Rome diary: new thoughts on Eucharist

Catholic New Times, May 4, 2003 by Robert Blair Kaiser

In a crowded, frescoed room in an old Roman palazzo off the Piazza Navona in March, Jesuit Father Robert Taft cited history again.

He showed that Catholic Masses didn't use the so-called words of institution, "This is my body, this is my blood," until after the Council of Nicaea in 325, and that even then the words of institution were not ordered until the Council of Trent issued a decree in 1531, responding to Luther's challenge over transubstantiation.

A final affirmation of the notion that Jesus is not sacramentally present until the priest says the magical words, "This is my body," did not happen until Plus VII issued his brief, Adorabile Eucharistiae, on May 9, 1822.

We know now, said Taft, through some very thoroughgoing historical research, that no one in either the 'Eastern Church or Western Church, tried to identify a "moment of consecration apart from the prayer over the gifts in its entirety." These words did not comprise the essence of the Mass. This wasn't just Taft's opinion. It's now the official teaching of the church, according to a quiet instruction that the pope signed on July 20, 2001, which stated that Chaldean Catholics (many of whom live in Iraq) could participate in the valid Masses of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Orthodox "sister" Church that goes way back to the second century, even though these " Nestorians" had never used the words of institution. But they had a valid Mass all right, according to three Vatican offices (including the Holy Office), who prepped the pope on the liturgical history of the people of what is now Iraq. Their Mass was celebrated in the words of the ancient, Anaphora of Adai and Mart, which, said Taft, may lack the words of institution in so many words, but contains those words "in explicit, if oblique, references to the eucharistic institution, to the Last Supper, to the body and blood and sacrifice of Christ, and to the oblation of the church, thereby clearly demonstrating the intention of repeating what Jesus did, in obedience to his command: 'Do this in memory of me.'"

Vatican tends to be literal

Taft didn't write this final Vatican document (though in his 40 years in Rome he has written a good many of them) but he was one of 26 theologians and historians who were asked to give their opinion on it before it won approval by the Holy Office and got the pope's signature. Taft never thought that would happen. (The modern Holy Office leans toward the literal and the philosophical, not the symbolic and the evocative.) But the cardinals who vote on major decisions by the Holy Office couldn't ignore the history. One of them, the highly intelligent Cardinal James Francis Stafford, an American, was there at Taft's talk tonight, and he admitted afterward that he wanted to vote in the negative, but couldn't because "the history was too clear." (Which makes me think that reformers in the Church ought to find their inspiration for change deep in the Catholic tradition. Few can argue with history.)

In his talk, Taft summed up the history of the Assyrians of the East. "From an historical and ecumenical point of view," he asked, "on what legitimate theological and ecclesiological basis could Rome argue that an apostolic church's ancient principal of anaphora had been in continuous use since time immemorial without ever being condemned by anyone, not by any father of the church, nor by any local or provincial synod, nor by ecumenical council, nor patriarch nor pope. On what basis would one dare to infer, even implicitly, that such an ancient apostolic church did not and had never had a valid eucharistic sacrifice? The words of eucharistic institution are indeed present in the anaphora of Addai and Mari, not in a coherent narrative way and ad litteram, but they are integrated in successive prayers of thanksgiving, praise and intercession. This was obviously intended to recapitulate the memory of the Last Supper, when Jesus blessed bread and wine and bid his disciple to repeat this in memory of him. Said Taft: "This is the most remarkable magisterial document since Vatican II."

In my opinion, it was remarkable in this, that the Vatican decision was a blow to the church's literal traditionalists, most of whom have no truck with ancient history at all. They remember the kind of church they lived in before Vatican II. To them, anything that departs from that is heresy. When, for instance, a group of self-styled "Catholic restorationists" based in Detroit, learned of the papal order, they blasted away at Pope John Paul II. This proved, said their spokesman, the Most Rev. Donald J. Sanborn, that "the pope is not a Catholic. Imagine: he has approved as valid a Mass which does not even have the words of consecration."

"The Holy Spirit is in charge, not the hierarchy"

In fact, Sanborn is, officially at least, the one who is not a Catholic. He asserts that there hasn't been a legitimate pope since Plus XII. His successor, John XXIII, blew it by calling Vatican II, and so have his successors who have tried, more or less, to follow its reforming spirit. In February 2002, Sanborn wrote to potential funders of his church: "the Vatican II religion is an infallible sign of its falsehood and wretchedness. Whatever appearances they may have, the authors of this defection, Wojtyla and his minions, are phonies."