Catholics and the Next America

One of the key myths of the American Catholic imagination is this: After 200 years of fighting against public prejudice, Catholics finally broke through into America’s mainstream with the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy as president. It’s a happy thought, and not without grounding. Next to America’s broad collection of evangelical churches, baptized Catholics now make up the biggest religious community in the United States. They serve in large numbers in Congress. They have a majority on the Supreme Court. They play commanding roles in the professions and in business leadership. They’ve climbed, at long last, the Mt. Zion of social acceptance.

So goes the tale. What this has actually meant for the direction of American life, however, is another matter. Catholic statistics once seemed impressive. They filled many of us with tribal pride. But they didn’t stop a new and quite alien national landscape, a “next America,” from emerging right under our noses.

While both Barna Group and Pew Research Center data show that Americans remain a broadly Christian people, old religious loyalties are steadily softening. Overall, the number of Americans claiming no religious affiliation, about 16 percent, has doubled since 1990. One quarter of Americans aged 18-29 have no affiliation with any particular religion, and as the Barna Group noted in 2007, they “exhibit a greater degree of criticism toward Christianity than did previous generations when they were at the same stage of life. In fact, in just a decade . . . the Christian image [has] shifted substantially downward, fueled in part by a growing sense of disengagement and disillusionment among young people.”

Catholic losses have been masked by Latino immigration. But while 31 percent of Americans say they were raised in the Catholic faith, fewer than 24 percent of Americans now describe themselves as Catholic.

These facts have weight because, traditionally, religious faith has provided the basis for Americans’ moral consensus. And that moral consensus has informed American social policy and law. What people believe—or don’t believe—about God, helps to shape what they believe about men and women. And what they believe about men and women creates the framework for a nation’s public life.

Or to put it more plainly: In the coming decades Catholics will likely find it harder, not easier, to influence the course of American culture, or even to live their faith authentically. And the big difference between the “next America” and the old one will be that plenty of other committed religious believers may find themselves in the same unpleasant jam as their Catholic cousins.

At first hearing, this scenario might sound implausible; and for good reason. The roots of the American experience are deeply Protestant. They go back a very long way, to well before the nation’s founding. Whatever one thinks of the early Puritan colonists—and Catholics have few reasons to remember them fondly—no reader can study Gov. John Winthrop’s great 1630 homily before embarking for New England without being moved by the zeal and candor of the faith that produced it. In “A model of Christian charity,” he told his fellow colonists:

Not a bad summary of Christian discipleship, made urgent for Winthrop by the prospect of leading 700 souls on a hard, two-month voyage across the North Atlantic to an equally hard New World. What happened when they got there is a matter of historical record. And different agendas interpret the record differently.

The Puritan habits of hard work, industry and faith branded themselves on the American personality. While Puritan influence later diluted in waves of immigrants from other Protestant traditions, it clearly helped shape the political beliefs of John Adams and many of the other American Founders. Adams and his colleagues were men who, as Daniel Boorstin once suggested, had minds that were a “miscellany and a museum;” men who could blend the old and the new, an earnest Christian faith and Enlightenment ideas, without destroying either.

But beginning in the nineteenth century, riding a crest of scientific and industrial change, a different view of the Puritans began to emerge. In the language of their critics, the Puritans were seen as intolerant, sexually repressed, narrow-minded witch-hunters who masked material greed with a veneer of Calvinist virtue. Cast as religious fanatics, the Puritans stood accused of planting the seed of nationalist messianism by portraying America as a New Jerusalem, a “city upon a hill” (from Winthrop’s homily), with a globally redemptive mission. H.L. Mencken—equally skilled as a writer, humorist and anti-religious bigot—famously described the Puritan as a man “with the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

In recent years, scholars like Christian Smith have shown how the intellectual weakness and fierce internal divisions of America’s Protestant establishment allowed “the secularization of modern public life as a kind of political revolution.” Carried out mainly between 1870 and 1930, this “rebel insurgency consisted of waves of networks of activists who were largely skeptical, freethinking, agnostic, atheist or theologically liberal; who were well educated and socially located mainly in the knowledge-production occupations, and who generally espoused materialism, naturalism, positivism and the privatization or extinction of religion.”

This insurgency could be ignored, or at least contained, for a long time. Why? Because America’s social consensus supported the country’s unofficial Christian assumptions, traditions and religion-friendly habits of thought and behavior. But law—even a constitutional guarantee—is only as strong as the popular belief that sustains it. That traditional consensus is now much weakened. Seventy years of soft atheism trickling down in a steady catechesis from our universities, social-science “helping professions,” and entertainment and news media, have eroded it.

