 17, 2011 by canonlawmadeeasy

Q: There was a lecture at our parish and the guest-speaker said something in passing about the Pope making infallible decisions. He claimed that it has only happened twice in history that the Pope has spoken infallibly! Do you know what he was talking about? I don’t know if this is even a canon-law question or not…  –Kay

A: This is indeed a canon-law question, since canon law (as we have seen numerous times before in this space) is driven by theology. Whenever an issue arises about who in the Church has the authority to do what, it’s generally safe to assume that canon law is involved. Continue reading →

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The Validity of Anglican Holy Orders

Posted on January 20, 2011 by canonlawmadeeasy

Q:  Everyone says that in the near future lots of Episcopalians, including some of their clergy, are going to become Catholics. I’ve read some comments in the papers by members of their clergy who want to become Catholic priests. I guess that means that the Catholic Church doesn’t recognize them as valid priests already, right? I’m just wondering because over the years I have met one or two pastors of Episcopal and Anglican parishes, and they seemed to always refer to themselves as “priests.” So I’m confused about their status in the eyes of the Catholic Church.  –Jon

A:  This is certainly a very timely question, since a number of former Anglican clergy who had entered the Catholic Church were just ordained Catholic priests in London on January 15.

The official position of the Catholic Church, as enunciated by the Vatican, is that ordination to the priesthood according to the Anglican/Episcopalian rite is invalid. On the surface, that simple statement would seem to answer at least the first part of Jon’s question—but this issue is so complicated, and its history is so fascinating, that the rationale lying behind the Catholic Church’s position merits a closer look. When we have a basic understanding of the events surrounding the formation of the Anglican hierarchy in the 16th century, it is much easier to appreciate why analyzing the current situation is trickier than one might think.

The first issues that we need to address are these: can a non-Catholic administer a sacrament that is valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church? and at the same time, can a non-Catholic receive a sacrament that is likewise valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church?

We saw in “Do Converts Have to be Rebaptized?” that the Catholic Church recognizes as valid the sacrament of baptism that is administered according to many non-Catholic rites. The Orthodox Churches, all of the main-line protestant communities, and some (though not all!) of the smaller Christian groups baptize their members using a form that is consistent with that used by Catholics, and with the same intention. Thus there are many non-Catholics in the world today whom the Catholic Church recognizes as having validly received this sacrament, although they did not receive it in a Catholic parish or from the hands of a Catholic.

However, when it comes to the other sacraments, administration by non-Catholics is another story. That’s because all the others require a validly ordained cleric—a bishop, priest, or deacon, depending on the sacrament and sometimes also on the circumstances—to administer them. To cite an obvious example, we Catholics all know that if a man who has not been validly ordained a priest attempts to grant a Catholic absolution in the confessional, his action will have no effect.

The sacrament of holy orders, to cite another, cannot be conferred by anyone other than a validly consecrated bishop (c. 1012). Without valid bishops, it is impossible to have validly ordained priests. Without validly ordained priests, it is impossible to validly receive any of the other sacraments, with the exception of baptism.

That is why the Catholic Church is so careful to preserve Apostolic succession. The original twelve Apostles, whom Christ consecrated as the first bishops, in turn consecrated other bishops, who then consecrated other bishops, and so on until our own day.  If anybody claims to be a bishop, but has not been consecrated by a bishop who is demonstrably in the line of Apostolic succession… he is not, despite his protests, a validly consecrated bishop.

This is why the Catholic Church accepts the validity of bishops in the Orthodox Church, who can trace their succession right back to the Apostle St. Andrew. Similarly, this is the reason why we do not consider valid those ministers who refer to themselves as “bishops” in many small evangelical communities—they do not have Apostolic succession and thus cannot possibly be validly consecrated clergy in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

Along the same lines, it might seem easy to dismiss off-the-cuff any claims by Anglicans (who in the U.S. are generally called Episcopalians) to have Apostolic succession. After all, they rejected communion with the Catholic Church during the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547), right?

It may be surprising to readers to learn that the historical facts behind Henry VIII’s establishment of the Church of England are not so black-and-white. Historians—Catholic and non-Catholic alike— will affirm that while King Henry clearly wanted to assert his own spiritual authority over the faithful within his realm, it is not so clear that he radically wished to break from Rome on a theological level. In other words, it seems that Henry wished to establish a different structure of church authority, but did not want to change basic sacramental theology.

