“The Church’s condemnation of socialism and qualified criticism of capitalism have been remarkably consistent.
When some people hear the Catholic Church teaches “no one can be at the same time be a good Catholic and a true socialist” (Quadragesimo Anno 120), they ask in reply, “But can a good Catholic be a true capitalist?”—as if capitalism were a sin opposite yet equal to socialism. But while the Church teaches that “no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate socialism” (Mater et Magistra 34), it has never said the same thing of capitalism, which it views as something that can be compatible with Catholic moral principles.
We must point out that the debate over capitalism is not about whether we should have laissez-faire capitalism instead of state-regulated capitalism. Since capitalism can exist only when the government enforces private property rights and recognizes contractual agreements, it’s impossible to leave the state out of it entirely. The question is, rather, “How should the state view and intervene in the affairs of free-market economies?” To that question, Pope Pius XI offered two answers.
First, the state should not treat capitalism as something intrinsically evil, since it “is not to be condemned in itself” (Quadragesimo Anno 101). Second, following Leo XIII, the state should make sure free markets adhere to “norms of right order” by correcting violations of these norms. These include conditions that “scorn the human dignity of the workers, the social character of economic activity and social justice itself, and the common good” (101). The state could, for example, require factory owners to implement commonsense safety measures to protect workers from occupational hazards.
But nowhere did Pius XI say that socialism could be acceptable provided it adhered to certain moral norms. He admitted that, “like all errors,” socialism “contains some truth” (120). But the truths of socialism (which are shared by Christianity, thus making them not strictly socialist in nature) are not enough to redeem a system that, he writes, “is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity.”
So not only are Catholics forbidden to be socialists and free to be capitalists, they are free to criticize capitalism without becoming socialists by default.
Adam Smith, the father of modern economic thought, warned about capitalism’s vices. For example, he noted how the ability to freely set prices can lead businessmen into “a conspiracy against the public or in some contrivance to raise prices.” But Smith recognized that capitalism is a worthwhile system because it works despite human imperfections. Socialism, on the other hand, requires everyone always to be perfectly altruistic, and that’s why it always fails.
So when Pope Francis says that under capitalism “people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending” (Laudato Si 203), he’s right. Markets may be able to provide lots of things to buy, but that doesn’t mean we should try to find meaning and happiness in those things. The pope also said that “once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society.” But greed is a property of morally defective capitalists; it is not intrinsic to capitalism in the same way that confiscation and redistribution are intrinsic to socialism.
William F. Buckley put it well: “The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists.”
When Pope Francis visited the United States in 2016, he even gave an address to Congress where he affirmed that capitalism could be a good thing when it is properly ordered toward the good. He commended the U.S.’s efforts to fight poverty and said that “part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth.” He said:
The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology, and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive, and sustainable. “Business is a noble vocation directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good” (interior quote from Laudato Si 129).
Pope Francis’s former mentor, Fr. Juan Carlos Scannone, says the pontiff “doesn’t criticize market economics but rather the fetishization of money and the free market.” When critics labeled Francis a Marxist for his criticism of “trickle-down” economics, the pope said in response that “Marxist ideology is wrong.”
In fact, Pope Francis’s dual criticisms of capitalism and socialism echo the writings of John Paul II.
In Centesimus Annus, John Paul II said that profit has a “legitimate role” in the function of a business but that it’s not the only indicator that a business is doing well. The human dignity of workers matters too, and if capitalism is left unchecked, it can become “ruthless” and lead to “inhuman exploitation” (33).
Despite his criticisms, the pope saint never said that this system is intrinsically evil as is socialism nor does he offer an alternative economic system in its place. In fact, John Paul II reaffirms the teaching of previous popes who said that the Church not only does not offer the world a “Catholic” system of economics, it can’t offer such a system.
The Church’s authority relates to teaching about faith and morals; but economics is a science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. As Nobel economist James Buchanan put it, economics studies “the ordinary business of man making his living.” Economics can answer questions such as “What gives rise to the wealth of nations?” but not moral questions such as “How should I make use of my wealth?” The Church can offer moral and theological principles to guide secular disciplines, but it can’t replace those disciplines.
To make an analogy, the Church offers principles to doctors to guide them in practicing medicine morally. Some of these values have their roots in classical wisdom, like the Hippocratic Oath’s condemnation of abortion and assisted suicide, and some in teachings stemming from divine revelation. But the Church doesn’t tell doctors how to restore health in their medical interventions. Only the science of medicine can tell us how to cure a person’s illness.
Likewise, the Church offers principles to economists to guide them in the moral application of economics, but it doesn’t dictate a “Catholic” way to create wealth. That’s the job of those competent in the science of economics. This is why Pope Pius XI taught that “economics and moral science each employs its own principles in its own sphere” (Quadragesimo Anno 42). He said God entrusted the Church with exercising its authority “not of course in matters of technique for which she is neither suitably equipped nor endowed by office but in all things that are connected with the moral law.”
Since economics is not a field related to theology or the moral law, John Paul II made it clear that “the Church has no models to present.” Instead, economic models “that are real and truly effective can only arise within the framework of different historical situations, through the efforts of all those who responsibly confront concrete problems in all their social, economic, political, and cultural aspects.” The Church does have, however, a role to play in offering guidance on economic questions that overlap with moral and social doctrine. “For such a task,” he says, “the Church offers her social teaching as an indispensable and ideal orientation” (Centesimus Annus 43).
John Paul also asks if capitalism is the economic model that should be proposed to developing countries. He admits the answer is complex and says it depends on what you mean by “capitalism”:
If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property, and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy,” “market economy,” or simply “free economy” (CA 42).
John Paul did not directly call this system capitalism, but the name is still appropriate. When people are free to sell services and goods in the marketplace and can retain profits for their good and the good of their company, then capital will naturally accumulate. However, the pope goes on to say:
But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative (42).
Although capitalism is subject to abuse when it operates without legal limits, John Paul II stressed that “the Church’s social doctrine is not a ‘third way’ between liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis 41). Instead, the Church’s moral teachings can be used to order actions that take place in free markets toward promoting the common good of society and protecting society from evils like socialism that would destroy the common good and reap “a harvest of misery” (Graves de Communi Re 21).”
“Catholics must not pursue policies that result in de facto socialism even if it’s called something else.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modern times with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’” (2425). This does not mean, however, that Catholics can embrace a kinder, “Christian” socialism in its place. Pope Pius XI famously declared, “Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist” (Quadragesimo Anno, 120).
In response, some people say this applies only to Marxist, or authoritarian, socialism. They claim Catholics may (or even should) embrace what is popularly called “democratic socialism.”
Modern “democratic socialism” in the U.S. is the fruit of Michael Harrington, who left Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker movement in the 1950s. Harrington had described it as “as far left as you could go within the Church,” and soon he left the Church too to become an atheist, the author of a best-selling book on poverty called The Other America, and the founder of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). He believed capitalism was dying out and that it was necessary to rescue the teachings of Karl Marx from authoritarian Communists who had perverted them.
Instead of a centralized economy, such as that of the Soviet Union, Harrington argued for “decentralized, face-to-face participation of the direct producers and their communities.” The current platform of the modern DSA says that since “we are unlikely to see an immediate end to capitalism tomorrow, DSA fights for reforms today that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people.”
Instead of replacing markets with “an all-powerful government bureaucracy,” the DSA believes that “social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives.” In an interview with National Public Radio, one DSA chapter founder gave this analogy to explain how a “worker cooperative” would achieve social ownership in a way that is superior to corporate capitalism:
Let’s say you were negotiating at a bargaining table with workers in a bakery, and the workers said, “Look, we want more than a quarter of the bread; we want half of the bread, or we want two-thirds of the bread.” The socialist would say, “Actually, we want the bakery. We want to control it all, for all of our benefit.”