Obviously many faith-friendly exceptions exist in each of these professional fields. And other culprits, not listed above, may also be responsible for our predicament. The late Christopher Lasch argued that modern consumer capitalism breeds and needs a “culture of narcissism”—i.e., a citizenry of weak, self-absorbed, needy personalities—in order to sustain itself. Christian Smith put it somewhat differently when he wrote that, in modern capitalism, labor “is mobile as needed, consumers purchase what is promoted, workers perform as demanded, managers execute as expected—and profits flow. And what the Torah, or the Pope, or Jesus may say in opposition is not relevant, because those are private matters” [emphasis in original].

My point here is neither to defend nor criticize our economic system. Others are much better equipped to do that than I am. My point is that “I shop, therefore I am” is not a good premise for life in a democratic society like the United States. Our country depends for its survival on an engaged, literate electorate gathered around commonly held ideals. But the practical, pastoral reality facing the Gospel in America today is a human landscape shaped by advertising, an industry Pascal Bruckner described so well as a “smiling form of sorcery”:

Now, where do Catholics fit into this story?

The same Puritan worldview that informed John Winthrop’s homily so movingly, also reviled “Popery,” Catholic ritual and lingering “Romish” influences in England’s established Anglican Church. The Catholic Church was widely seen as Revelation’s Whore of Babylon. Time passed, and the American religious landscape became more diverse. But the nation’s many different Protestant sects shared a common, foreign ogre in their perceptions of the Holy See—perceptions made worse by Rome’s distrust of democracy and religious liberty. As a result, Catholics in America faced harsh Protestant discrimination throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. This included occasional riots and even physical attacks on convents, churches and seminaries. Such is the history that made John F. Kennedy’s success seem so liberating.

The irony is that mainline American Protestantism had used up much of its moral and intellectual power by 1960. Secularizers had already crushed it in the war for the cultural high ground. In effect, after so many decades of struggle, Catholics arrived on America’s center stage just as management of the theater had changed hands -- with the new owners even less friendly, but far shrewder and much more ambitious in their social and political goals, than the old ones. Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox, despite their many differences, share far more than divides them, beginning with Jesus Christ himself. They also share with Jews a belief in the God of Israel and a reverence for God’s Word in the Old Testament. But the gulf between belief and unbelief, or belief and disinterest, is vastly wider.

In the years since Kennedy’s election, Vatican II and the cultural upheavals of the 1960s, two generations of citizens have grown to maturity. The world is a different place. America is a different place—and in some ways, a far more troubling one. We can’t change history, though we need to remember and understand it. But we can only blame outside factors for our present realities up to a point. As Catholics, like so many other American Christians, we have too often made our country what it is through our appetite for success, our self-delusion, our eagerness to fit in, our vanity, our compromises, our self-absorption and our tepid faith.

If government now pressures religious entities out of the public square, or promotes same-sex “marriage,” or acts in ways that undermine the integrity of the family, or compromises the sanctity of human life, or overrides the will of voters, or discourages certain forms of religious teaching as “hate speech,” or interferes with individual and communal rights of conscience—well, why not? In the name of tolerance and pluralism, we have forgotten why and how we began as nation; and we have undermined our ability to ground our arguments in anything higher than our own sectarian opinions.

The “next America” has been in its chrysalis a long time. Whether people will be happy when it fully emerges remains to be seen. But the future is not predestined. We create it with our choices. And the most important choice we can make is both terribly simple and terribly hard: to actually live what the Church teaches, to win the hearts of others by our witness, and to renew the soul of our country with the courage of our own Christian faith and integrity. There is no more revolutionary act.

Charles J. Chaput is the archbishop of Denver.

You wrote:

“The Puritan Board posted Augustine who denied Rome’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper.”

St. Augustine did no such thing. Anti-Catholics simply take some of his comments out of context. The following are NOT out of context and are taken from http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/num30.htm

ST. AUGUSTINE (c. 354 - 430 A.D.)

“That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God IS THE BODY OF CHRIST. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, IS THE BLOOD OF CHRIST. Through that bread and wine the Lord Christ willed to commend HIS BODY AND BLOOD, WHICH HE POURED OUT FOR US UNTO THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.” (Sermons 227)

“The Lord Jesus wanted those whose eyes were held lest they should recognize him, to recognize Him in the breaking of the bread [Luke 24:16,30-35]. The faithful know what I am saying. They know Christ in the breaking of the bread. For not all bread, but only that which receives the blessing of Christ, BECOMES CHRIST’S BODY.” (Sermons 234:2)

“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that THE BREAD IS THE BODY OF CHRIST AND THE CHALICE [WINE] THE BLOOD OF CHRIST.” (Sermons 272)

