Beware of Bishop Schneider

April 25, 2020

1 hour ago, chrysostom said:

You do indeed have a right, in ordinary circumstances (these are extraordinary I admit):

To be honest what is more difficult to bear is not being able to assist at the Holy Sacrifice, to be present in person. St Charles Borromeo would set up an altar in the midst of the square, where the townspeople could observe from afar. Some drive-in Masses are like this, skipping the distribution of Holy Communion.

Actually, that's a really good point - incase Mass in general is available, which it isn't widely right now. Good to know, thank you!

A protestant pastor from my town celebrated easter services amidst of of prefebricated buildings quarter, so people cold participate from their balconies. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=2595375834083319&set=gm.2542561849336343

April 25, 2020

Walmart, Lowe's Hardware, Liquor stores, Tobacco/Head shops, Dollar generals, GameStop and every single fast food joint in my city since the pandemic has been packed, every day, more so than before.

But I can't go to Mass. What a joke.

April 25, 2020

13 minutes ago, KnightofChrist said:

Walmart, Lowe's Hardware, Liquor stores, Tobacco/Head shops, Dollar generals, GameStop and every single fast food joint in my city since the pandemic has been packed, every day, more so than before.

But I can't go to Mass. What a joke.

Well, that a lot of other places set bad examples should not mean the rcc join them. Not only concerning Covid-19.

April 25, 2020

10 hours ago, Lea said:

Actually, I don't think we have a "right" to receive communion... if so, why would we let people in some areas (e.g. Amazonia, some parts of eastern Europe) go without it for months and even years because there's no priest available? Why would the roman church deny it to people who have remarried after divorce?

Obviously I was speaking about the situation which exclude canonical prohibitions (like a mortal sin etc) or "no priest around" (before I was welcomed to participate in the Eucharistic with the local Catholic congregation it was my responsibility to travel for several day to the Orthodox church to receive i.e. I did not expect a priest to come to me). But we are having now a different situation, with the churches closed and the priest being there but us not participating in sacraments.

10 hours ago, Lea said:

Christ does not say "Do this every sunday!" but "Do this, as often as you eat this bread, in memory of me!"

Christ did not say many things our Church has been practicing for centuries; we have the Tradition instructed by the Holy Spirit. You may refer to the early Church Fathers who wrote quite a lot about the necessity of frequent communion.

Perhaps you perceive the phrase" we have a right" as something jurisdictional? What I means is "We are Christians, we have priests, we need communion and, if we are not excommunicated (via conducting a mortal sin) we have a right to receive Christ." The analogy: when I travel I go to any church, Orthodox or Catholic and am allowed to receive Christ. It is not "right" in a jurisdictional sense because The Eucharist is the gift of God but it is normal for an Orthodox or Catholic to receive.

10 hours ago, Lea said:

Plus - I haven't found anything like a "right to receive the communion" in "Instruction Redemptionis sacramentum".

Here I cannot comment. My understanding is based on the Orthodox theology and a life in both Orthodox and Catholic Churches.
Before God we have no "right" to have communion because it is His gift. Yet, being the members of the ecclesia we have a right to expect from our priests to provide us with the access to the sacraments.

1 hour ago, KnightofChrist said:

But I can't go to Mass. What a joke.

Yesterday I went to a big hardware and gardening store. There were at least 200 people inside, crowding a space (I could hardly believe it). No one kept "social distancing". I saw a police car but they were not interested; probably they also came to buy plants, who knows.

The Cathedral continues to be closed. All I can say I experience growing absurdity, more every day.

1 hour ago, Lea said:

Well, that a lot of other places set bad examples should not mean the rcc join them. Not only concerning Covid-19.

Those places sell things because it is what they have to do, to make profit and to give food to the people.

Church also must give spiritual food to people and to make spiritual profit. So in this respect I am afraid we have something to learn from those places.

April 26, 2020

1 hour ago, Lea said:

Well, that a lot of other places set bad examples should not mean the rcc join them. Not only concerning Covid-19.

Well I'm somewhat spilt on the matter. I see the dangers of both. Just don't understand why the same rules can't be applied. The virus doesn't care if it infects you at a packed hardware store or a church. Packed church bad, packed Lowe's that's ok. That's the joke.

April 26, 2020

It is very simple. To the world, churches are mere “social gatherings”, equal to clubs etc. To understand that it is not so one should believe in the Real Presence. To the world it is a nonsense.

But then, if the Church agrees with that view of the world it means it effectively agrees with its status, of a club-like social something. The Church could say “No, the sacraments for us is the thing of the fist importance so we will continue with them, obeying hygienic rules”. The Church had to make a statement.