Some defenders of democratic socialism don’t stress this anti-business mentality and simply focus on government entitlement programs. Neal Meyer, a contributor to Jacobin and a member of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, says democratic socialists simply “want to build a world where everyone has a right to food, health care, a good home, an enriching education, and a union job that pays well.”
No one disputes that governments have a moral duty to make sure citizens have the ability to access the basic goods of life such as food, education, and medicine. But how the access to those goods is provided is something people can debate, and some ways of providing it are contrary to Catholic social doctrine.
When it comes to “democratic socialism,” for instance, a Catholic can advocate for policies that cohere with Catholic social teaching, such as a preferential option for the poor or the right of laborers to form a union. This is what Pope Benedict XVI referred to when he said, “In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has, in any case, made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness.”
But Catholics cannot pursue policies that result in de facto socialism, even if it’s called something else. Pope St. John Paul II, for example, was aware of proposals such as Meyer’s that argue for the universal right to “a union job that pays well.” He said in response that “the state could not directly ensure the right to work for all its citizens unless it controlled every aspect of economic life and restricted the free initiative of individuals.”
So, in order to analyze democratic socialism, we must distinguish social welfare policies Catholics can reasonably disagree about with socialist policies no Catholic can support.
The government can provide benefits to people through social welfare programs such as food stamps or education grants, and people are free to gauge and debate the effectiveness and value of such programs. John Paul II warned, though, that if the “welfare state” grew too large, it would result in “a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending” (Centesimus Annus 48).
In contrast to social welfare programs, the government could provide these goods directly through socialist programs such as government-run schools, hospitals, and grocery stores. Since socialism is often gradually introduced to societies through public policy, Catholics should approach with a healthy dose of skepticism government policies that seek to nationalize entire industries.
Of course, the existence of some nationalized industries does not mean a country has embraced full-fledged socialism. For example, having government-run schools in the United States does not mean we are a socialist country such as the Soviet Union (though that wasn’t for a lack of trying).
In 1922, Oregon tried to outlaw private and religious schools, and it was only a 1925 Supreme Court decision that kept the state from winning a monopoly on education. Pope Pius XI quoted this decision in Divnii Illius Magistri when he wrote, “The child is not the mere creature of the state” (37). Contrast this with Karl Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels, who dreamed of a time when “the care and education of the children become a public affair; society looks after all children alike.” In fact, in Sweden (a country many Democratic socialists hold up as an ideal), homeschooling is illegal, and in neighboring Finland private schools are practically nonexistent.
In the United States, the government on many levels provides many health care services. Yet a fully socialist health care system—an idea that more political candidates are beginning to float and more voters entertain—would be another example of central planning that should concern Catholics.
If the government has the only say over what services a hospital offers, then Catholic hospitals (to whatever extent they could remain identifiably so) could be mandated to provide contraception and to perform sterilizations, abortions, and so-called “sex-reassignment” surgeries, among other morally objectionable things. There would also be concerns about the state’s rationing of health care, potentially denying certain ordinary treatments to disabled patients and imposing euthanasia in their place.
Tempting though the idea may be to some, it’s hard to see how Catholics can help create, in Meyer’s words, “a democratic road to socialism.” The Church’s condemnations against socialism would have remained the same even if Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, and other socialist leaders had been elected through a democratic process. Moreover, the Church has been aware of a peaceful “moderate socialism” for a long time and still rejects it as being a promotion of Christian values under the socialist banner with an eye toward enacting true socialism in the future.
Pope Pius XI said, “Such just demands and desire have nothing in them now which is inconsistent with Christian truth, and much less are they special to socialism. Those who work solely toward such ends have, therefore, no reason to become socialists” (Quadragesimo Anno 115). Thirty years later Pope John XXIII reaffirmed the Pope’s contention saying:
Pope Pius XI further emphasized the fundamental opposition between Communism and Christianity, and made it clear that no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate socialism. The reason is that socialism is founded on a doctrine of human society which is bounded by time and takes no account of any objective other than that of material well-being. (Mater et Magistra, 34)
A 1949 Gallup poll asked Americans, “What is your understanding of the term socialism?” The majority answer, at 34 percent, was “state control of business.” Today, only 17 percent of people identify socialism in this way. The most popular answer in 2019, comprising 33 percent of respondents, was an identification of socialism with “equality” and government provision of benefits and social services.
There have always been people who tried to achieve socialism’s goals without relying on its radical methods. These socialists wanted to end poverty, but they were skeptical about using a large, central government established through a people’s revolt in order to do it. Tellingly, those who did believe in that method, like Marx’s partner Friedrich Engels, were immediately suspicious of their “democratic” opponents:
These democratic socialists are either proletarians who are not yet sufficiently clear about the conditions of the liberation of their class, or they are representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, a class which, prior to the achievement of democracy and the socialist measures to which it gives rise, has many interests in common with the proletariat.
Democratic socialists in the nineteenth century formed labor parties in European countries that pushed for worker reforms instead of worker revolutions, and many of them still exist today. Democratic socialists are also a rising force in American politics, and in order to see if their brand of socialism is compatible with Catholicism we need to examine their early-twentieth-century roots.
As we show in our new book Can a Catholic be a Socialist?, socialism is evil in principle because it deprives people of their natural rights and treats them as products of the state to be sculpted and used instead of creations of God to be dignified and respected. Furthermore, socialism is unworkable because it doesn’t “see the world as it really is” and, as a result, leads to physical evils such as food shortages and the neglect of natural resources and environments. The physical and moral evils of socialism become clear once one examines the history of both socialism and the Catholic Church’s response to it.”
-St Peter’s square, please not the circular arms of colonnades, evoking the symbolism of embracing the whole world. Please click on the image for greater detail.
–Rev Dwight Longenecker, Fr. Dwight Longenecker is an American who has spent most of his life living and working in England.
Fr Longenecker was brought up in an Evangelical Protestant home in Pennsylvania. After graduating from the Fundamentalist Protestant Bob Jones University with a degree in Speech and English, he went to study theology at Oxford University. He was eventually ordained as an Anglican priest and served as a curate, a school chaplain in Cambridge and a country parson on the Isle of Wight. Realizing that he and the Anglican Church were on divergent paths, in 1995 Fr. Dwight and his family were received into the Catholic Church. In December 2006 he was ordained as a Catholic priest under the special pastoral provision for married former Anglican clergy. He now serves as parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary parish in Greenville, SC.
“Many non-Catholics—indeed, it could be argued, all Protestants—are cafeteria Christians, picking individual moral and theological viewpoints which happen to suit them. Often they are unaware that the different doctrines can be linked and unified. A non-Catholic Christian might hear Catholics talk about Catholic unity and think it means that Catholics all believe the same thing and are united in following the pope. But when a Catholic talks about unity its not just unity of faith and practice, but also the internal cohesion between all the different parts of Catholic belief. For Catholics, the different beliefs support and complement each other as the different parts of one body.
There are three particular areas that must be seen as a unity: Christology (what the Church teaches about the person of Jesus Christ), ecclesiology (what she teaches about the Church), and sacramental theology (what she teaches about the Eucharist). The “Body of Christ” is a three-fold but united concept—Incarnation, Church, and Eucharist are interrelated. To understand who Jesus really was, God has given us the Church and the sacraments. When our views on the person of Christ, the Church, and the Eucharist don’t support and reflect one another, heresy creeps in. Error in one area of belief soon infects the other areas.
So, for example, most Bible Christians uphold an orthodox Christology. They believe that Jesus really is the God-Man. But when it comes to sacramental theology, they say the bread and wine are merely natural things used to prompt our memory. Likewise, the visible church is a “human institution.” The Bible Christians’ view of the church and the sacrament match: Both are merely natural. But if you transfer what they believe about the church and the sacrament to the person of Christ, there is a clash. Apply their lack of supernatural qualities to Jesus Christ and you have Ebionism, an early heresy that denied the divinity of Christ and taught that he was merely human.