“How this [’And he was carried in his own hands’] should be understood literally of David, we cannot discover; but we can discover how it is meant of Christ. FOR CHRIST WAS CARRIED IN HIS OWN HANDS, WHEN, REFERRING TO HIS OWN BODY, HE SAID: ‘THIS IS MY BODY.’ FOR HE CARRIED THAT BODY IN HIS HANDS.” (Psalms 33:1:10)

“Was not Christ IMMOLATED only once in His very Person? In the Sacrament, nevertheless, He is IMMOLATED for the people not only on every Easter Solemnity but on every day; and a man would not be lying if, when asked, he were to reply that Christ is being IMMOLATED.” (Letters 98:9)

“Christ is both the Priest, OFFERING Himself, and Himself the Victim. He willed that the SACRAMENTAL SIGN of this should be the daily Sacrifice of the Church, who, since the Church is His body and He the Head, learns to OFFER herself through Him.” (City of God 10:20)

“By those sacrifices of the Old Law, this one Sacrifice is signified, in which there is a true remission of sins; but not only is no one forbidden to take as food the Blood of this Sacrifice, rather, all who wish to possess life are exhorted to drink thereof.” (Questions on the Heptateuch 3:57)

“Nor can it be denied that the souls of the dead find relief through the piety of their friends and relatives who are still alive, when the Sacrifice of the Mediator is OFFERED for them, or when alms are given in the church.” (Ench Faith, Hope, Love 29:110)

“But by the prayers of the Holy Church, and by the SALVIFIC SACRIFICE, and by the alms which are given for their spirits, there is no doubt that the dead are aided that the Lord might deal more mercifully with them than their sins would deserve. FOR THE WHOLE CHURCH OBSERVES THIS PRACTICE WHICH WAS HANDED DOWN BY THE FATHERS that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the Sacrifice itself; and the Sacrifice is OFFERED also in memory of them, on their behalf. If, the works of mercy are celebrated for the sake of those who are being remembered, who would hesitate to recommend them, on whose behalf prayers to God are not offered in vain? It is not at all to be doubted that such prayers are of profit to the dead; but for such of them as lived before their death in a way that makes it possible for these things to be useful to them after death.” (Sermons 172:2)

“...I turn to Christ, because it is He whom I seek here; and I discover how the earth is adored without impiety, how without impiety the footstool of His feet is adored. For He received earth from earth; because flesh is from the earth, and He took flesh from the flesh of Mary. He walked here in the same flesh, AND GAVE US THE SAME FLESH TO BE EATEN UNTO SALVATION. BUT NO ONE EATS THAT FLESH UNLESS FIRST HE ADORES IT; and thus it is discovered how such a footstool of the Lord’s feet is adored; AND NOT ONLY DO WE NOT SIN BY ADORING, WE DO SIN BY NOT ADORING.” (Psalms 98:9)

As the Protestant scholar Schaff noted:

“Yet this great church teacher at the same time holds fast the REAL PRESENCE of Christ in the Supper. He says of the martyrs: ‘They have drunk the blood of CHRIST, and have shed their OWN blood for Christ.’ He was also inclined, with the Oriental fathers, to ascribe a SAVING VIRTUE TO THE CONSECRATED ELEMENTS.” (pg 500)

“Ambrose speaks once of the flesh of Christ ‘which we today ADORE in the mysteries,’ and Augustine, of an ADORATION [at least “in the wider sense” of bowing the knee in respect] preceding the participation of the flesh of Christ [footnotes #2 and #3 gives the original Latin from these Fathers].” (pg 502)

As the Protestant scholar J.N.D. Kelly noted concerning St. Augustine —

“If Ambrose’s influence helped to mediate the doctrine of a physical change to the West [we’ll cover this exhaustively later], that of Augustine was exerted in a rather different direction. His thought about the eucharist, unsystematic and many-sided as it is, is tantalizingly difficult to assess. Some, like F. Loofs, have classified him as the exponent of a purely symbolical doctrine; while A. Harnack seized upon the Christian’s incorporation into Christ’s mystical body, the Church, as the core of his sacramental teaching. Others have attributed receptionist views to him.

“There are certainly passages in his writings which give a superficial justification to all these interpretations, but a balanced verdict must agree that HE ACCEPTED THE CURRENT REALISM. Thus, preaching on ‘the sacrament of the Lord’s table’ to newly baptized persons, he remarked [Serm 227],

‘That bread which you see on the altar, sanctified by the Word of God, IS CHRIST’S BODY. That cup, or rather the contents of that cup, sanctified by the Word of God, IS CHRIST’S BLOOD. By these elements the Lord Christ willed to convey HIS BODY AND BLOOD, which He shed for us.’