This is why what took a place all over the world is so devastating. And this is why it is so important that around the world there are people – parishioners, priest, bishops – who protest and disobey (like for example Cardinal in Vatican who opened the doors of his church and places the Blessed Sacrament in a Monstrance for people saying “it is their house, I cannot close the doors).

Here is the link to a petition of the Roman Catholics about the sacraments
https://weareaneasterpeople.com/

An important note: I am speaking about a situation when other palaces are open but not the churches. Obviously, somewhere in the center of the epidemic things would be different. But then in such a situation we would feel so desperate. As was said above, "no participation", no seeing the alive Church is worst.
Also, I hold the view that any priest must have a choice to serve publicly/give communion or not, same with believers.

April 26, 2020

I read an interesting article about this topic earlier today:

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/04/23/what-first-christians-can-teach-us-about-missing-sacraments-and-still-growing

I've been reflecting particularly on this part of the article:

"Here in the United States, many images that followed the suspension of Masses—whether of cars lined up for drive-up confessions or priests parading a monstrance through city streets—illuminate a beautiful piety and sincere hunger for the sacraments.

But that hunger can sometimes reveal an unhealthy and uniquely American form of self-centered exceptionalism...

Catholics around the world go months, even years, without access to the Eucharist and other sacraments. But in the United States, we could not go a full month after the suspension of public Masses before some Catholics started pressuring bishops for the reinstatement of communal liturgies. This self-centered concern for “normal” worship evinces a sense of privilege and entitlement with respect to the sacraments, rather than drawing us deeper into dependence and reliance on God. It ignores the experience of the church in Peru or Papua New Guinea, where people might only be able to receive Communion once every few months."

Among other things, I'm a health care worker. It's going to be a very long time before I feel "safe" attending liturgy and receiving Eucharist. I'm not worried about contracting COVID--it's been all-COVID, all-the-time where I work for well over a month now. I'm TERRIFIED of transmitting it, however. One of the disturbing things that we've been noticing here is that people seem to be most contagious (or rather, most likely to transmit COVID--there's a difference) 1-2 days BEFORE they start having symptoms and realize that they're sick.

One of the things that has been frustrating me is exactly this (props to KnightofChrist):

"Walmart, Lowe's Hardware, Liquor stores, Tobacco/Head shops, Dollar generals, GameStop and every single fast food joint in my city since the pandemic has been packed, every day, more so than before."

We will never know the degree to which selfishness (i.e. do people really HAVE to buy house paint NOW?) and greed (employers who kept unessential businesses opened, and then failed to give their employees adequate protection against this virus) have played in the propagation of this virus, although I suspect that both played a significant role--especially during the first two weeks of the shut-down when we were still in a position to reign-in the virus (at least where I live). Now, I'm relieved to say that the government has stepped in and mandated employee protections, and most people around here now know someone with COVID, so are a lot less likely to make unnecessary trips and/or trips for unnecessary things.

Society does need to "open up", churches need to "open up", and it might be time to start doing that (at least where I live). It would be prudent to have a very low thresh-hold for re-shutting down, though, so as to prevent another (even bigger) surge.

In the meantime, I find myself in a predicament: I would like to return to Mass and receive the Eucharist, and...I don't want to be the person who passes what could be a fatal disease to any of the people (including and maybe even especially, the priest) who are at Mass with me. So, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what it means to be a Catholic sans Sacraments. For me, they've always been tied together. Yet, in parts of the world that only experience maybe one or two visits from a priest per year, Catholicism seems to thrive despite the lack/inability to regularly receive the Sacraments. How?

April 26, 2020

What is lacking is the treatment of communion as the union with the Person of Christ. If we simply put it this way: we miss Our Lord, miss him in communion than all those pseudo-arguments like

This self-centered concern for “normal” worship evinces a sense of privilege and entitlement with respect to the sacraments, rather than drawing us deeper into dependence and reliance on God.

will fall apart. I suspect the author would not call a member of a family who is separated from them and desperate to be with them as “selfish and entitled” and shame them. Well, I do not feel there any selfishness in anyone who states that he wants Christ in communion because he misses the Person, another One. Christ is not some “product” which someone may feel entitled to have.

Also, a person who feels he is too weak on his own (without communion and others) is anything than one who suffers entitlement. It is exactly such a person who depends on God.

Yet I was very glad to learn that in the US people can see priest with Monstrance and also to receive while in the car. If we had such things here I would rejoice and it would never occur to me to “press someone” for Mass.

The Church is about people coming together, a priest and a lay person, a priest and five lay people and so on. When this physical gathering stops then then Church ceases. Priests who give communion to a person in the car make Church.