The traditional Lutheran subscribes to an orthodox view of Jesus Christ: that he is God and Man joined in a mysterious, hypostatic union. But the classic Lutheran view of the sacrament is consubstantiation—that the presence of Christ is “with or beside” the bread and wine. Luther’s view of the church is similar. He didn’t reject a visible church entirely, but thought it existed wherever the true gospel was proclaimed. In other words, like consubstantiation—the church exists “with or beside” the proclamation of the gospel. But use consubstantiation to explain the person of Christ and you end up in a heresy called Nestorianism. Nestorians taught that the divine and the human in Jesus remained separate, the divine Christ only coming “beside or with” the human Jesus.
Another non-Catholic view of the Eucharist is expressed as ‘real presence’, in contrast to the Catholic meaning of “Real Presence“. This mostly Anglican view seems very close to Catholic teaching. “Real Presence” is the position that the bread and wine are vehicles for a real spiritual presence of Christ. The bread and wine are not substantially transformed, but they become channels for the real presence of Christ. Likewise, for many Anglicans the church carries a real spiritual presence of Christ. The church is visible and identifiable, but the presence of Christ is never more than spiritual; the institution of the church is still only a human institution. But once again, if you use their ecclesiology and sacramental theology to explain the nature of Christ you end up with a Christological heresy—this time it is Apollinarianism. Apollinarius taught that Jesus Christ was human, but that the Divine Logos replaced his human spirit. In other words, Jesus Christ was a vehicle for divinity.
A fourth view on the sacraments and the church is called receptionism. Many Anglicans and Lutherans, as well as some Methodists and Presbyterians, hold receptionism. According to receptionism, the bread and wine “become” the body and blood of Christ only to those who receive them faithfully. Likewise, the church consists of all true believers who are gathered together in Christ’s name at a particular place and time. Receptionism is subjective and open-ended, and it is very popular today among Protestants, but when it is applied to Christology another heresy is revealed—Adoptionism, the view that Jesus took on, or adopted, divinity as and when it was needed.
A final view on the Eucharist and the Church is also popular among both Catholics and Protestants: Confused and disturbed by theological wrangling, they refuse to define what they really believe about the church or the sacraments. So they say, “I accept that the Church is ‘the Body of Christ’ and that the bread and wine are a ‘sharing in the body of Christ,’ but what that really means I’m not sure. I don’t want to go any further than the Scriptures do.” But when this form of well-meaning agnosticism is applied to Christology, we find another heresy. This time it is the Homoean heresy. When the Church of the third century was debating the nature of Christ, the Homoeans were those Christians who tried to avoid conflict by saying no more than, “the Son is like the Father—according to the Scriptures.”
In each one of these five views the ecclesiology and sacramental theology parallel each other, but they are not integrated with the professedly orthodox Christology. It is only the Catholic view that most fully expresses the unity between Christ, the Church, and the Eucharist. Of all the Christian concepts of Eucharist, the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation reflects most closely the mysterious relationship between the divine and human in Jesus. We believe that the Church is a visible, historical institution, but it is also the mystical Body of Christ. Its historical and physical reality is not separate from its identity as the Body of Christ. As God “subsists” in the historical Christ, so the Body of Christ “subsists” in the Catholic Church. Thus the church, as Vatican II teaches, is the “sacrament of salvation.”
But does it matter if a Christian holds an ecclesiology and a sacramental theology that don’t reflect their view of Christ? I would argue that it does. To have the fullest understanding of the God-Man Jesus Christ, it is vital to understand how the Church and the sacrament support and complement that full Christology. So a recent teaching document of the Catholic bishops of Britain and Ireland says, “No individual thread of Catholic doctrine can be fully understood in isolation from the total tapestry. Catholic faith in the Eucharist and Catholic faith in the Church are two essential dimensions of one and the same mystery of faith.” Furthermore, “this faith embraces the making present of Christ’s saving death and resurrection, the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, and the inseparable bond between the mystery of the Eucharist and the mystery of the Church.” In other words, a unified Christology, ecclesiology and sacramental theology are vital for the fullest expression and experience of Christ’s saving work.
Simply holding an orthodox view of the person of Christ is not enough to guarantee the fullest experience of his Incarnation. It is only as the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation, death, and Resurrection are applied in the Eucharist that the Body of Christ becomes most fully real to the Christian. Only as we affirm his real and substantial presence in the Eucharist can we fully affirm God’s real and substantial union with Jesus in the Incarnation. Similarly, only as one experiences Christ’s presence in the Church can one enter into the fullest understanding of Christ’s Incarnation in the world.
The necessary unity between Christ’s Incarnation, the Church, and the Eucharist is best expressed in the New Testament phrase “the Body of Christ.” Jesus first referred to the bread as his body at the Last Supper. It is no coincidence that Paul uses the same term for both the Eucharistic bread and the mystery of the Church. Paul echoes Jesus when he says the believer must “discern Christ’s body” in the bread of the Eucharist (1 Cor. 11:29). He also refers to the church as the “Body of Christ.” When he does so in 1 Corinthians 12, it might seem that he is only using this as an analogy to explain how Christians must all live in harmony. But in Ephesians 1:22–23, Paul says that God has appointed Christ head over all things for the Church which his body. He says the Church is “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Then, in Ephesians 5:29–31, Paul calls the church the “bride of Christ.” Just as in marriage man and wife “become one flesh,” so Christ is one in a mystical union with the Church.
The summary of Paul’s understanding of the term “body of Christ” occurs in 1 Corinthians 10:16–17: “Is not the cup of thanksgiving which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread.” So Paul teaches that full unity with Christ is intimately linked with sharing the “one bread” of his body. And union with the “one bread” of his body is also linked with a full communion with his Body, the Church.
Beyond Paul’s words, there are four main Scripture pictures that convey the mystical and integral unity between Jesus Christ, the Eucharist and the Church. The first picture is the Last Supper. Here Christ establishes the Eucharist in union with his apostles. That moment in time becomes an icon of the unity between Christ, his Church, and the Eucharist. As the whole nation of Israel resided in the twelve sons of Jacob, so the whole Church dwells in seed form within the twelve apostles. The apostles gathered in a fellowship meal with Christ comprise a picture of the Church in unity with her Lord.
Two other Scripture pictures complement the scene at the Last Supper. It is no mistake that the gospel writers set these other two scenes in the same upper room. The setting indicates a unity between the three scenes. The second scene occurs after Jesus has been crucified. Once again the apostles are gathered for a meal in the upper room. Suddenly two other disciples burst in. They have seen the Lord while on a journey to Emmaus. As they speak to the Twelve, the risen Lord appears. He shares their food, reassures them, and promises to clothe them with power from on high (Luke 24:33–49). Here as he did at the Last Supper, Christ becomes one with them as they share a meal.
In the third scene a few others join the apostles in the same upper room. Mary, the mother of the Church is also there. Under Peter’s leadership they have been meeting regularly for prayer—waiting for the promised gift of Christ’s presence. Suddenly there is a rushing wind and tongues of flame descend filling the apostles with Christ’s power to preach the gospel. The church is established, and we are told that the new Christians all devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the breaking of the bread, and to prayer.
In all three upper room stories the infant Church makes Christ’s presence real through the fellowship meal celebrated in unity. In each picture a different element of this threefold mystery of Christ’s body is emphasized. In the first—on the eve of his passion—the emphasis is on the unity between Christ’s body and blood and the bread and wine. In the second, the emphasis is scriptural and sacramental. It focuses on the risen Lord’s presence through Scripture and in the breaking of the bread. In the third, the focus is on the unity between Christ and his body, the Church.