“’You know,’ he said in another sermon [Serm 9:14], ‘what you are eating and what you are drinking, or rather, WHOM you are EATING and WHOM you are DRINKING.’ Commenting on the Psalmist’s bidding that we should adore the footstool of His feet, he pointed out [Enarr in Ps 98:9] that this must be the earth. But since to adore the earth would be blasphemous, he concluded that the word must mysteriously signify the FLESH which Christ took from the earth and which He gave to us to EAT. Thus it was the EUCHARISTIC BODY WHICH DEMANDED ADORATION.

“Again, he explained [Enarr in Ps 33:1:10] the sentence, ‘He was carried in his hands’ (LXX of 1 Sam 21:13), which in the original describes David’s attempt to allay Achish’s suspicions, as referring to the sacrament:

‘CHRIST WAS CARRIED IN HIS HANDS WHEN HE OFFERED HIS VERY BODY AND SAID “THIS IS MY BODY”’.

“One could multiply texts like these which show Augustine taking for granted the traditional identification of the elements WITH THE SACRED BODY AND BLOOD. There can be NO DOUBT that he shared the REALISM held by almost ALL his contemporaries and predecessors.”

(Kelly, EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES, pg 446-447)

Philip Schaff on Augustine’s view of the Eucharist as sacrifice—

“It is not a new sacrifice added to that of the cross, but a daily, unbloody repetition and perpetual application of that ONE ONLY sacrifice. Augustine represents it, on the one hand, as a -sacramentum memoriae-, a symbolical commemoration of the sacrificial death of Christ; to which of course there is no objection [Contr Faust Manich 1.xx.18 Latin given].

“But, on the other hand, he calls the celebration of the communion -verissimum sacrificium- of the body of Christ. The church, he says, offers (immolat) to God the sacrifice of thanks in the body of Christ, from the days of the apostles through the sure succession of the bishops down to our time. But the church at the same time offers, with Christ, herself, as the body of Christ, to God. As all are one body, so also all are together the same sacrifice [De civit Dei x.20 Latin given].” (Schaff, vol 3, pg 507)

“The subject of the sacrifice is the body of Jesus Christ, which is as TRULY PRESENT on the altar of the church, as it once was on the altar of the cross, and which now offers itself to God through his priest. Hence the frequent language of the liturgies: “Thou art he who offerest, and who art offered, O Christ, our God.” Augustine, however, connects with this, as we have already said, the true and important moral idea of the self-sacrifice of the whole redeemed church to God. The prayers of the liturgies do the same.” (pg 508)

“Even St. Augustine, with Tertullian, teaches plainly, as an OLD tradition, that the eucharistic sacrifice, the intercessions or -suffragia- and alms, of the living are of benefit to the departed believers, so that the Lord deals more mercifully with them than their sins deserve [Serm 172:2 Latin given]. His noble mother, Monica, when dying, told him he might bury her body where he pleased, and should give himself no concern for it, only she begged of him that he would remember her SOUL at the altar of the Lord [Confess 1:9:27 Latin given]. (pg 510)

I will ignore Schaff’s editorial comments about the “perversion” of the Sacrifice of the Mass since that is not only irrelevant, it shows Schaff’s extreme anti-Catholic bias. I see none of that in Protestant scholars J.N.D. Kelly and Darwell Stone who simply report the historical facts as they see them and statements of the Church Fathers. Schaff does very little quoting but a lot of anti-Catholic preaching.

JND Kelly on Augustine and Eucharist as Sacrifice

“Augustine’s conception of the eucharistic sacrifice is closely linked with his ideas on sacrifice in general. ‘A true sacrifice,’ he writes [De civ dei 10:6], ‘is whatever work is accomplished with the object of establishing our holy union with God.’ Essentially it is an interior transaction of the will, and what is conventionally termed the sacrifice is the outward sign of this: ‘the visible sacrifice is the sacrament, i.e. the sacred symbol (sacrum signum), of the invisible sacrifice.’ [De civ dei 10:5]

“The supreme and uniquely pure sacrifice, of course, is the offering of Himself which the Redeemer made on Calvary [Enarr in Ps 149:6]. This is the sacrifice which all the sacrifices of the Jewish Law foreshadowed; it is the memorial of it that Christians celebrate today in the eucharist [C. Faust 6:5; 20:18].

‘This sacrifice,’ he remarks [De civ dei 17:20:2], ‘succeeded all those sacrifices of the Old Testament, which were slaughtered in anticipation of what was to come....For instead of all those sacrifices and oblations His BODY IS OFFERED, and is DISTRIBUTED to the participants.’