To further complicate matters, we must keep in mind that the very first bishops in the new Anglican church… were all former Catholic bishops. When these bishops apostatized from the Catholic faith, that in no way “undid” their own episcopal consecration, received back when they were still Catholics. Canon 845.1 tells us that the sacrament of orders, like the sacraments of baptism and confirmation, imprints a character on a person’s soul. It can never be erased (which is incidentally why these sacraments can be validly administered only once).

And since it can never be erased, a bishop who falls away from the Church is still a bishop. And since he is still a bishop, he can still validly administer Catholic sacraments, even if he has left the Catholic Church! True, his administration of these sacraments will be illicit, and he should not be doing so. (We looked at the difference between validity and liceity back in “Are They Really Catholic? Part II.”) But like it or not, he really can ordain true Catholic priests and consecrate real Catholic bishops.

What were these Catholic-turned-Anglican bishops actually doing, when they stood inside the former Catholic (newly declared to be Anglican) cathedrals of England, and ordained new clergy for the Anglican communion? This is the crux of the matter. For if they genuinely intended to do what they had always been doing during Catholic ordination ceremonies, and used the same ritual, we can only conclude that they ordained “Anglican” clergy who were in fact Catholic priests. If, on the other hand, they truly intended a full break with Rome in the sacramental sense—denying the institution of the clergy as the Catholic Church understands it, and desiring instead to create something new and different—then they did not effect valid ordinations. If the clergy—priests and bishops—that they purportedly ordained were not really ordained at all, this means that once the original ex-Catholic bishops died out, the new Anglican clergy were not valid clerics and Apostolic succession was broken.

Such was the official position of the Catholic Church, which soon asserted that the ordinations of Anglican clergy were ipso facto invalid. In the late 1800’s, however, Pope Leo XIII established a commission to investigate the matter further. Members were charged with examining the historical documents pertaining in any way to the ordinations performed during Henry’s era by those former Catholic bishops, looking particularly at the form and also at their intention. Did they really mean to ordain Catholic priests under another name, or what?

The results of the commission formed the basis for Pope Leo’s bull called Apostolicae Curae. Issued in 1896, it declared publicly that in the eyes of the Catholic Church, ordinations performed using the Anglican rite were, and always had been, absolutely null and void (36). In other words, Anglican clergy are not ordained priests like one finds in the Catholic Church.  Interestingly, the break in succession was not traced back to the time of Henry VIII himself, but rather to changes made during the brief reign of his son, King Edward VI (1547-1553), who succeeded him.  The commission found that the ordination ritual contained in the new Edwardine Ordinal, the Anglican liturgical book at the time, was substantially different enough that its administration did not confer the true sacrament of holy orders (3).

In the 20th century, scholars began to revisit this issue, noting that the members of Pope Leo’s commission were not unanimous in their findings, and raising the theoretical possibility that the papal bull might have been wrong. But in 1998 the Church officially laid this matter to rest. Pope John Paul II issued his motu proprio document, Ad Tuendam Fidem, primarily to assert that there are some doctrinal issues which the Church holds are not open to debate. (Other aspects of this document were discussed in “Have Pro-Abortion Politicians Excommunicated Themselves?”) Within a few weeks, a companion document was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—with the Pope’s advance knowledge and consent, of course—then headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. This second document provided a list of many theological issues which the Catholic Church holds to have already been settled once and for all. One of the examples of matters listed as “connected to revelation by historical necessity” and “to be held definitively,” is the invalidity of Anglican orders (11). This means that Catholic theologians, even in good faith, may not entertain discussions about the possibility that Leo XIII’s commission erred on this issue. The matter is closed.

It goes without saying that many Anglicans are offended by this assertion, believing that their hierarchy does indeed continue in succession from the original Apostles. As Jon notes in his question, many members of their clergy will insist that they are, in fact, “priests”— which, as we have just seen, the Catholic Church does not accept. Obviously, since they are not members of the Catholic Church, they are not bound by anything that the Pope decrees, so they are completely free to believe as they like! The purpose of both Pope Leo’s original statement, and of the  former Cardinal Ratzinger’s subsequent document, was not to criticize or offend members of the Anglican communion; it was to explain to Catholics that they cannot equate Anglican ministers with Catholic priests, and accept Anglican sacraments as equal to Catholic ones—they’re not.

