Most Rev. Álvaro Corrada, S.J. Bishop of Tyler 1015 ESE Loop 323 Tyler, Texas 75701-9663
Your Excellency,
A priest friend of mine recently alerted me to your Pastoral Reflection on the Sacrament of Confirmation which accompanied Your Excellency’s reform in the Diocese of Tyler concerning this sacrament. I was so impressed with Your Excellency’s reflections, along with the pastoral leadership evidenced by the reform, that I felt I had to write and offer my sincere and heartfelt congratulations.
Your underlined summation is a shinning example of your economy of words, not to mention your penchant for hitting the target dead-center: "The Sacrament of Confirmation strengthens the person to bear witness, rather than expresses the person's determination to bear witness, to his faith." As a priest of an Eastern Catholic Church, I have come to believe that the way the West has morphed the sacrament in question into a "coming of age" type of thing basically strips it of it's supernatural character, not unlike giving someone a gold watch or a key chain. The Sacraments of the Living are not "rites of passage" in the secular sense, though that's what Confirmation has become in the West. At the same time, you wisely do not advocate regressing to the Eastern practice, and make the case well for the historical development of this sacrament in the West and it’s crucial but often forgotten relationship to the Eucharist itself, pointing out that this history is not a reason to allow the sacrament to be "de-sacralized" into a mere social act, which is what the current common practice in the West does. I like the way we do Chrismation in the Eastern Church, unseparated from Baptism; but if one recognizes the legitimacy of the development which took place in the West concerning the reservation of the ministration of this sacrament to the bishop (as I'm sure we must), then your reform is just what the doctor ordered, especially in regard to the ancient order of receiving the sacraments of initiation: Baptism, Confirmation & Eucharist.
I will, however, offer a prediction: liberals, particularly educators, will decry this move on two grounds, one overt and one covert. Overtly, the complaint will be that no it longer holds a carrot in front of parents to keep their kids in religious education after Confirmation; covertly, it will be viewed as an attack on a fifty year old attempt (largely successful) to strip all the sacraments of their supernatural character and transform them into social events. "What’s next?" they will say. "Suggesting that people examine their consciences before receiving the Eucharist?" When I first sought permission from my bishop to leave the Roman Catholic diocese for which I was ordained to seek priestly service in an eparchy of an Eastern Catholic Church, it was for a variety of reasons; but one of them surely was the difficulty I had in tolerating an approach to the sacramental life of the Church -- particularly in the celebration of the Eucharist -- which viewed such things in an increasingly exaggerated social context without any concern for the Divine Mystery which is the very life of the Church, the Body of Christ.
But what most impressed me in Your Excellency’s reflections was the very first sentence: "As your bishop and successor of the apostles amongst you, I desire to hand down traditio received from the Lord Jesus and His apostles." No where can one find a more concise and accurate "job description" of a bishop! It is a form of episcopal teaching not heard on these shores for some time. This single sentence betrays a seriousness of pastoral concern and a breadth of character sadly lacking -- or so it seems to me -- among many of those who possess the highest degree of the priesthood: a spiritually and doctrinally focused approach to church leadership which, had it been more extant in the last half-century, would have avoided a multiplicity of problems too painful to recount.
I hope that Your Excellency will receive these compliments in the spirit in which I intended to offer them: Among our bishops today there seem to be many bureaucrats and administrators and very few apostles. Whenever I stumble across one, I have to pause and say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
With a promise of my prayers and asking for a kind remembrance in yours, I am
Respectfully in our Lord,
(Rev.) J. Michael Venditti
Many happy years, Father!
I enjoyed your post. While I personally prefer the status quo in the Byzantine church, I can understand that the Latin church has it's reasons for what it does.
I really liked your point about ".. a fifty year old attempt (largely successful) to strip all the sacraments of their supernatural character and transform them into social events."
I think this attempt to strip the Mysteries of their supernatural character is particularly evident in both marriage and the distribution of first Eucharist. The ceremonies have been stripped of their religious context, and become something of an excuse for a photo op or a party.