“The Christian supper presupposes the death on the cross [Serm 112:1]. The self-same Christ Who was slain there is in a real sense slaughtered daily [sacramentally in an unbloody manner] by the faithful, so that the sacrifice which was offered once for all in bloody form is sacramentally RENEWED upon our altars with the OBLATION of His BODY AND BLOOD [Ep 98:9; C. Faust 20:18; 20:21]. From this it is clear that, if the eucharistic sacrifice is essentially a ‘similitude’ or ‘memorial’ of Calvary, it includes MUCH MORE than that. In the first place, it involves a REAL, though sacramental, OFFERING of Christ’s BODY AND BLOOD; He is Himself the priest, but also the OBLATION [De civ dei 10:20]. In the second place, however, along with this oblation of the Head, it involves the offering of His members, since the fruit of the sacrifice is, precisely, their union in His mystical body. As Augustine puts it [De civ dei 10:6],

‘The whole redeemed community, that is, the congregation and society of saints, is the universal sacrifice offered to God through the great high-priest, Who offered Himself in His passion for us, so that we might be the body of so great a Head...When then the Apostle exhorted us to present our bodies as a living victim [Rom 12:1]... this is the sacrifice of Christians: we who are many are one body in Christ. The Church celebrates it in the sacrament of the altar which is so familiar to the faithful, in which is shown that in what she offers she herself is offered.’

“Or again [De civ dei 19:23:5] : ‘The most splendid and excellent sacrifice consists of ourselves, His people. This is the sacrifice the mystery whereof we celebrate in our oblation.’

(Kelly, EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES, page 454-455)

Darwell Stone on Augustine and Eucharist as Sacrifice

“There is like terminology in the West. A canon of the Council of Arles, held in 314 A.D., like the Council of Nicaea eleven years later in the East, incidentally contains the word ‘OFFER’ to describe the work of the presbyters which the deacons might not perform [Canon 15]. St. Optatus of Milevis uses the words ‘SACRIFICE’ and ‘OFFER’ in regard to the Eucharist [2:12]. St. Ambrose says that it is part of the work of the Christian ministry to ‘OFFER SACRIFICE for the people’; that Christ ‘is Himself on earth when the body of Christ is OFFERED’; and that the word of Christ ‘consecrates the SACRIFICE which is OFFERED’ [In Ps 38 Enar 25]. St. Augustine refers to the Eucharist as ‘the SACRIFICE of our redemption,’ ‘the SACRIFICE of the Mediator,’ ‘the SACRIFICE of peace,’ ‘the SACRIFICE of love,’ ‘the SACRIFICE of the BODY and BLOOD of the Lord,’ ‘the SACRIFICE of the Church’ [Conf 9:32; Enchir 110; In Ps 21 Enar 2:28; In Ps 33 Enar 1:5; De civ Dei 10:20]. St. Leo speaks of ‘the OFFERING of the SACRIFICE’ as an act of Christian worship [Serm 26:1; 91:3].”

(Stone, volume 1, page 113)

“In the West this connection of the Eucharistic sacrifice with the passion and death of Christ is found in St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. The saying of St. Ambrose that ‘Christ’ ‘is offered as Man, as taking on Himself suffering (recipiens passionem)’ [De off 1:248], probably refers rather to the taking of a nature capable of suffering in the Incarnation than to the passion and death in particular; but the same writer elsewhere explicitly states that in the Eucharist ‘we proclaim the death of the Lord’ [De fide 4:124]. St. Augustine, after referring to Communion, says that our Lord —

‘made Himself low that man might eat the bread of angels, and “taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, being made obedient even unto death, yea the death of the cross,” [Phil 2:7,8] that now from the cross the FLESH AND BLOOD of the Lord might be commended to us as a NEW SACRIFICE.’ [In Ps 33 Enar 1:6]

(Stone, volume 1, page 115-116)

“St. Augustine closely connects the Eucharistic ALTAR on EARTH with the ALTAR of our LORD’S OFFERING in HEAVEN; regards our Lord’s heavenly work as the fulfillment of the type in the sacrifice which the Jewish high priest offered in the holy of holies; and speaks of the approach to the earthly altar as symbolic both of the present access of Christians to our Lord in heaven and of their future entrance therein.

‘There is also an ALTAR before the eyes of God, whither the Priest has entered who first offered Himself for us. There is an ALTAR in HEAVEN; and no one touches that altar who does not wash his hands in innocency. For many who are unworthy touch this ALTAR on EARTH; and God endures that His Sacraments suffer outrage for a time.’ [In Ps 25 Enar 2:10]

‘That the forgiveness of God may be obtained, PROPITIATION is made by a SACRIFICE. Therefore there is One who is our Priest, who was sent by the Lord God, who took from us what He should offer to the Lord, that is the holy firstfruits of flesh from the Virgin’s womb. This burnt-offering He offered to God; He stretched out His hands on the cross....He hung on the cross, and propitiation was made for our wickedness....Thou art the Priest, Thou art the Victim; Thou art the Offerer, Thou art That which is offered.