It was also to clarify that if an Anglican cleric became a Catholic, he was not automatically a Catholic priest once he entered the Church. True, members of the Anglican clergy may have an excellent theological background that is in many ways comparable to that obtained by a typical Catholic priest during his seminary training; thus a former Anglican cleric who already has such an education might, at least in terms of his coursework, be “fast-tracked” on the road to ordination as a Catholic priest.

But he will need to spend a period of spiritual formation before Catholic ordination.  And it should be noted that before anything else, the Catholic bishop of his diocese must choose to accept him as a seminarian.  As we saw in “Can Homosexual Men be Ordained to the Priesthood?” nobody has an automatic right to be ordained a priest, no matter how strongly he may feel that the Lord is calling him to do this.  It will ultimately be the decision of the diocesan bishop, and is not up to the Anglican-cleric -turned-Catholic himself.

As was discussed just recently in “Episcopalians Entering the Catholic Church,” in the future the Church envisions establishment around the world of Ordinariates specifically for former Anglicans who have become Catholics. The Complementary Norms that accompanied the document outlining this new arrangement make specific mention of accepting former Anglicans into seminary training to become priests (Articles 4 and 10). Nowhere does it suggest that these Anglican clerics might already be validly ordained—it is taken for granted that they must be ordained by a Catholic bishop in order to become Catholic priests.

Thus we can see that while it may be quite true that, as Jon noted, many Anglican clergy refer to themselves as “priests,” they are not regarded as validly ordained as far as the Catholic Church is concerned. In many (if not most) cases, they will be welcomed into the path leading to the Catholic priesthood—but at the end of that path will definitely be the reception of the Catholic sacrament of holy orders.

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The Eucharist and Sacramental Validity, Part II

Posted on January 6, 2011 by canonlawmadeeasy

Q: How are some priests who are recovering alcoholics permitted to use grape juice instead of wine at Mass? Don’t you have to use wine to have a valid consecration of the Eucharist? –Doug

A: Doug’s question is, in a sense, related to the question addressed in “The Eucharist and Sacramental Validity, Part I,” about the reception of Holy Communion by those persons unable to ingest wheat bread because it contains gluten. Both of these questions directly involve the  issue of valid matter for the Eucharist, and thus many of the answers to both questions come from the same sources.

We’ve seen before that in accord with canon 2, liturgical laws are as a rule found in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) rather than in the Code of Canon Law itself. Since Doug’s question directly involves the liturgy, we’ll look to the GIRM for answers. But we are also dealing here with a question about what constitutes valid matter for a sacrament, and issues of validity/invalidity are a key concern of canon law. That’s why in this particular case, we will find information pertinent to Doug’s question in both the code and the GIRM.

Canon 924.3 states that the wine used for Mass must be natural, made from grapes, and not corrupt. The GIRM echoes this canon, and adds that the wine must be unadulterated—in other words, it must not contain other substances (322). Let’s take a look at the practical implications of these specifications.

First of all, the wine must be natural, so artificial drinks that might look and taste like wine cannot be used. It must be made from grapes, which means that strawberry, gooseberry, or any other sort of wine is prohibited. The wine has to be incorrupt, meaning that if it has turned to vinegar, or if through some defect in its production it has ultimately been reduced to sludge or some other substance, it may not be used. And finally, it must be unadulterated. Many wines on the market today contain extra sugar, which is added to speed up the fermentation process, and these wines thus cannot be used for Mass. Similarly, port wines are actually a mixture of grape wine and brandy, and these cannot be consecrated for precisely the same reason.

The rubrics require that a slight amount of water be added to the wine, and they are echoed by canon 924.1, which describes the contents of the chalice as “wine to which a small quantity of water is added.” This is done because traditionally, in the time of Christ, wine was drunk with some water added to it; we presume that this is what was done at the Last Supper as well.

In 2004, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments issued the Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, to regulate various matters pertaining to the proper celebration of the Eucharist. This document gave even more detailed directives regarding the type of wine that may be used at Mass:

It is altogether forbidden to use wine of doubtful authenticity or provenance, for the Church requires certainty regarding the conditions necessary for the validity of the sacraments. Nor are other drinks of any kind to be admitted for any reason, as they do not constitute valid matter (50).

The Church is very exact about the type of wine that is permissible, because it strives to follow Christ’s directive at the Last Supper, to “do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). We know that Our Lord must have consecrated ordinary grape wine such as is described by both the GIRM and the code, because on the night of the Last Supper, He and the Apostles would have been drinking the wine normally used by Jews at the Passover meal. Thus the Church cannot arbitrarily decide to permit the consecration of an entirely different sort of beverage at Mass, because this would be a violation of Christ’s specific directive.