A fourth Scripture picture confirms and validates the mystical interpretation of the first three Scripture pictures. In the Book of Revelation we see the marriage banquet of the Lamb in heaven. In the center of the worshiping multitude is the “lamb looking as if it had been slain.” On thrones around the Passover Lamb sit the twenty-four elders—the twelve apostles as Christ promised (Matt. 19:28) along with the twelve patriarchs of Israel (Rev. 4:4, 5:6). Together they stand for the whole people of God. Then the multitude of angels and saints and every creature in heaven and on earth falls down before the lamb singing, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor glory and power for ever and ever.” Here Christ’s unity with his Church and the sacramental meal reaches its ultimate fulfillment: Christ the Lamb of God and Bread of Heaven is enthroned and worshiped by the Church led by the apostle elders.
Perhaps it seems like this insistence on a unified Christology, ecclesiology, and sacramental theology is theological nit-picking. It might seem like we Catholics are focusing on division when we ought to be concentrating on getting together with our fellow Christians. But an internal unity between these doctrines is essential because real outer unity can’t exist unless an inner unity of faith first exists. Doctrines that are dissonant within themselves cannot be the unifying force for a harmonious body of believers.
Because of this, and because all Catholic apologetics must be motivated by a passion for Christian unity, it is essential that our discussions of Eucharist and Church reflect back to what we believe about Christ himself. We should be encouraged that we share an orthodox understanding of our Lord’s incarnation with most non-Catholic Christians. It is from this point of agreement that we will most successfully move on to discuss sacraments and the church. If we can show the importance of an inner unity between Christ, the Church, and the Eucharist then we will help to move forward that unity for which Christ so passionately prayed.”
“As creepy as it may seem to us to be led into the barren desert in order to be tempted by the Evil One, what we actually see before us is a magnificent triumph. Our Lord had all the human emotions that we have, and at one point in His life He even shows fear (more on that in Holy Week!). But here, led by the devil, carried by him over a distance and high up in the air, and tempted most explicitly, he shows absolutely no fear of him in spite of his malice and power. The Fathers teach us that the Lord underwent temptation by the devil to provide us with an example of how to resist the devil. He means for us to do just as he did and vanquish the tempter.
So what are we to do? First off, Jesus fasted and prayed, and kept vigil, as the “forty nights” imply. St. John Vianney taught that when the devil sees someone praying a little more, doing a little fasting, and sleeping a little less, he becomes fearful of that person. How much must the demons fear Christ, Who did all these things, and of the saints who persevered in them! They likewise must fear our taking up these spiritual weapons, and so they discourage us from them with a million excuses big and small.
Secondly, notice how Jesus uses sacred words to answer the devil’s attempts. We must contradict the evil insinuations of the devil with the words of the psalms and prayers of the Church, with the Most Holy Name of Jesus, the sweet name of Mary (the demons particularly fear that because though she is a mere human being she has humiliatingly more power than they do). We need this method very much. Our Lord had a very well-ordered emotional life, and His imagination and memory were all in perfect order; we on the other hand are driven by angry thoughts, lustful thoughts, grandiose thoughts, self-pitying thoughts. These are real temptations and we should contradict them with God’s name and His holy word spoken as an urgent prayer.
Nowadays there is a lot of talk among devout people about demonic possession, obsession, deliverance, and so on. A lot of this is good, but it will help us a great deal if we take the attitude of St. Teresa of Avila in her struggles and set aside fear of such things. It is sin we should fear, not the devil. She confidently asserts these words of encouragement in her autobiography (there is also an important message to priests here!):
“Not a fig shall I care then for all the devils in hell: it is they who will fear me. I do not understand these fears. “Oh, the devil!, the devil!” we say, when we might be saying, “God! God!” and making the devil tremble. Of course we might, for we know he cannot move a finger unless the Lord permits it. Whatever are we thinking of? I am quite sure I am more afraid of people who are themselves terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself. For he cannot harm me in the least, whereas they, especially if they are confessors, can upset people a great deal, and for several years they were such a trial to me that I marvel now that I was able to bear it. Blessed be the Lord, who has been of such real help to me!”
The great Teresa, Doctor of the Church, even goes on to say in the same context that one deliberate venial sin does us more damage than all hell put together! This means that when it is a question of temptation, we should fear ourselves more than anyone else. To be sure, God is the Judge and He looks mercifully on our weaknesses and forgives us lovingly and most willingly, but our sin is our own. We cannot blame it on the devil, saying with the old comedian of my youth, “The devil made me do it!” (Ed. That is actually also theologically factually impossible. It would violate our free will, a gift from God, a mighty, divine, and preeminent grace. Satan cannot compel. He can only tempt, make us weary, make us doubt, exploit our own weaknesses, if we, and God, allow him. In the case of God, it is to test our faith, as in the Book of Job.)
So let us set aside fear as Christ did, and use the means that He used to vanquish the devil.
Our Lady and Joseph, her holy spouse, whose feast we will celebrate this month, will watch over us as they did over their young Son as in youth and young manhood Who undertook the works of fasting and prayer and vigils for the salvation of the world. It is not for nothing that Mary’s spouse is thus invoked: “St Joseph, obedient to God, humble, silent, Terror of demons, Pray for us!””
“For twelve years, Saint Catherine de Ricci, OP, experienced all of the rigors of Christ’s passion on a weekly basis. From noon on Thursday until late afternoon on Friday, the marks of Christ’s Passion were visible on her body. After her first ecstatic experience of the stigmata, St. Catherine received the Canticle of the Passion from the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since then, it has spread as a pious devotion to the monasteries and convents of the Order of Preachers, and it has been traditionally prayed on the Fridays of Lent.
The Canticle consists of a series of couplets drawn from Scripture, with the exception of a single couplet from the Te Deum. The cantor chants each couplet in succession, though silence punctuates the space between them. The entire Canticle is divided into two segments, which are separated by a lengthier silence after a reference to the death of the Lord. The first half of the Canticle recounts the Passion of Christ through the words of Scripture, and the second half is the Christian’s response. In each half of the Canticle, there is a verse repeated by the entire choir.
The current practice in the Studentate at the Dominican House of Studies is to precede the chanting of the Canticle with a reading of one of the four servant songs from the book of Isaiah and to conclude by venerating a cross while the Vexilla Regis is sung. These reminiscences of Good Friday help to focus our contemplation on Christ crucified during the season of Lent.
Suffice it to say, Saint Catherine de Ricci had a great devotion to the crucified Christ. Aside from the marks of Christ’s Passion, a betrothal ring was also visible to those looking on during her ecstatic episodes. Saint Catherine’s experience of Christ’s sufferings was Christ’s gift to her as his beloved spouse. This may appear, at first glance, incredibly counterintuitive. Why would Christ grant suffering to one he loved? To answer this question, we must first answer another: Why did Christ undergo his Passion? Love. Christ suffered out of love for sinners. Christ suffered out of love for us (ST III q. 46, a. 3).
When we look upon the Cross, we primarily see two things: first, we see our sins; second, we see God’s loving mercy. The heart that loves Christ and sees Him on the Cross cannot help but desire to accompany Him in His sufferings. The model for this is, of course, His Mother, whose Immaculate Heart was pierced as she looked upon her Son and suffered alongside Him at the foot of the Cross.
It is fitting then that this devotion of the Canticle of the Passion should have been handed over by the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Catherine de Ricci, because St. Catherine also shared in the sufferings of the Virgin’s Son. It is further fitting that St. Catherine, another virgin united to Christ’s sufferings on the Cross, should spread this devotion to women and men ardently seeking that same union. May we who have received this devotion come to know deeply the love of the crucified Christ through our own share in his Cross. We also suffer like Him so that we may come to love like Him.”