‘He is Himself the Priest who has NOW entered into the parts within the veil, and alone there of those who have worn flesh makes intercession for us. In the type of which thing in that first people and in that first temple, one priest entered into the holy of holies, all the people stood without, and he who alone entered into the parts within the veil offered sacrifice for the people standing without....Propitiation having been made for our sins and iniquities by that evening sacrifice [that is, the sacrifice of the cross], we go unto the Lord, and the veil is taken away. On this account also, when the Lord was crucified, the veil of the temple was rent.’ [In Ps 64 Enar 6]

‘This ALTAR, which is NOW set in the Church on EARTH for celebrating the symbols of the divine mysteries, exposed to earthly eyes, many even of the wicked can approach....But that altar whither the forerunner Jesus has entered on our behalf, whither the Head of the Church has gone before, while the rest of the members are to follow, none of those can approach of whom, as I have already related, the Apostle said, “those who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God” [Gal 5:21]. For the Priest alone, yet clearly there the whole Priest, will stand, that is with the body added of which He is the Head, which has already ascended into heaven.’ [Serm 351:7]

(Stone, volume 1, page 120-121)

“St. Augustine connects COMMUNION with God with his definition of SACRIFICE, and makes the RECEPTION of Communion part of the Christian SACRIFICIAL ACTION.

‘The fact that by the ancient fathers such sacrifices were offered in the victims of beasts, which the people of God now reads of but does not offer, is to be understood in no other way than that by those things are signified these which are celebrated among us with this intent that we may be united (inhaereamus) to God, and that we may promote for our neighbor a like union. A SACRIFICE therefore is a VISIBLE SACRAMENT, that is a sacred sign, of an invisible sacrifice. Whence that penitent in the prophet or the prophet himself seeking to have God PROPITIOUS to his sins says, “If Thou hadst willed sacrifice, I would indeed have given it, Thou wilt not delight in burnt offerings. A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God will not despise.” [Ps 51:16,17] Let us observe how, where he said that God wills not sacrifice, there he shows that God wills sacrifice. He then does not will the sacrifice of a slain beast, but He wills the sacrifice of a contrite heart....That which is called by all men a sacrifice is a sign of a real sacrifice. Now mercy is a real sacrifice; whence is that said which I quoted just now, “For with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” [Heb 13:16] Whatever things then in the service of the tabernacle or of the temple in many ways concerning sacrifices are said to have been commanded by God are understood to signify love to God and one’s neighbor. For “In these two commandments,” as has been written, “hangeth the whole Law and the prophets” [Matt 22:40]. Therefore every work which is done in order that we may be united (inhaereamus) in holy fellowship to God, that is in regard to that end of good whereby we may be truly happy, is a real sacrifice.’” [De civ Dei 10:5,6]

(Stone, volume 1, page 122-123)

“Elsewhere St. Augustine, after explaining that the one true sacrifice which Christ offered was foreshadowed in different ways among heathen and Jews, adds —

‘Wherefore now Christians celebrate the memorial of the SAME accomplished sacrifice by the MOST HOLY OFFERING AND RECEPTION OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST.’ [C. Faust 20:18]

“The last quotation but one from St. Augustine is pervaded by a favorite thought of this Father, that the true sacrifice is the dedication of self to God. This idea runs through Christian theology as a whole. Instances of it in an earlier period have already been referred to...But it finds its most characteristic expression in the repeated teaching of St. Augustine that in the Eucharist is the SACRIFICE of the Church and of Christians.

‘The whole redeemed City itself, that is the congregation and society of the saints, is offered as a universal sacrifice to God by the High Priest, who offered even Himself in suffering for us in the form of a servant, that we might be the body of so great a Head. For this form of a servant did He offer, in this was He offered; for in this is He mediator and priest and sacrifice. And so when the Apostle exhorted us that we should present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, our reasonable service, and that we be not conformed to this world but reformed in the newness of our mind, to prove what is the will of God [Rom 12:1-2], that which is good and well-pleasing and complete, which whole sacrifice we ourselves are.....

‘This is the sacrifice of Christians: “the many one body in Christ” [1 Cor 10:17]. Which also the Church celebrates in the Sacrament of the altar, familiar to the faithful, where it is shown to her that in this thing which she offers she herself is offered.’ [De civ Dei 10:6]

“After making the distinction that our Lord receives sacrifice in His Godhead and in His Manhood is Himself the sacrifice, he says —

‘Thus is He priest, Himself OFFERING, Himself also that which is OFFERED. Of this thing He willed the SACRIFICE of the Church to be the DAILY Sacrament; and the Church, since she is the body of the Head Himself, learns to OFFER herself through Him.’ [De civ Dei 10:20]

“Later in the same treatise is the sentence —

‘We ourselves, that is His City, and His most splendid and best sacrifice, of which we celebrate the mystery in our oblations which are known to the faithful.’ [De civ Dei 19:23 (5)]

“In the course of his explanation that the sacrifice is offered only to God, and not to the martyrs who are commemorated in the offering of it, he writes —

‘The sacrifice itself is the body of Christ, which is not offered to them, because they themselves are it.’ [De civ Dei 22:10].”