But wine, by its very definition, is an alcoholic beverage, because the term “wine” always implies some degree of fermentation. Which brings us to the heart of Doug’s question: how can a priest who is suffering from alcoholism validly celebrate Mass if he is unable to drink anything containing alcohol? Many people presume that since wine is nothing more than fermented grape juice, a priest can simply consecrate grape juice instead of wine.

At first glance, they may seem to have a point. For even when grapes are picked and squeezed with the intention of making grape juice rather than wine, a degree of fermentation does indeed take place. The moment that the juice is pressed from the grapes, it begins to ferment, and some alcohol is thus created. Therefore, if we want to get really technical about it, it’s possible to argue that freshly pressed grape juice truly does contain a miniscule amount of alcohol—and the fermentation continues for as long as that grape juice sits in its bottle before somebody drinks it.

So this means that we can validly use grape juice at Mass whenever necessary, right? But not so fast. There are a couple of reasons why this is not the case.

Firstly, the grape juice commonly found in our grocery stores has been pasteurized. Pasteurization, the preservation-process which destroys bacteria, is brought about by heating the liquid to a specific temperature. When grape juice is pasteurized, not only are harmful germs destroyed, but the tiny amount of alcohol the juice contains also evaporates. This is why we can purchase grape juice in bottles or frozen concentrate at the supermarket, and know that it will last for at least several days in our refrigerator, without quickly turning to wine or vinegar. With pasteurization, the fermentation process ceases.

It is possible, however, to make a particular type of grape juice, known as mustum, that does contain the tiny bit of alcohol created in the first moments when the juice is squeezed. Using a carefully timed process, mustum is pressed and ordinarily it is then quickly frozen, in such a way that it does retain an alcohol content, but one that is much, much lower than ordinary wine. And in 2003, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), issued a letter stating that such mustum constitutes valid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist.

Therefore a priest who is unable to drink alcohol may celebrate Mass in which he validly consecrates mustum into the Blood of Christ. But he may not decide to do this on his own; the same CDF document states that a priest may use mustum only with the advance permission of the Ordinary (i.e., his bishop or certain other diocesan officials, c. 134.1). Shortly after publication of the CDF letter in 2003,  the bishops of the United States determined that there are a couple of different companies here which produce mustum under the proper conditions to render it valid matter for the Eucharist—again, a priest does not have authority to make this sort of determination himself. We can see evidence here of a careful attempt by the Church to ensure that only truly valid matter is used for the celebration of Mass.

In locations and situations where mustum is unavailable, what is a priest who cannot drink alcohol to do? We know from the same post mentioned previously that when celebrating Mass, a priest is required to consume the Eucharist under both species, and thus he cannot avoid drinking from the chalice. But there is a legitimate way around this problem: during the concelebration of Mass by more than one priest, a priest who is not the principal celebrant may receive the Eucharist by intinction, i.e., by dipping the Host into the Chalice, and thereby receiving only a very tiny amount of the Precious Blood.  If he is able to imbibe this slight amount of alcohol, the priest will in this way be able to celebrate Mass.  But in more severe cases, where even this miniscule amount would potentially cause problems for the priest, or when it is not logistically possible for a priest to concelebrate all the time, the use of mustum remains the valid alternative.

Occasionally a question about a possible solution to this problem is raised with regard to adding water to the chalice during Mass at the offertory, before it is consecrated. Could a priest who cannot drink alcohol conceivably pour only a tiny bit of wine into the chalice, and then add so much water that perhaps he would not be able to taste the alcohol in the wine?

The answer is an unequivocal no. For the Church holds that Christ Himself consecrated wine with a bit of water added—and not vice versa! If the contents of the chalice are diluted to the point that they can no longer be described as wine, this then constitutes invalid matter for the Eucharist. Nevertheless, while this is not a possibility, we can see that others exist that enable a priest who cannot drink alcohol to still say Mass. The Church has found means both to help him avoid alcohol and also to maintain the integrity of the Eucharist. We can see that it is possible, in this situation, to look out for the priest’s well-being while at the same time safeguarding the Mass.

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Episcopalians Entering the Catholic Church

Posted on December 9, 2010 by canonlawmadeeasy

Q: I didn’t understand the purpose of the Pope’s document last year on Episcopalians becoming Catholics. I mean, every year there are always some Episcopalians who convert, aren’t there? So did the Pope say something new?  –Jim

A: Yes, very much so.

