Word: euchariste
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Another ancient barrier of suspicion between Roman Catholics and Protestants seems about to fall: the distrust of one another's sacraments. Catholics have historically refused to acknowledge the validity of such Protestant spiritual acts as ordination, confirmation and celebration of the Eucharist, although they do not question Protestant baptisms or marriages.* In the current issue of the in terdenominational Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Dutch Jesuit Frans Josef van Beeck, 36, finds a basis for arguing that Catholics can give full credit and validity to any or all of the Protestant spiritual acts...
...historical precedent, pointing out that the church has always accepted the validity of sacraments per formed by so-called "extraordinary ministers" under emergency conditions. Penance, for example, was occasionally administered by laymen well into the Middle Ages, while up to 314 A.D. deacons rather than priests sometimes celebrated the Eucharist. Even today laymen can validly baptize when no priest is around. Thus, concludes Van Beeck, Protestant clergymen may well be, from a Catholic viewpoint, "extraordinary ministers" of the sacraments for their own churches, whose good faith, sound doctrine, and correct spiritual intentions fulfill the essential conditions for validity...
Most churchmen believe that to break down all the barriers is to create chaos, but ecumenical theologians are in fact taking a long, new look at the relation of interCommunion to organic church union. The question came up early this month at an interfaith dialogue on the Eucharist between U.S. Roman Catholic and Episcopal churchmen. At the meeting, Jesuit Theologian Bernard Cooke of Marquette argued that interCommunion could well take place before the two churches are formally united. Historically, he pointed out, the Eucharist in the church has been both a symbol of unity in faith already achieved...
...even this last barrier is now being experimentally, and rather furtively, lowered. Last month Dr. Albert van den Heuvel of the World Council of Churches' Youth Department told a Chicago audience that priests and ministers impatient at the slow pace of organized ecumenical progress are celebrating the Eucharist together and giving each other Communion. As many as 6,000 dedicated Catholic and Protestant laymen reportedly belong to ecumenical study groups in The Netherlands that periodically celebrate interfaith Communions; either a minister or a priest will preside, and the consecrated elements are given to all members present. And though probably...
...Nothing More Normal." The classic objection to interCommunion is the fact that churches disagree about what the Eucharist signifies-Catholics believe that the bread and wine become Christ's body and blood, while Reformed churches say that he is spiritually present in the consecrated elements. The advocates of interCommunion argue that since the "church" embraces all those who follow Christ, the sacrament is not the property of a single tradition, and is thus appropriate for Christians working or praying together. Van den Heuvel points out that most cases of interCommunion have taken place in situations of "secular ecumenicity," where...