Catechism Of the Crisis In the Church
After examining the nature of the sacraments in the last installment, the Catechism looks at modern abuses of the Sacrament of Penance and the origin of "baptism in the Spirit."
86) Are the sacraments community celebrations?
Certainly, Christianity has a communitarian character. The Christians, members of the Mystical Body of Christ, are for this reason intimately united with one another. From the fact that the sacraments graft us into the Body of Christ and unite us ever more intimately with it, they also maintain communion among Christians. But the principal effect is firstly union with Christ, from which flows the union of Christians.
This order is often inverted nowadays. The sacraments are considered first of all as community celebrations that, as communitarian, favor the union of men with God. They will say, for instance, that the principal effect of baptism is the reception of the baptized into the parish community, which is false.
Are these new theories very widespread?
We read these surprising words from the pen of Cardinal Ratzinger: “The concept of sacraments as the means of a grace that I receive like a supernatural medicine in order, as it were, to ensure only my own private eternal health is the supreme misunderstanding of what a sacrament truly is.”1
In what is this sentence of [then] Cardinal Ratzinger surprising?
This sentence is surprising because the sacraments are well and good supernatural remedies destined for our healing and spiritual health, even if it is not under this caricaturized form. But mockery is always the easiest way to present something in a bad light when solid arguments are lacking.
Has Cardinal Ratzinger a false concept of the sacraments?
Cardinal Ratzinger has an erroneous idea of the communitarian character of the sacraments, as the following quotations show:
But union with him [God] is, accordingly, inseparable from and a consequence of our own unity....Grace is always the beginning of union. As a liturgical event, a sacrament is always the work of a community; it is, as it were, the Christian way of celebrating, the warranty of a joy that issues from the community and from the fullness of power that is vested in it.2
What is the error underlying these passages?
The accent is falsely displaced, for the result is made the main element. The union of Christians with one another and the joy of faith and salvation, etc., are the consequences and not the essence of the grace that unites souls to God.
87) May the Church suppress or add sacraments?
The seven sacraments were instituted by Jesus Christ Himself. The Church thus has no power either to suppress any of the seven or to add new ones. It is bound by the order of Christ.
Were sacraments suppressed or added after Vatican II?
Without having been explicitly suppressed, one might say that the sacrament of confession is, in practice, moribund in many parts of the Church. Also, without presenting it explicitly as a sacrament, some people introduced into the Church the Pentecostal rite of the effusion of the Spirit (or the “baptism in the Spirit”), which is given by imposition of hands and strangely resembles an eighth sacrament.
Isn’t the sacrament of penance today administered in the form of penance services?
The penance service which, in many places, pretends to replace confession is not identical to the sacrament. This ceremony does not have the power to remit sins, in particular mortal sins.
Why can’t the collective absolutions given during penance services remit mortal sins?
The Council of Trent solemnly defined that it is necessary to avow in detail mortal sins committed after baptism to be able to receive absolution for them, and that this obligation comes from God Himself (the Church thus cannot change it):
If anyone says that in the sacrament of penance it is not necessary by divine law for the remission of sins to confess each and all mortal sins...let him be anathema.3
Can’t absolution ever be given collectively (without individual confession)?
Collective absolution is only possible in cases of grave necessity. Those who receive it only receive the remission of their sins insofar as they would be ready and willing to confess their sins to a priest individually if they could (and, for this reason, they remain bound to do so should they escape the danger that justified the collective absolution).
What are the cases of grave necessity justifying collective absolution?
The cases of grave necessity justifying collective absolution mainly involve imminent danger of death (onboard a sinking ship, for example, or on a battlefield). During World War II, taking into account the upheavals of the time (deportation or prisoners without access to priests), the Sacred Penitentiary allowed the giving of collective absolution to crowds who, without it being their fault, risked otherwise going for a long time (and hence dying) without the sacraments.4
Aren’t present-day penance services simply an extension of this permission given in 1944?
Collective absolutions can only be valid in the case of grave and urgent necessity in which individual confession is really impossible. Only necessity can, in effect, dispense a divine commandment. It is glaringly obvious that contemporary penance services do not come under the state of necessity. In the note of March 25, 1944, mentioned above, the Sacred Penitentiary moreover recalled the teaching already given by Innocent XI in 1679: even a great crowd of faithful (during a feast, for example) is not sufficient cause for giving absolution to penitents who had not confessed individually, nor even to those half of whom had confessed.5
Whence comes this necessity of confessing one’s sins to obtain their pardon?
To prevent men from treating sin lightly and to enable them to receive appropriate counsel, our Lord Jesus Christ established priests as judges and physicians of souls (Jn. 20:22-23). To obtain absolution, it is necessary to come and manifest to them the state of one’s soul.6
Aren’t the penance services at least able to forgive venial sins, while those who have committed mortal sins could be invited to confess them individually to a priest?
Such an invitation to confess especially serious sins in private would necessarily have a discouraging effect. After such an announcement, who would still have the courage to go and kneel in a confessional, thereby displaying in the eyes of everyone that he had committed particularly heavy faults?
What are the consequences of these new penance services?
One may well fear that numerous Catholics stay in a state of mortal sin and run the risk of being eternally lost.
Whence comes this general disaffection for confession?
The general disaffection for confession comes in large part from the fact that today Catholics no longer have a sense of sin.