Many in our culture today understand Jesus as “Jesus, the kind and friendly 1st century version of Mr. Rogers; the warm and fuzzy nice guy who can give you a hug if your self esteem is low, but cannot conquer death.” If that is Jesus, why come to earth? Why be born? Why teach? Why proclaim the Good News? Why be tempted by the devil? Why put up with the goofball and sinful apostles? Why eat with sinners and tax collectors? Why piss off those who can have you killed? Why the agony in the garden? Why betrayal? Why the scourging at the pillar? Why the crown of thorns? Why carry the cross and fall? Why be stripped? (They crucified the condemned naked you know. This was to further the humiliation and suffering of the condemned and warning to others about Roman tyranny. Don’t believe all those nice strategically placed loin cloths. How about looking up in church at a truly naked man on the cross?) Why the agonizing death? Why the grief? Why the scandal? Why the suffering of his mother? Why the disillusionment? Why the fear? Why? Why? Why?
God is both merciful and just. And, His justice is a mercy to the offended.
“It would not be out of place at this point to recall the relationship between justice and mercy. These are not two contradictory realities, but two dimensions of a single reality that unfolds progressively until it culminates in the fullness of love.”-Pope Francis, Misericordiae Vultus, §20
“The claim that indulgences are not part of Church teaching today is false. This is proved by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states, “An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishment due for their sins.” The Church does this not just to aid Christians, “but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity” (CCC 1478).
Indulgences are part of the Church’s infallible teaching. This means that no Catholic is at liberty to disbelieve in them. The Council of Trent stated that it “condemns with anathema those who say that indulgences are useless or that the Church does not have the power to grant them”(Trent, session 25, Decree on Indulgences). Trent’s anathema places indulgences in the realm of infallibly defined teaching.
The pious use of indulgences dates back into the early days of the Church, and the principles underlying indulgences extend back into the Bible itself. The principles behind indulgences are as clear in Scripture as those behind more familiar doctrines, such as the Trinity.
Before looking at those principles more closely, we should define indulgences. In his apostolic constitution on indulgences, Pope Paul VI said: “An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain defined conditions through the Church’s help when, as a minister of redemption, she dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions won by Christ and the saints” (Indulgentiarum Doctrina 1).
This technical definition can be phrased more simply as, “An indulgence is what we receive when the Church lessens the temporal (lasting only for a short time) penalties to which we may be subject even though our sins have been forgiven.” To understand this definition, we need to look at the biblical principles behind indulgences.
Principle 1: Sin Results in Guilt and Punishment
When a person sins, he acquires certain liabilities: the liability of guilt and the liability of punishment. Scripture speaks of the former when it pictures guilt as clinging to our souls, making them discolored and unclean before God: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isa. 1:18).
We incur not just guilt, but liability for punishment when we sin: “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant and lay low the haughtiness of the ruthless” (Is. 13:11). Judgment pertains even to the smallest sins: “For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Eccl. 12:14).
Principle 2: Punishments are Both Temporal and Eternal
The Bible indicates some punishments are eternal, lasting forever, but others are temporal. Eternal punishment is mentioned in Daniel 12:2: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
We normally focus on the eternal penalties of sin, because they are the most important, but Scripture indicates that temporal penalties are real and go back to the first sin humans committed: “To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Gen. 3:16).
Principle 3: Temporal Penalties May Remain When a Sin is Forgiven
When someone repents, God removes his guilt (Isa. 1:18) and any eternal punishment (Rom. 5:9), but temporal penalties may remain. One passage demonstrating this is 2 Samuel 12, in which Nathan the prophet confronts David over his adultery:
“Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ Nathan answered David: ‘The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin; you shall not die. But since you have utterly spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely die’” (2 Sam. 12:13-14). God forgave David but David still had to suffer the loss of his son as well as other temporal punishments (2 Sam. 12:7-12).
Protestants realize that, although Jesus paid the price for our sins before God, he did not relieve our obligation to repair what we have done. They acknowledge that if you steal someone’s car, you have to give it back; it isn’t enough just to repent.
Protestants also admit the principle of temporal penalties for sin, in practice, when discussing death. Scripture says death entered the world through original sin (Gen. 3:22-24; Rom. 5:12). When we first come to God we are forgiven, and when we sin later we are able to be forgiven, yet that does not free us from the penalty of physical death. Even the forgiven die; a penalty remains after our sins are forgiven. This is a temporal penalty since physical death is temporary and we will be resurrected (Dan. 12:2).
Principle 4: God Blesses Some People as a Reward to Others
In Matthew 9:1-8, Jesus heals a paralytic and forgives his sins after seeing the faith of his friends. Paul also tells us that “as regards election [the Jews] are beloved for the sake of their forefathers” (Rom. 11:28).
When God blesses one person as a reward to someone else, sometimes the specific blessing he gives is a reduction of the temporal penalties to which the first person is subject. For example, God promised Abraham that, if he could find a certain number of righteous men in Sodom, he was willing to defer the city’s temporal destruction for the sake of the righteous (Gen. 18:16-33).
Principle 5: God Remits Temporal Punishments through the Church
God uses the Church when he removes temporal penalties. This is the essence of the doctrine of indulgences. Earlier we defined indulgences as “what we receive when the Church lessens the temporal penalties to which we may be subject even though our sins have been forgiven.” The members of the Church became aware of this principle through the sacrament of penance. From the beginning, acts of penance were assigned as part of the sacrament because the Church recognized that Christians must deal with temporal penalties, such as God’s discipline and the need to compensate those our sins have injured.
In the early Church, penances were sometimes severe. But the Church recognized that repentant sinners could shorten their penances by pleasing God through pious or charitable acts that expressed sorrow and a desire to make up for one’s sin.
The Church also recognized the duration of temporal punishments could be lessened through the involvement of other persons who had pleased God. Scripture tells us God gave the authority to forgive sins “to men” (Matt. 9:8) and to Christ’s ministers in particular. Jesus told them, “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. . . . Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:21-23).
Christ also promised his Church the power to bind and loose on earth, saying, “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18). As the context makes clear, binding and loosing cover Church discipline, and Church discipline involves administering and removing temporal penalties (such as barring from and readmitting to the sacraments).
Principle 6: God Blesses Dead Christians as a Reward to Living Christians
From the beginning the Church recognized the validity of praying for the dead so that their transition into heaven (via purgatory) might be swift and smooth. This meant praying for the lessening or removal of temporal penalties holding them back from the full glory of heaven. For this reason the Church teaches that “indulgences can always be applied to the dead by way of prayer” (Indulgentarium Doctrina 3).
The custom of praying for the dead is not restricted to the Catholic faith. In the Old Testament, Judah Maccabee finds the bodies of soldiers who died wearing superstitious amulets during one of the Lord’s battles. Judah and his men “turned to prayer, beseeching that the sin which had been committed might be wholly blotted out” (2 Macc. 12:42). Judah also “took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this . . . he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin” (2 Macc. 12:43, 46).
Thus, Judah not only prayed for the dead, but provided for them the then-appropriate ecclesial action for lessening temporal penalties: a sin offering. Accordingly, we may take the now-appropriate ecclesial action for lessening temporal penalties— indulgences—and apply them to the dead by way of prayer.
These six principles, which we have seen to be thoroughly biblical, are the underpinnings of indulgences. But, the question of expiation often remains. Can we expiate our sins—and what does “expiate” mean anyway?
Some criticize indulgences by saying they involve our making “expiation” for our sins, something that only Christ can do. This criticism is unfounded, and most who make it do not know what the word “expiation” means or how indulgences work.