(Stone, volume 1, page 123-124)

SAINT AUGUSTINE — EUCHARIST AS SACRAMENT OF UNITY

I will deal with the rest of your post later concerning the Eucharistic controversies of the 9th and 11th centuries. Right now I want to finish with St. Augustine. This third aspect of his teaching on the Eucharist is the only one you mentioned — Eucharist as the Sacrament of unity and emphasis on the faith of the communicant.

DG> To Augustine a sacrament is “a visible sign of an invisible thing” (De Cat. Rud. 26.50). He clearly distinguished between the sacramentum (the outward part) and the res sacramenti (the thing itself), (Tract in Joann. 26.15). The clear result of this is that it gives faith in the worshipper a paramount place. “It is not that which is seen that feeds, but that which is BELIEVED.” (Sermon 112.5). Only those who dwell in Christ are able to receive Christ in the sacrament. (Joann 26.18). He said of Judas that he only ate the bread of the Lord, while the other apostles “ate the Lord who was the bread”. “Why preparest thou the teeth and the belly? Believe and thou has eaten”. (Tract in John 25). He claims for the sacrament religious reverence but not superstitious dread as if it were a miracle as you guys do. (De Trinit. 3.10). For the East, the consecration of the elements converted them into the literal body and blood of Christ, but for Augustine it turned them into “a sacrament of commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice” (C. Faust 20.21) whose benefit came ONLY to those who believe.

As I said before, you do not document where you are getting this. From what source are these partial quotes of Augustine’s teaching found? I want to examine the secondary source you are using.

It looks like part of this was taken from Philip Schaff, volume 3, pages 498-500, although Schaff adds “...but not a superstitious dread, as if it were a miracle OF MAGICAL EFFECT” as if Catholics believed in magic or something. I guess you left that out because you didn’t want Schaff to sound completely ignorant of Catholic teaching. The rest I’m not sure from where you are taking this. Do you expect me to believe from these tiny snippets we are supposed to derive St. Augustine’s entire teaching on the Eucharist? You now have the rest of his teaching on the Real Presence and Eucharist as Sacrifice. We should try to reconcile ALL that Augustine says. Darwell Stone covers ALL these quotes and much, much, much more! I suggest you order his massive two-volume work through inter-library loan. That’s how I acquired them.

First, let’s hear what thoughtful Catholic scholars have to say on the “symbolic” aspects of St. Augustine’s teaching.

“In the reading of Augustine in the perspective of later problems, an attempt has been made to OPPOSE his realistic and symbolic affirmations regarding the Eucharist. But, in fact, his realism and symbolism are NOT in opposition. The reality of the Eucharist is expressed in the Sacrament, which is essentially a SIGN (C. Admin 12.2) : the reality (-res-) of the Eucharistic bread and wine IS the body of Christ, the WHOLE Christ, the Church (Serm 272; In evang Ioh 21.25.4; 26.15). But without pausing over what has since been termed the -res et sacramentum-, Augustine most OFTEN stressed (Serm 37; 131.1) the ULTIMATE REALITY of this Sacrament of UNITY (Serm 227). All his theology of the Church and of the Sacraments is thus centered on UNITY, which is the ultimate reality, because ‘God is love.’”

NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, volume 1, “St. Augustine”, page 1055

Citing Vatican II and St. Augustine, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says —

1323. “At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, A SIGN OF UNITY, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet ‘in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us’” [Vatican II SC 47].

So the “symbolic” aspects of the Eucharist is not denied by Catholics.

Next, from Ludwig Ott FUNDAMENTALS OF CATHOLIC DOGMA —

“The Eucharistic doctrine expounded by St. Augustine is interpreted in a purely spiritual way by most Protestant writers on the history of dogmas. Despite his insistence on the symbolical explanation he does NOT exclude the Real Presence. In association with the words of institution he concurs with the older Church tradition in expressing belief in the Real Presence. Cf. Sermo 227 (quoted earlier several times) :

‘The bread which you see on the altar IS, sanctified by the word of God, THE BODY OF CHRIST; that chalice, or rather what is contained in the chalice, IS, sanctified by the word of God, THE BLOOD OF CHRIST.”

“Enarr in Ps 33 Sermo 1,10 : ‘CHRIST BORE HIMSELF IN HIS HANDS, WHEN HE OFFERED HIS BODY SAYING : “THIS IS MY BODY.”’

