Word: sacrament
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...Balm. Sheen's proposal points up a growing debate within the Catholic Church itself over the significance of confirmation. The traditional view is that the rite, intimately related to the sacrament of baptism, marks a child's spiritual entry into the body of the church, and therefore should take place at an early age. Some bishops and theologians agree with Sheen that it makes more pastoral sense to administer the sacrament only when the confirmant is old enough to understand his commitment. The words and acts of the ritual tend to support this view: when the bishop anoints...
...Luci Johnson's first serious exposure to the pitfalls of being a President's daughter. Having already been christened in the Episcopal Church, she did not, strictly speaking, need a second baptism at the time of her conversion. Luci nonetheless requested and received the sacrament, prompting public complaint that she had gratuitously slighted the Episcopal Church and ecumenical spirit...
...moral theology, suggests that the church might find a way out of the dilemma by redefining what it means by a valid marriage. According to canon law, a marriage is valid if it has been properly witnessed and then consummated sexual ly. If some essential requisite in the sacrament is missing, the couple may later be able to gain an annulment, which means in effect that the marriage was null and void from the beginning.* Divorce and remarriage are out of the question, however...
What underlies this developing similarity of worship is the liturgists' conviction that the Sacrament and the preached word belong together-a fact brought home by research into the origins and forms of the rites used by the early Christians. Eventually, suggests Benedictine Liturgist Godfrey Diekmann of St. John's Abbey in Minnesota, Protestants and Catholics may be able to share, as an alternative to existing rites, a common form of Eucharistic prayer, possibly based on a simple liturgy used in the early church...
...Sacrament of Matrimony is one of those masterly documents that demonstrate the Vatican's genius for adjusting to the changing spirit of the times while upholding the integrity of its traditional teachings: it qualifies every categorical "must" with an implied "but." Mixed marriages, to be valid in the eyes of the church, must be performed by a Catholic priest. But henceforth, the clergyman of the other partner's faith may be present at the wedding ceremony, deliver a sermon, say prayers. The non-Catholic partner must be "clearly told of the obligation to raise the children...