Protestant Scripture scholar Leon Morris comments on the confusion around the word “expiate”: “[M]ost of us . . . don’t understand ‘expiation’ very well. . . . [E]xpiation is . . . making amends for a wrong.” (The Atonement [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1983], 151). The Wycliff Bible Encyclopedia gives a similar definition: “The basic idea of expiation has to do with reparation for a wrong, the satisfaction of the demands of justice through paying a penalty.”
Certainly when it comes to the eternal effects of our sins, only Christ can make amends or reparation. We are completely unable to do so, not only because we are finite creatures incapable of making an infinite satisfaction, but because everything we have was given to us by God. For us to try to satisfy God’s eternal justice would be like using money we had borrowed from someone to repay what we had stolen from him. This does not mean we can’t make amends or reparation for the temporal effects of our sins. If someone steals an item, he can return it. If someone damages another’s reputation, he can publicly correct the slander. These are ways in which one can make at least partial amends (expiation) for what he has done.
An excellent biblical illustration of this principle is given in Proverbs 16:6, which states: “By loving kindness and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord a man avoids evil” (cf. Lev. 6:1-7; Num. 5:5-8). Here we are told that a person makes temporal atonement (though never eternal atonement, of which only Christ is capable) for his sins through acts of loving kindness and faithfulness.
NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004″
-inscription on the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome: Indulgentia plenaria perpetua quotidiana toties quoties pro vivis et defunctis (“Perpetual everyday plenary indulgence on every occasion for the living and the dead”), please click on the image for greater detail.
“Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.” -Mt 5:26
“You probably don’t have the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum—the Manual of Indulgences—sitting on your bookshelf. But you should.
The Enchiridion is the official declaration of the indulgences available to the faithful, and it’s beautiful to read. It’s short, the decrees themselves are only about 60 pages long and come with another 60 pages of appendices. But in those short pages you find an account of the treasury of the Church’s riches. Reading it is like pouring over the manifest bill of a hidden treasure, and finding the map where “X” marks the spot.
But first, a brief note on indulgences. When we sin, we harm or destroy our friendship with God, a friendship restored in the Sacrament of Confession. But at the same time, sin damages the good ordering and justice of creation. It damages the good ordering within ourselves, distorting the relationship between our reason and our emotions. It damages the good ordering of our family and society, distorting the relationships between people. And it damages the good ordering of creation as a whole, distorting our relationship to the natural world beneath and the angelic world above. Out of sin comes chaos. So it’s necessary that personal, social, and cosmic order be reestablished to heal the wounds of sin.
We accomplish the reintegration of order, the expiation of the chaos of sin, by submitting ourselves to order and justice in voluntary reparation. This is called the temporal punishment due to sin. In the light of God’s forgiveness, it is a medicinal and purificating punishment, restoring order and justice within ourselves, within family and society, and within creation itself. Temporal punishments are paid either in this world through a patient bearing of the sorrows, miseries, and calamities of life (and above all through a holy death), or else in the life to come through the purifying punishments of purgatory.
And that is where indulgences come in. For there is among men a supernatural solidarity where the holiness of one benefits all the rest. “If one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor 12:26). This is the foundation of the treasury of the Church, a treasury consisting of the infinite and inexhaustible holiness of Christ our Lord, who offered himself to free all mankind from sin and its chaos. The Blessed Virgin Mary and all of the saints have followed in the footsteps of Christ and, by his grace, have sanctified their lives and united themselves to his holiness, multiplying his holiness in their own lives. The Church, in Christ her head and in her glorified members, possesses an unfathomable wealth of grace and holiness. She opens her treasury and offers that wealth to us through indulgences, given on the occasion of some work of charity or prayer.
There are almost certainly indulgences for things that you’ve already made a regular part of your life. There is an indulgence for reciting the Angelus, and another for the Guardian Angel prayer. There is a plenary indulgence for reciting the Rosary together in a church or family, and a plenary indulgence for adoring the Blessed Sacrament for half an hour. There is a plenary indulgence for attending the first Mass of a newly ordained priest. There is an indulgence for those who listen “with attention and devotion” to preaching, which I offer as a consolation if the homily is subpar. And there’s even an indulgence for making the Sign of the Cross!
The Church is very generous with her great treasury of holiness, and there are occasions for indulgences everywhere. But to receive an indulgence, you must want it. To quote the Enchiridion, “to gain an indulgence, one must have at least the general intention of doing so.” A general intention is a choice you make to habitually gain an indulgence, even if in the moment it isn’t at the forefront of your mind. You can kneel before the tabernacle and make a promise that every time you make the Sign of the Cross for the rest of your life you intend to avail yourself of that indulgence, and your life will be enriched.
But in order to gain these indulgences, you have to know about them. You’re almost certainly walking by treasures lying on the ground beside your path, waiting to be picked up if you could just see them. So go to Amazon and buy the Enchiridion, and perhaps make reading it a part of your Lenten practice this year. You never know what treasures you will find.”
“Sackcloth and ashes were used in Old Testament times as a symbol of debasement, mourning, and/or repentance. Someone wanting to show his repentant heart would often wear sackcloth, sit in ashes, and put ashes on top of his head. Sackcloth was a coarse material usually made of black goat’s hair, making it quite uncomfortable to wear. The ashes signified desolation and ruin.
When someone died, the act of putting on sackcloth showed heartfelt sorrow for the loss of that person. We see an example of this when David mourned the death of Abner, the commander of Saul’s army (2 Samuel 3:31). Jacob also demonstrated his grief by wearing sackcloth when he thought his son Joseph had been killed (Genesis 37:34). These instances of mourning for the dead mention sackcloth but not ashes.
Ashes accompanied sackcloth in times of national disaster or repenting from sin. Esther 4:1, for instance, describes Mordecai tearing his clothes, putting on sackcloth and ashes, and walking out into the city “wailing loudly and bitterly.” This was Mordecai’s reaction to King Xerxes’ declaration giving the wicked Haman authority to destroy the Jews (see Esther 3:8–15). Mordecai was not the only one who grieved. “In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes” (Esther 4:3). The Jews responded to the devastating news concerning their race with sackcloth and ashes, showing their intense grief and distress.
Sackcloth and ashes were also used as a public sign of repentance and humility before God. When Jonah declared to the people of Nineveh that God was going to destroy them for their wickedness, everyone from the king on down responded with repentance, fasting, and sackcloth and ashes (Jonah 3:5–7). They even put sackcloth on their animals (verse 8). Their reasoning was, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish” (verse 9). This is interesting because the Bible never says that Jonah’s message included any mention of God’s mercy; but mercy is what they received. It’s clear that the Ninevites’ donning of sackcloth and ashes was not a meaningless show. God saw genuine change—a humble change of heart represented by the sackcloth and ashes—and it caused Him to “relent” and not bring about His plan to destroy them (Jonah 3:10).
Other people the Bible mentions wearing sackcloth include King Hezekiah (Isaiah 37:1), Eliakim (2 Kings 19:2), King Ahab (1 Kings 21:27), the elders of Jerusalem (Lamentations 2:10), Daniel (Daniel 9:3), and the two witness in Revelation 11:3.
Very simply, sackcloth and ashes were used as an outward sign of one’s inward condition. Such a symbol made one’s change of heart visible and demonstrated the sincerity of one’s grief and/or repentance. It was not the act of putting on sackcloth and ashes itself that moved God to intervene, but the humility that such an action demonstrated (see 1 Samuel 16:7). God’s forgiveness in response to genuine repentance is celebrated by David’s words: “You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy” (Psalm 30:11).”
“To some non-Catholics Christians, the traditional pentitential practices of the Church (especially those of Lent) are unbiblical—traditions of men that are at best unnecessary and at worst seek to replace or add to Christ’s sacrifice with human works.