“When in the Fathers’ writings, especially in those of St. Augustine, side by side WITH the clear attestations of the Real Presence, many obscure symbolically-sounding utterances are found also, the following points must be noted for the proper understanding of such passages....”

Ludwig Ott then makes the following points:

(1) The early Fathers were bound by the discipline of the secret, which referred above all to the Eucharist (cf. Origen, In Lev hom 9,10);

(2) The absence of any heretical counter-proposition often resulted in a certain carelessness of expression to which must be added the lack of a developed TERMINOLOGY to distinguish the sacramental mode of existence of Christ’s body from its natural mode of existence once on earth;

(3) The Fathers were concerned to resist a grossly sensual conception of the Eucharistic Banquet and to stress the necessity of the spiritual reception in Faith and in Charity (in contradistinction to the external, merely sacramental reception); passages often refer to the symbolical character of the Eucharist as “THE SIGN OF UNITY” [St. Augustine, Sermon 272; Homilies on John 26:13]; THIS IN NO WISE EXCLUDES the Real Presence. (see Ott, page 377-8)

St. Augustine stresses the sacramental and spiritual reception of the body and blood of Christ without denying their Real Presence in the Sacrament. Schaff says much the same (volume 3, pages 498-500). This is not to say that St. Augustine necessarily contradicts the official Catholic teaching concerning the mode of Christ’s Presence. The proper terminology to be used to express it had not yet been fully worked out. Catholics also call the bread and wine “SIGNS” and refer to the Eucharist as a sacrificial “memorial” —

THE SIGNS OF BREAD AND WINE

1333. At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ’s Body and Blood. Faithful to the Lord’s command the Church continues to do, in his memory and until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of his Passion: “He took bread....” “He took the cup filled with wine....” The SIGNS of bread and wine BECOME, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ; they continue also to SIGNIFY the goodness of creation. Thus in the Offertory we give thanks to the Creator for bread and wine [Cf. Psalm 104:13-15], fruit of the “work of human hands,” but above all as “fruit of the earth” and “of the vine” — gifts of the Creator. The Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who “brought out bread and wine,” a prefiguring of her own offering [Gen 14:18].

This paragraph from the Catechism of the Catholic Church is wholly compatible with St. Augustine without going into the technical explanation of the mode of Christ’s Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. The bread and wine REALLY “BECOME, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ.” So says St. Augustine, and so the Catholic Church has taught for 2,000 years. Here’s more on “SIGN” from the NCE (1967) —

“The clearer we see in FAITH, the greater our opportunity for union with God in sacramental encounters. As they are SIGNS of our sanctification, the Sacraments are also SIGNS of our worship as well as of Christ’s. In them is expressed our sincere surrender in faith and love, and in proportion to the sincerity of this inner worship does our outward manifestation in sacramental SIGNS, insofar as it is our act, become authentic. We worship God in these SIGNS, and God responds in them with His sanctification of us. Only he who understands the language of the SIGNS can speak intelligently in his prayer and give himself fully to God in Christ.” (Volume 12, “Sacraments (Theology of),” pg 806-7)

“We should not think it is erroneous — indeed, it is perfectly CORRECT — to maintain that the Eucharist is a SIGN, FIGURE, and INSTRUMENT of Christ, because ALL Sacraments are such. The Council of Trent even insists that this Sacrament, like the others, is ‘the SYMBOL of a sacred REALITY’ (Denz 1639). The error is to stop there and deny the deeper mystery of the true and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist [which St. Augustine of course did not].” (Volume 5, “Eucharist (as Sacrament),” pg 604-5)

The passages referred to in the Council of Trent concerning “SYMBOL” read as follows —

“...regarding the doctrine, use and worship of the Sacred Eucharist, which our Savior left in His Church as a SYMBOL of that UNITY and CHARITY with which He wished all Christians to be mutually bound and united....”

“...He wished that this sacrament should be received as the spiritual food of souls [Matt 26:26f], whereby they may be nourished and strengthened, living by the life of Him who said: ‘He that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me’ [John 6:58], and as an antidote whereby we may be freed from daily faults and be preserved from mortal sins. He wished it furthermore to be a pledge of our future glory and everlasting happiness, and thus be a SYMBOL of that one body of which He is the Head [1 Cor 11:3; Eph 5:23] and to which He wished us to be UNITED as members by the closest bond of FAITH, HOPE, and CHARITY, that we might ‘all speak the same thing and there might be no schisms among us’ [1 Cor 1:10].”

“The most Holy Eucharist has indeed this in common with the other sacraments, that IT IS A SYMBOL OF A SACRED THING [REALITY] and a visible form of an invisible grace....”

COUNCIL OF TRENT, Session 13, On the Eucharist, Chapters I, II, III

You’re wrong as usual, Dr. E.

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