The document which Jim is referencing is Anglicanorum Coetibus, an Apostolic Constitution issued by Pope Benedict about a year ago now.  In it, the Pope provided the framework for the formation of personal ordinariates designed specifically for Anglicans (generally called Episcopalians in the United States) who wish to enter the Catholic Church. The term “personal ordinariate” is not one that Catholics run across frequently, so let’s take a look at what it means, and also at the reasons why the Pope has determined that this structure will be helpful to those Anglicans who want to become Catholics in the future.

While “personal ordinariate” may not be a household term, ordinary Catholics certainly do know what a diocese is, and the concepts are similar. According to canon 369, a diocese is a portion of the people of God, entrusted to a bishop. Normally, this portion of the people of God is defined territorially (c. 372.1). Every Catholic who lives permanently within the established territorial boundaries of (say) the diocese of San Diego is—with a few exceptions that need not concern us here—a member of that diocese. In other words, a Catholic’s diocese is determined simply by his home address.

A personal ordinariate comprises a portion of the people of God, as a diocese does—but it is not purely territorial. Catholics become members of an ordinariate not based simply on where they live, but for some other reason. The most common examples of ordinariates are those which Rome has established for Catholic soldiers.

A military ordinariate is designed to care for the spiritual needs of the Catholic members of a particular country’s military forces, wherever they may happen to be. As we all know, American soldiers are stationed at any number of military bases, both here on American soil, and also in several foreign countries; and these bases happen to be located within the territory of different dioceses.  But every time that soldiers are transferred to another US base, or sent overseas, they are of course no longer residing within the diocese where they used to be. The frequent moving could wreak spiritual (not to mention canonical) havoc on soldiers planning to get married, or on soldiers’ young children preparing to receive the sacraments for the first time. Therefore, instead of transferring the responsibility for their spiritual care to a different bishop every time they are moved, the Church has instead arranged that they are always under the care of the ordinariate established for members of the US military.

This means that an American Catholic soldier is, by virtue of his status as a member of the US Armed Forces, a member of the military ordinariate for the US. If he is moved from Texas to Virginia and then on to Iraq, he is in fact living in a different diocese after every move, but the Archbishop who heads the military ordinariate is always responsible for his spiritual wellbeing.

To get back to Jim’s question now, what did Pope Benedict do in Anglicanorum Coetibus that is completely new? He established the possibility of ordinariates being established for former Episcopalians/Anglicans who become Catholics. The Pope did this in light of the undeniable fact that significantly large numbers of Episcopalians, including many of their clergy, have recently indicated a desire to join the Catholic Church.

Here in the United States, one doesn’t need to be Episcopalian to know that the Episcopal church has been rife with disagreements in recent years, particularly regarding the ordination of women and of homosexuals. These disputes obviously touch on some fundamental aspects of theology, as well as on current political and social issues.

The first of these disputes goes back several decades. Back in the 1970’s, the Episcopal church in the United States began to ordain women as deacons and priests, and Anglicans throughout the world soon followed. In the late 1980’s, they even began consecrating women as bishops. Each of these milestones occasioned vehement opposition among a significant number of Episcopalians who feel strongly that Christ reserved ordained ministry to men only.

Their opinion, of course, happens to echo the official position of the Catholic Church, which (as we saw in “Can Women be Ordained Priests?” and “Could the Pope Change the Law to Allow Women Priests?”) teaches that Christ deliberately established a male-only priesthood, and that women cannot be ordained to the clerical state. It was no surprise, therefore, that a large number of disillusioned Episcopalians and Anglicans throughout the world sought to join the Catholic Church when these events occurred.

Another wave of Episcopalians began entering the Catholic Church in 2003, after the election of an openly homosexual, non-celibate bishop in the United States. Sharp internal divisions within the Anglican communion still remain as a result of this man’s episcopal consecration. And part of the fallout entailed a sizeable number of Episcopalians/Anglicans being received into the Catholic Church, or planning or at least considering the move.

In some cases, whole parishes (or at least a large number of members) have become Catholic, along with their pastor, all at once! Here in the US, Pope John Paul II began to give permission for these groups of new Catholics to form special parishes of their own, and to use a form of Mass which, while it is truly a valid Catholic Mass approved by the Vatican, incorporates many prayers and rubrics from the Anglican service. The first of these parishes was established 30 years ago in Texas, and others have been created since. Generally their pastors are former Episcopalian clerics who entered the Catholic Church, and were subsequently ordained as Catholic priests and assigned to ministry in these parishes.