Yet penance has been part of the true religion since before the time of Christ, as shown by the Old Testament’s injunctions concerning fasting, wearing sackcloth, and sitting in dust and ashes. And they have been part of the Christian Church since its earliest days.
Penances can be formal or informal, but they amount to the same thing: expressions before God of sorrow over one’s sins, which is not only required by God but also by human nature; human beings have an innate need to mourn tragedies, and our sins are tragedies.
In ancient formal penitential discipline, there were four classes of penitents who had committed major sins (e.g., idolatry, murder, abortion, adultery), and they moved through the classes on their way to full reconciliation.
(Ed. there was a wonderful ancient tradition I was made aware of where, during the Easter vigil, the bishop would lead the penitents, thenceforth, banned from full communion due to their sin, being led by the hand by the bishop back into the Church. Lovely.)
Weepers were not allowed in the church but stayed outside and asked those going in to pray for them. Hearers stood inside church doors and heard the liturgy of the word but were dismissed, like the catechumens, before the liturgy of the Eucharist. Kneelers knelt or lay down in church and participated with the Church in specific prayers for them before being blessed by the bishop and dismissed prior to the Eucharist. Standers sat in the congregation and stayed for the liturgy of the Eucharist but did not receive Communion.
As these following selections show, the Church Fathers had a lively understanding of the role of penance in the Christian life (cf. Matt. 6:16-18, Mark 2:18-20, Acts 13:2-3, Jas. 4:8-10), an understanding we would do well to recover as we progress through this Lenten season: weeping for our sins, hearing the voice of God calling us back to communion with Him, kneeling in His presence with true contrition, and standing attentively as we ponder the lessons of His word.
THE DIDACHE
Before the baptism, let the one baptizing and the one to be baptized fast, as also any others who are able. Command the one who is to be baptized to fast beforehand for one or two days…[After becoming a Christian] do not let your fasts be with the hypocrites. They fast on Monday and Thursday, but you shall fast on Wednesday and Friday (Didache 7:1, 8:1 [A.D.70]).
POPE CLEMENT I
You [Corinthians], therefore, who laid the foundation of the rebellion [in your church], submit to the presbyters and be chastened to repentance, bending your knees in a spirit of humility (Letter to the Corinthians 57 [A.D. 80]).
HERMAS
[The old woman told me:] “Every prayer should be accompanied with humility: fast, therefore, and you will obtain from the Lord what you beg.” I fasted therefore for one day (The Shepherd 1:3:10 [A.D. 80]).
For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of penance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ (Letter to the Philadelphians 3 [A.D. 110]).
Wherefore, forsaking the vanity of many, and their false doctrines, let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from the beginning; staying awake in prayer, and persevering in fasting; beseeching in our supplications the all-seeing God “not to lead us into temptation,” as the Lord has said: “The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak” [Matt. 26:41] (Letter to the Philippians 7 [A.D. 135]).
I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we are praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us to where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, “Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (First Apology 61 [A.D. 151]).
Some consider themselves bound to fast one day [during Lent], others two days, others still more, while others [do so during] forty; the diurnal and the nocturnal hours they measure out together as their [fasting] day. And this variety among the observers [of the fasts] had not its origin in our time, but long before in that of our predecessors (Letter to Pope Victor [A.D. 190]).
TERTULLIAN
Confession is a discipline for man’s prostration and humiliation…It commands one to lie in sackcloth and ashes, to cover the body with mourning, to cast the spirit down in sorrow, to exchange the sins which have been committed for a demeanor of sorrow; to take no food or drink except what is plain, not, of course, for the sake of the stomach, but for the sake of the soul; and most of all, to feed prayers on fasting; to groan, to weep and wail day and night to the Lord your God; to bow before the presbyters, to kneel before God’s refuge places [altars], and to beseech all the brethren for the embassy of their own supplication (Repentance 9:3-5 [A.D. 203]).
ORIGEN
There is also a seventh, albeit hard and laborious [method of forgiveness] – the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner washes his pillow in tears, when his tears are day and night his nourishment, and when he does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord (Homilies on Leviticus 2:4 [A.D. 248]).
CYPRIAN
Sinners may do penance for a set time, and according to the rules of discipline come to public confession, and by imposition of the hand of the bishop and clergy receive the right of communion (Letters 9:2).
GREGORY THAUMATURGUS
Weeping is done outside the gate of the oratory, and the sinner standing there ought to implore the faithful, as they enter, to pray for him. Hearing is in the narthex inside the gate, where the sinner ought to stand while the catechumens are there, and afterward he should depart. For let him hear the Scriptures and the teachings…and then be cast out and not be reckoned as worthy of [the penitential] prayer. Submission allows one to stand within the gate of the temple, but he must go out with the catechumens. Assembly allows one to be associated with the faithful, without the necessity of going out with the catechumens. Last of all is participation in the consecrated elements (Canonical Letter, canon 11 [A.D. 256]).
EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA
[The Emperor Philip,] being a Christian desired, on the day of the last paschal vigil, to share with the multitude in the prayers of the Church, but that he was not permitted to enter, by him who then presided, until he had made confession and had numbered himself among those who were reckoned as transgressors and who occupied the place of penance. For if he had not done this, he would never have been received by him, on account of the many crimes which he had committed. It is said that he obeyed readily, manifesting in his conduct a genuine and pious fear of God (Church History 6:34 [A.D. 312]).
COUNCIL OF NICAEA I
It is decided by the council, even though they [those who apostatized without coercion during the persecution of Licinius] are unworthy of mercy, to treat them, nevertheless, with kindness. Those, then, who are truly repentant shall, as already baptized [people], spend three years among the hearers, and seven years among the kneelers, and for two years they shall participate with the people in prayers, but without taking part in the offering (canon 11 [A.D. 325]).
If the serpent, the devil, bites someone secretly, he infects that person with the venom of sin. And if the one who has been bitten keeps silence and does not do penance, and does not want to confess his wound…then his brother and his master, who have the word [of absolution] that will cure him, cannot very well assist him (Commentary on Ecclesiastes 10:11 [A.D. 388]).
Let him who has [committed incest]…[a]fter coming to an awareness of that dread sin, let him be a weeper for three years, standing at the door of the houses of prayer and begging the people entering there for the purpose of praying to offer in sympathy for him, each one, earnest petitions to the Lord. After this, let him be admitted for another three years among the hearers only; and when he has heard the Scriptures and the teachings, let him be put out and not be deemed worthy of the prayer. Then, if he has sought it with tears and has cast himself down before the Lord with a contrite heart and with great humility, let him be given admission for another three years. And thus, when he has exhibited fruits worthy of repentance, let him be admitted in the tenth year to the prayer of the faithful without communion. And when he has assembled for two years in prayer with the faithful, then let him finally be deemed worthy of the communion of the good (Letters 217:75 [A.D. 367]).”
ULF EKMAN is the founder of Word of Life, a non-denominational Charismatic church in Uppsala, Sweden and was its Senior Pastor for 30 years. In May of 2014, he and his wife, Birgitta, left their ministry and joined the Catholic Church. Ekman has held conferences and leadership seminars in many nations, especially in the former USSR, Eastern Europe, and India. He founded Bible schools and a theological seminary, hosted a television show aired in many nations, and has written more than 40 books and booklets, which have been translated into over 30 languages. For three years, he and Birgitta lived in Jerusalem. They currently live in Stockholm. They have four grown sons and seven grandchildren.
“When my wife, Birgitta, and I announced publicly on March 9, 2014, that we were becoming Catholics, it was the end of a long process over many years.
I was the senior pastor of a non-denominational Charismatic church, Word of Life, in Uppsala, Sweden. We started this church in 1983, and it had grown locally over the years to include a large network of new churches in many nations, especially in the former Soviet Union. We had been deeply involved in missions, church planting, and outreach in Europe, Russia, and Asia. We had started Christian schools and Bible schools and published thousands of books in 30 different languages.
