German bishop criticizes methods used to oppose Eucharistic hospitality

A German bishop has criticized a small minority in his nation’s episcopal conference for questioning the orthodoxy of the vast majority of bishops who favor a pastoral plan to allow non-Catholic spouses in inter-confessional marriages to receive the Eucharist at Mass.

“We must get out of this way of argumentation which uses insinuation and suspicion and acts as if the position of the majority is out of line with church teaching,” said Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz.

“I feel personally affected when, in their letter to Rome, the seven bishops warn that my vote and that of the majority of my fellow bishops is endangering the deposit of the faith and church unity,” he said in an interview published May 12 in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger.

The 51-year-old Kohlgraf, who just last year succeeded Cardinal Karl Lehmann as bishop of Mainz and is Germany’s youngest bishop, said he did not believe Pope Francis saw this as a danger either.

He said that, on the contrary, Francis praised the German bishops’ ecumenical commitment and signaled how they could proceed. He said the pope has often pointed out that ecumenism is not a case of black or white or yes or no.

Bishop Kohlgraf said Francis now expects the bishops to reach a consensus on Eucharistic hospitality that is “as unanimous as possible.”

But he emphasized that this does not mean fully unanimous. He said it was his understanding, however, that dealing with this issue was within the competence of the German bishops.

Their task now, he said, was to explain their interpretation of shared communion to those mixed marriage couples who still had a problem with receiving the Catholic Eucharist or had already made up their own minds.

“Let’s be honest. People vote with their feet. And while I’m the last person to say, ‘OK, we must follow the crowd,’ conversely I ask myself if we really think we must protect God by deciding who may go to communion and who may not?” the bishop said.

Asked what would happen if the bishops could not agree on the communion handout, Kohlgraf said in that case every bishop would be free to allow Eucharistic hospitality in his diocese or not.

“But I do wonder what would happen if the ruling in Cologne were different to the one in Aachen. I’m quite sure that that would further increase incomprehension and resentment among the faithful. In fact I can positively hear people saying ‘we can’t take what the bishops say seriously any longer,’” he said.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is president of the German bishops’ conference, said on May 13 that he would be informing his fellow bishops extensively “in the next few days” on what he and a small delegation of German bishops discussed with Vatican officials in Rome.

The cardinal told the German Catholic news agency KNA that he hoped the bishops could re-start their discussions on the issue next month when the episcopal conference’s permanent council meets.

He said he was confident that a “consensual” agreement would be found. However, he also added this caveat: “We want to find as great a consensus as possible but one cannot go on discussing and re-discussing the issue until a unanimous decision is reached.”

Cardinal Marx said that, in the end, it would be up to each diocesan bishop to decide whether or not to allow Eucharist hospitality in his diocese.

But he stressed that all the bishops, and not just the two opposing groups, should therefore approach one another and make a concerted effort to seek common ground.

Maybe it’s just a game for them to zero in on the only sinless woman who ever lived, the purest, the truest, the sweetest, the Mother of God who nursed Jesus as a babe and stood by him at the cross... and make jokes and pathetic comments about her.

Mary was not sinless.

She was in need of a savior.

What is pathetic is how Roman Catholics have seemingly replaced the Son and the Spirit with "Mary".

The Mary of the New Testament would be appalled at seeing idols of her with Roman Catholics kneeling before them and praying to her and relying upon her for salvation.

The Mary of the New Testament would not say, "I alone am able still to save you from the calamities which approach. Those who place their confidence in me will be saved." [quote of the apparition at Akita]

What happened to respecting other faiths?

Paul called the Galatians foolish as they had departed from the faith.

That "protect God" Catholic concern is the result of making the Lord's supper to be focused upon the nature of the elements consumed rather than it being (as 1 Corinthians 10+11 teaches) an effectual communal remembrance of and thus a declaration of the Lord's death,(1 Corinthians 11:26) by which He purchased the church, (Acts 20:28) which declares this by sharing bread and wine with each other as bought saints bought by Christ's sinless shed blood.

Who are to manifest fellowship with Christ and each other by this communal sharing of a actual meal, like as pagans manifest fellowship with their object of worship and each other in their dedicatory feasts. (1 Corinthians 10:15-23)

Thus to eat independent of each others, ignoring and thus shaming those who have not, is to "not eat the Lord's supper," and which was the sin and cause of judgment in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 (see here ), that of not effectually recognizing the body of Christ, which theme of unity continues into the next chapter.

Likewise, to take part in pagan religious feasts as well as sanction Christian communion to anyone is also to incur judgment, by signifying fellowship with those who are not of God, and are contrary to Him, and in the case of Christian communion it is defiling what is to be a holy declarative communion with Christ and each other who are bought with His blood. To take part in the Lord's supper while being or acting contrary to those for whom Christ died is to "come together unto condemnation."

But if the congregation is told before hand what this supper is about, which thus requires manifest regeneration and treating others as blood-bought saints (both in positive affirmation as well as needed correction) then if some presume to be partakers their blood is on their own hands.

Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. (1 Corinthians 11:17)

When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. (1 Corinthians 11:20-22)

For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 11:26-27)

Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come. (1 Corinthians 11:33-34)

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Meanwhile, if the concern is that of protecting God as being the Eucharist from defilement, then Catholicism needs to change her theology, since if the bread and wine are wholly changed into Christ's "true body" even down to the smallest particles, then some would be airborne, and subject to being trampled under foot and ending up in the vacuum cleaner, or carries about by wind to worse locales.

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