These individual parishes were canonically erected as parish churches in the dioceses where they are located territorially. Thus one occasionally finds a diocese with scores of parishes of the “regular” type, plus one Anglican-Use parish.

Pope Benedict’s new document is forward-thinking, as he clearly envisions that many more Episcopalians/Anglicans may want to establish similar parishes throughout the world in coming years. It would certainly be possible to leave the current arrangement the way it is, which might mean that in the future one might find only one Anglican-Use parish in Diocese A, but fifteen in Diocese B, and none at all in Diocese C. But the Pope has provided for another organizational system that might in the end ensure greater consistency and possibly also provide these Anglicans-turned-Catholics with a sense of unity, while at the same time being true members of the Catholic Church.

If a personal ordinariate is established for these new Catholics in the US, it would encompass all those new parishes of former Episcopalians located in every diocese in this country. Each parish, then, would be physically located in the territory of a particular diocese, but would not be under the direct spiritual care of the bishop of that diocese. Rather, they would all be under the care and authority of an “Ordinary,” their hierarchical superior, who might be either a bishop or a priest (see Complementary Norms for the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, 4.1) On a day-to-day practical level, this could occasionally get tricky, because the Ordinary would be required to coordinate his efforts with the diocesan bishops in whose territories these parishes would be located.

At this point, however, this is very much a work-in-progress, as no personal ordinariates have yet been established! While the wheels are turning and procedures for an ordinariate are currently being discussed right here in the US, this is obviously not an institution that can be set up overnight. Its arrangement will undoubtedly depend on the numbers of former Episcopalians who have become, or who have indicated that they will soon become Catholics; their geographic locations here in the US; the number of former Episcopalian pastors and other clerics who become Catholics and wish to be ordained Catholic priests; and numerous other practical factors.

In some countries, it may prove useful to establish multiple ordinariates, depending on the numbers of Episcopalians/Anglicans entering the Church there. In England, where establishment of a personal ordinariate is likewise in progress, hundreds of Anglican clergy, including five bishops, have already indicated that they will become Catholics. Erecting only one ordinariate for the entire country might therefore prove eventually inadequate.

While nobody knows yet the practical ramifications of this new arrangement throughout the world, we do know already that no matter what form this personal ordinariate takes both here in our own country and abroad, its members will be fully Catholic. History will show whether this turns out in the long run to be a big step forward in reuniting all Christians under the leadership of the Holy Father—thus fulfilling the prayer of Jesus Himself “that they all may be one.”

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The Eucharist and Sacramental Validity, Part I

Posted on November 11, 2010 by canonlawmadeeasy

Q:  One of my fellow-parishioners has a violent allergy to wheat, so he can’t receive the Eucharist under the form of bread. He has to receive from the chalice instead. Why can’t priests get permission to use some other type of unleavened bread at Mass since some people have this problem?  –Helene

A: Back in “Can You be Refused Holy Communion if You Kneel?” we saw that liturgical laws are, as a rule, not addressed by the Code of Canon Law. Instead, they are contained in the General Instruction on the Roman Missal (GIRM). One might, therefore, presume that the answer to Helene’s question can only be found outside of the code altogether.

But while the GIRM addresses this question (as we’ll see below), the code does likewise. This is not some accidental redundancy; the code must stipulate the correct matter to be used for the Eucharist, because canon law is directly concerned with anything that pertains directly to the validity of a sacrament. For if a priest is to celebrate a valid Mass, in which he truly consecrates the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, he must be using the proper types of bread and wine necessary for a valid consecration. Consequently, while it is of course true that Helene’s question refers to a liturgical issue, the code must address this particular matter all the same.

Canon 924.2 tells us exactly what the Eucharistic bread has to be made of: it must be wheat, and only wheat. The GIRM echoes the canon, adding that the bread must be unleavened (320). It doesn’t get any more straightforward than that! Using bread made of corn or rice, or any combination of grains, would be a clear violation of the law. This of course stems from the traditional understanding that at the Last Supper, Christ consecrated the unleavened wheat bread used at the Jewish Passover meal. The Church is thus striving to ensure that the matter used at Mass today is essentially the same matter that was used at the very first Mass, nearly 2000 years ago.