Why do Catholics not have a sense of sin any more?
Catholics no longer have a sense of sin because quite often their priests and bishops no longer have it themselves. Instead of denouncing the gravity of offenses against God, preaching penance, and encouraging flight from dangerous occasions, they reduce everything to a human level (only offenses against human dignity count), neglect Divine justice, minimize the consequences of sin, and forget the necessity of making reparation.
Can you give an example of the way in which some priests and bishops destroy the sense of sin?
During a meeting of the Deanery Council at Wangen, in the Allgäu (October 17, 1983), Canon Hubert Bour gave a conference on the theme “Sin and Forgiveness.” He asserted notably:
The notion of mortal sin has been greatly abused; mere bagatelles have been made into mortal sins. Mortal sin is not the normal case. To a question about the frequency of mortal sin, a well-known theologian answered that perhaps one a day was committed in Paris and one from time to time in our diocese.
Is the sacrament of penance expressly attacked?
In the same conference, Canon Bour declared that the call to penance and conversion did not play a “central role” in Jesus’ teaching; that Jesus did not “expressly institute the sacrament of penance, even if two passages of the New Testament led to that belief”; that the passage of St. John’s Gospel traditionally understood as instituting the sacrament of penance (“Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them...” Jn. 20:23) referred rather to baptism.
What is the Church’s teaching on these points?
Here are the condemnations levied by the Council of Trent:
Can. 1. If anyone says that in the Catholic Church penance is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ our Lord to reconcile the faithful, as often as they fall into sin after baptism: let him be anathema.
Can. 2. If anyone, confusing the sacraments, says that baptism itself is the sacrament of penance, as though these two sacraments are not distinct, and that therefore penance is not rightly called “a second plank after shipwreck”: let him be anathema.
Can. 3. If anyone says that those words of the Lord Savior: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained” [Jn. 20:22 ff.], are not to be understood of the power of remitting and retaining sins in the sacrament of penance...: let him be anathema.
What is the rite known as “the baptism in the Spirit”?
The rite of “baptism in the Spirit”7 was originally the distinctive mark of a Protestant sect called the Pentecostalists. It is a laying on of hands for the purpose of giving a palpable experience of the Holy Spirit and a participation of the charismatic gifts of the first Christians, especially speaking in tongues.
What is the origin of this Pentecostal rite?
Pentecostalism was born during the night of December 31, 1900, to January 1, 1901, in Topeka, Kansas.8 In the hope of regaining the charisms of the Apostles (especially speaking in tongues), the Methodist pastor Charles Parham (1873-1929) laid hands on a girl named Agnes Ozman.9 She immediately began to speak an unknown language, which a Czech recognized the next day as his mother tongue. The experience continued on the following days, and Pastor Parham set out to preach his discovery. Arrested later on a morals charge (he was accused of sodomy), Pastor Parham was eclipsed by some of his disciples, like William Seymour (1873-1929).10
How did the new Pentecostal rite spread?
The “Pentecostalists” were at first rejected even by the Protestants (they were called “shakers” because of their contortions or “rollers” because some of them rolled on the ground during their services). They established their own chapels and organized themselves in very restricted groups. It was only during the 1930s in Europe, and in the 1950s in the United States, that their rite was taken outside of strictly Pentecostal churches to penetrate all Christian denominations. Pastor David du Plessis (1905-87) was the main architect of this “ecumenical” propagation of “the baptism in the Spirit.” At the end of the 20th century, there were about 100 million Pentecostalists worldwide.
1 Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology (1982; Ignatius Press, 1987), p.49.
2 Ibid., pp.49-50, 51.
3 Council of Trent, Session 14, Canon 7, DS 1707.
4 Note of the Sacred Penitentiary of March 25, 1944, AAS, 1944, p.156.
5 Decree of March 2, 1679, DS 2159.
6 St. Thomas Aquinas, Supple. Q.6, Art. 1.
7 The Pentecostalists cite the words of John the Baptist: “I have baptized you with water; but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost” (Mk. 1:8). But in reality St. John the Baptist was speaking here of the sacrament of baptism that our Lord was going to institute and which, as distinct from St. John’s baptism—a baptism of repentance—was to give the Holy Spirit. The difference between these two baptisms is clearly stated in the Acts of the Apostles (19:3-6).
8 It was also in the United States that spiritualism was born, in 1847, when the Fox family girls in the village of Hyderville (in New York State) tried to make contact with the poltergeist that haunted their house. Ten years later, spiritualism counted more than ten million adepts.
9 Agnes Ozman had requested this laying on of hands herself based on the Acts of the Apostles (8:17-19; 9:17; 19:6).
10 Bothered by the personality of Charles Parham, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, some Pentecostalists today prefer to trace their movement to Seymour’s preaching in Los Angeles, April 9, 1906. That evening, the audience received the “baptism in the Spirit” and began to speak in tongues, to laugh, to cry, to sing, to clap their hands and stamp their feet so vehemently that the old house where they were meeting collapsed. Another Pentecostal illumination (analogous to the first, but independent) occurred in Great Britain in 1904 and considerably influenced French Protestantism. But “Catholic” charismatism, even in France, is linked to American Pentecostalism. See A. De Lassus, Le Renouveau charismatique aujourd’hui, Supplement to Action Familiale et Scolaire, No. 162, pp. 48, 61-65, 135.
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