April 26, 2020

America Magazine never disappoints in being trash. They could have made good points without insults.

Edited April 26, 2020 by KnightofChrist

April 26, 2020

On ‎4‎/‎24‎/‎2020 at 9:10 PM, Kateri89 said:

For instance, even if they had to put public masses on hold, couldn’t they leave the church open and have a sign up for parishioners, only allowing 5 people at a time in the church? They could require all people going inside to wear a mask and to space themselves as far apart as possible. They could also have clorox wipes and ask everyone to wipe down their seat and the church door handles after they’ve used them. This way the faithful could be in the presence of the Eucharistic Lord which would be a tremendous comfort and a source of great graces.

I think they should do something similar to allow people to go to confession.

April 26, 2020

19 hours ago, Hna.Caridad said:

So, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what it means to be a Catholic sans Sacraments. For me, they've always been tied together. Yet, in parts of the world that only experience maybe one or two visits from a priest per year, Catholicism seems to thrive despite the lack/inability to regularly receive the Sacraments. How?

Same for me... but at the very moment I read your finishing question, I thought of our Lords question: 'Then he said to them, 'Why are you so frightened? Have you still no faith?' in Marc 4,40. Our church will persevere.

Maybe receiving only once or twice per year is a reality those faithful people over there are just used to. Maybe we should learn from them instead of fearing our souls were in danger when we can't attend Mass a few weeks in a row.

PS.: I sure won't compare this, but I live in a region with approx. 80% atheists. For me it was normal not to have religious studies in school, being the only one in class going to first communion and confirmation and so on. Some friends I made in France basically can't believe how church works under that circumstances.

April 27, 2020

What concerns me in the current situation most is not the impossibility to receive for many but the attitude of many to that impossibility. I would define it as looking for historical examples of Christians being without communion although those examples, being looked at closely, do not work.

For example, in the Gospel of Mark Our Lord was with the disciples hence “do not be afraid”. He was in the same boat with them. Boat is the symbol of the Church. Most importantly, He was physically with them (an obvious analogy: Christian around Our Lord in Holy Communion or Adoration). Then, if we want to use example truthfully – not to try to comfort ourselves but truthfully – we would probably say “if I received the Lord, I would not be so afraid”. Our boat (Church) does not sink as long as we boldly affirm the utmost importance of communion as a union with the Person of Christ. If this attitude, of the utmost importance of the Eucharist is watered down or even missing than the Church begins sinking and dissolving in the world.

I recently read somewhere how important it is in psychotherapy not to challenge the psychological defenses of a person too early because it may destroy them. It is true and it seems to me that many now engage in psychological self-defense obliterating a very unsightly truth because that truth is far too painful to endure. Plus, if one accepts the unpleasant truth, he or she will have to do something about that.

So, the truth is that in many places the churches are closed while other common places are open; there is no possibility to receive yet there are possibilities to a takeaway or a bottle shop. To a person who wants communion it is painful; he cannot miss the absurdity of this situation. Then he has a choice: either he gets angry at the Church (including himself) who allowed such a situation or he engages in various excuses which, I repeat, fall apart as soon as it is stated that Christ in communion is the Absolute Value and He is also the Person. We do not miss “a tool for sanctification”, we miss the Head of our Body, the Church. If Christian around the world do not receive Christ because He was made into something less that a takeaway then the Church effectively disappears. If the Church allows such a think then it cannot claim that our faith is real and this, to me, is the worst in the current situation.

The examples of isolated Christians cannot work because THE TRUTH of their situation is that they do not have a church or a priest over there. We do have churches and priests in abundance.

The defenders of OK-ness of this situation seem not to understand that they make communion something insignificant in a process. It is inevitable: either you start questioning the normality of a current situation and thus questioning own Bishops (something most Roman Catholics feel very uncomfortable to do) and urge them to discuss this matter with them or you begin inventing the excuses. Paradoxically, the former way of action, while being “selfish” (as some think) reinforces the utmost importance of the sacrament and also the reality of Our Lord as the Person. Looking for excuses diminishes His significance in the Church.

Our upset, our concern, our attempts to speak to others including clergy about this situation “take aways are open, churches is closed” – even if nothing is achieved – make Christ real, to this world as well.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Anastasia

April 27, 2020

Without Mass we cannot go on, we cannot live. Perhaps the spiritually strong among us can, that's fine. But so many aren't the strong. They are the weak and they need Mass. If we do not eat of His flesh we will surely die.

And dying souls are finding a boot in their face calling them selfish for wanting the one thing necessary.

Edited April 27, 2020 by chrysostom