But as our questioner notes, there are a sizeable number of people who are unable to eat anything made from wheat. Persons who suffer from celiac disease are incapable of eating foods containing gluten, which is a protein found in flour made from wheat.

We Catholics of course know that a consecrated Host is, in reality, no longer just a piece of wheat bread, but has been changed into the Body of Christ. Catholic theologians will all point out, however, that it still retains the accidents (i.e., the external appearance and physical characteristics) of a piece of wheat bread, and thus a Catholic who cannot ingest gluten will be unable to receive the Host.

So what is a Catholic with this medical problem to do? Or perhaps it is more correct to ask, what should the Church do for a Catholic suffering from this health condition?

For starters, telling a Catholic with celiac disease that he simply can’t receive Holy Communion is not an option. As was discussed in detail back in “When Can a Priest Refuse to Absolve a Penitent in the Confessional?” Catholics have the right to receive the sacraments (c. 843.1). As if this general rule weren’t enough, canon 912 specifies that anyone who is not prohibited by law (such as tiny children, or excommunicated persons) must be admitted to Holy Communion. This right cannot be dismissed lightly, and definitely not because of a health problem which is obviously nobody’s fault! The Church must provide a way for these Catholics to receive the Eucharist. At the same time, however, the Church has to safeguard the validity of the sacrament, by ensuring that the matter that is used—bread, in this case—is not so substantially different that its consecration would be invalid.

And the Church has done precisely that. In 2003, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), under its then-Prefect, Cardinal Ratzinger, issued guidelines providing (among other things) for those Catholics who cannot receive the Host because of an inability to ingest gluten.

First of all, the guidelines state unequivocally that the use of bread which is completely gluten-free may not be used, because it constitutes invalid matter for the Eucharist (A.1.).  This means that using bread made from corn or other grains that do not contain gluten is not allowed —period. It also means, however, that using wheat bread which is completely devoid of gluten is likewise not permissible. The rationale is this: for the bread used at Mass to be valid matter, it must be true wheat bread, and this implies that it must contain gluten, which is a significant element in the composition of real wheat bread. In other words, take away the gluten completely, and what is left is not true bread. Thus while use of such gluten-free matter would obviously remove the problem for celiac-disease sufferers, it simply cannot be done.

What is possible, however, according to the CDF, is the use of wheat bread which contains only a very tiny amount of gluten (A.2.). There are in fact a couple of places in the world today which produce such bread, and bishops have been able to ascertain that the manner in which it is made is not so radically different from ordinary bread-making that it could be considered something other than wheat bread. If priests use this low-gluten bread at Mass, then those Catholics with celiac disease who can still tolerate a minute bit of gluten can still receive the Eucharistic Host.

But for those whose illness is so severe that ingesting even this miniscule amount of gluten is impossible, or for those in parishes where for whatever reason this low-gluten bread cannot be obtained, the document states that Holy Communion may be received under the species of wine only (B.1.).  This is apparently what is happening in Helene’s parish, and as we can see from the CDF document, it is a totally legitimate solution to the problem.

For the record, if in theory a diocesan bishop wanted to take issue with the CDF and use a type of bread that is prohibited by this document, he could not dispense from this law. (The notion of dispensation was discussed in detail back in “Marriage Between a Catholic and a Non-Catholic.”) Canon 841 explicitly states that only the supreme authority in the Church can approve or define what is needed for the validity of the sacraments. Thus any bishop who ignored or overruled the CDF’s guidelines would be sanctioning an invalid Mass. Helene’s suggestion that priests might somehow “get permission” to use different bread for Mass may sound reasonable on the surface, but it cannot be followed.

What happens when a priest himself is diagnosed with celiac disease? This presents a particular problem, because when a priest celebrates Mass, he must consume the Eucharist under both species—both the Host and the chalice.  But since nowadays low-gluten hosts have become more readily available (a good discussion of this issue may be found here), priests who are unable to consume an ordinary wheat host can generally obtain hosts which are sufficiently low in gluten for them to ingest without creating serious health issues.

So we can see that the Church has found ways for people with this particular health problem to receive Holy Communion, and for priests suffering from the same problem to celebrate Mass. The faithful are able to receive the Blessed Sacrament as is their right, without compromising the validity of the Eucharist—and thus these two critical needs can both be met.

Part II can be read here. 

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Posted in Clergy Issues, Holy Mass, The Eucharist | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on The Eucharist and Sacramental Validity, Part I