The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked the nation’s Catholics to pray for him and his brother bishops “as we continue our dialogues and reflections” in the process of drafting a document on the “meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the church.”
The U.S. bishops approved by a wide margin a plan to draft a document to examine the “meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the church” following a lengthy debate during their spring general assembly.
In a spirited two-hour debate Thursday, both critics and champions of a U.S. bishops’ doctrinal committee proposal to draft a document on the Eucharist cited timing and potential disunity as reasons why they were for, or against, the project.
Earlier this year, the bishops voted to approve convening this June meeting in a virtual format given the challenges of meeting in person with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
It was the second year the Mass was held with a reduced congregation and without the traditional outdoor Corpus Christi procession afterward as part of the ongoing efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
For Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego, the way U.S. bishops should approach President Joe Biden and important issues can in part be answered through a question his mother used to ask: “What would Jesus do?”
The dumbing down of the theology of symbols has, however, led to the unhappy situation in which perhaps a majority of Catholics do not believe that the Eucharist is what the Lord Jesus said he was giving us: himself, fully and unambiguously.
On the feast of Corpus Christi, Pope Francis said the Eucharist can heal bad memories that prevent people from being open and accepting God’s love, including memories of past mistakes, of wrongs endured and wounds, making the heart hard and indifferent.
Steady rain didn’t stop the celebration of Caribbean culture along Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights on Labor Day. And the Catholic community was near the front of the West Indian Day Parade on Sept. 2 to proclaim their Caribbean Catholic culture and religion and invite others to join them.
If you ask any Catholic theologian what the most important part of Christian life is, they’ll tell you the Eucharist.