To stand in the pulpit in our 4,000 seat church building and announce to our dear congregation that we now, after 30 years as their pastors, had come to the conclusion that we would become Catholics, was not easy. For some of our members this was an emotional tsunami; for others, who knew us better, it was the confirmation of their suspicions.
It was indeed the fruit of a long development stretching back some 15 years. It was not a hasty decision, even if for many it came as a surprise and a shock.
I had met my wife, Birgitta, as I studied to become a Lutheran minister at the University of Uppsala, Sweden in the mid-1970s. In May of 1970, I had come to a personal faith in Jesus Christ through strong conversion from a secular lifestyle. Birgitta had a Methodist background. Her parents were Swedish Methodist missionaries in India. When we met, we both had experienced the Evangelical life and the Charismatic movement. We loved Jesus and wanted to serve Him with all of our hearts.
My studies completed, I was ordained a Lutheran minister in 1979 and became a student chaplain at Uppsala University. This gave me an opportunity to continue to do what I had loved doing throughout my studies: to lead Bible studies and to evangelize among students.
In the early 1980s, we decided to take a year off to study more about the Charismatic life at a Charismatic Bible school in the USA. This was a huge step of faith for us, and we had to trust the Lord for all our needs. I learned a lot about the Christian life that I had never learned at the secular state university back home, with its rather liberal theology department.
When we returned to Sweden, we started a non- denominational Bible school and a new ministry that we called Word of Life. Eventually, I resigned as a Lutheran pastor, seeing that our activities involved church planting and our way of working was more Pentecostal/Charismatic in style and theology. The ministry, the Bible school, and the newly started church grew. Many, mainly young people, were attracted to it. There was a real hunger in Scandinavia, a desire to follow and serve Jesus. We started to send out many evangelistic teams and eventually long-term missionaries.
At the end of the 1980s, the Iron Curtain collapsed. Living only two hours by air from Moscow, we were able to engage heavily in missions into the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries. From 1989 onward, it was an amazing time, an unprecedented opening for the Gospel into these former Communist nations. It filled us with joy and purpose as we shuttled in and out, preaching and teaching. Atheism had been the norm in Russia for seven decades, but now we saw thousands of people turning to Jesus and new congregations being formed. Numerous Bible schools sprang up to train and equip these new Christians.
During this adventurous and busy time of the early 1990s, I visited Albania. We had a unique opening there, and I was able to preach at the main stadium in Tirana, the capital of Albania. We had brought with us our big choir, and 20,000 people filled the stadium. Our event was broadcast on state television in spite of the fact that Albania still had a Communist regime. It was amazing to see how people responded to the Gospel and how they hungered for Jesus Christ.
The following year, the Communist regime fell, and I returned to Albania and met the President-to-be. His elderly male secretary seemed particularly happy to see me; he greeted me with these words: “I am also a Catholic.”
This jolted me a bit, and I thought, “I am not Catholic, but Protestant.” And in my mind, the following thoughts raced quickly: “In justification, I am Lutheran, in holiness more of a Methodist, in Baptism more of a Baptist, but not just a Baptist, because I do believe Baptism actually confers the Holy Spirit. In believing in the Holy Spirit, I am more of a Pentecostal, but not just a Pentecostal, but also a Charismatic.” All this — really the history of the developments and divisions in the Body of Christ — raced through my mind. As I clearly did not know how to communicate all this to a happy Albanian who thought I was Catholic, I merely replied, “God bless you, brother!”
I found unforgettable this momentary experience that I was not in the center of the Church, but more on the peripheries, influenced by inner divisions and constantly splintering new movements. Although I had seen many wonderful things in my work, I was still a part of these divisions. Yet I knew the Bible taught unity and understood that this disunity was not what Jesus wanted from His Church. From this moment in Albania, the question of unity started to grow in me.
Some years later, I encountered a number of related challenges in our widespread missions work. They concerned authenticity in leadership and the need to have some form of doctrinal authority (or what Catholics called “magisterium” — although, of course, I did not use this term). When theological and moral issues arose, who had the right to decide what was to be believed? Who had the last word, and on what basis? How are authentic pastors appointed? Can just anybody start a group and call himself a pastor? In what relation did our pastors stand to other leaders, to be helped and corrected?
When everything was going well, it seemed like the independent and congregational view worked well enough; it was practical and effective. But when things started to go wrong, we had real trouble. Who could intervene in a local congregation or into a leader’s life and ministry — and on what authority? These reflections and actual experiences in our missions work led me to study and reflect more deeply on what the Church actually is.
By the end of the nineties, these thoughts were a constant challenge to me. It seemed the Lord was urging me to get to know the essence of the Church. I felt compelled to search, not only for the most effective strategies and activities for the church, the missions, and the evangelization, and not only for the building up of congregations and the training of leaders. I had to go deeper. I had to know the very essence of the Church. I realized more and more how weak I was in ecclesiological understanding and how pragmatic, even shallow, my understanding of the Church really was.
This led to a gradual change in my theology. There were ideas that were prevalent in our particular Christian circles that I had never really reflected on, even though I believed and taught them. Among these was a definite lack of respect for the past, for Christian history. Progress, growth, and “visions for the future” occupied us, at the expense of our historical sources and church tradition. We were anti-institutional because institutions were seen as threats to evangelical and spiritual freedom. A suspicion of perceived leadership abuse was prevalent, and the idea of obedience was not a popular concept. Personally, I saw the need to strengthen the training of pastors and leaders; I even wrote a book about it. But in our charismatic culture, “authority” was often viewed as a hindrance to the initiatives of the ordinary believer. There was an understanding of the common priesthood of the believer, but not really of the ministerial priesthood, at least not in the Catholic sense of the word. Little by little, I became aware of the need of all these things we Evangelicals had rejected. I started to study more about the historicity, the continuity, the authenticity, the authority, and the sacramentality of the Church. It was in this quest that I began to find the answers I was looking for, although I did not at first want to admit it.
I started to see that many of the activities we had engaged in were good and needed, but in themselves, they were not enough. I realized that we should not have to “reinvent the wheel” in every new generation. Continuity was stronger than discontinuity, and we were supposed to build on something that existed before us instead of departing from it or disdaining it as outdated or dead. This was a sobering and uncomfortable challenge, although in the end, it became very satisfying because of all the treasures we were discovering. Even more uncomfortable, especially at first, was the fact that the best answers to my ecclesiological questions invariably came from a source that I did not want to recognize: the Catholic Church.
While these questions were swarming in my mind, my wife was busy reading about St. Birgitta of Sweden (St. Bridget in English). 2003 was the 700th jubilee of St. Brigitta’s birth. At that time she was the only Swedish saint canonized by Rome, and there was a renewed interest in her. While my Birgitta was studying about her, she encountered a number of problems. This saint was certainly strongly used by God and loved Jesus dearly. St. Birgitta heard from the Lord, but she also — and this was troublesome — talked with Mary. Even more troublesome, Mary replied to her! We thought she must surely have been mistaken about these experiences with Mary, that she had confused Mary with the Holy Spirit. We spent a great deal of time reflecting and discussing these things. Slowly but steadily this took us to a point where we had to reconsider the place and purpose of the Virgin Mary, which previously was so unfamiliar to us as Protestants. For us, the question about Mary was not the last nut to crack, but the very first one we had to deal with in our quest into the Catholic faith. In this way, the Virgin Mary became our entryway into the Catholic Church.
At this time we were sent by our Word of Life church to start a study center in Israel. We moved to the village of Ein Kerem on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Ein Kerem is the village of John the Baptist and the meeting place for Elisabeth and Mary. For us, too, it became a meeting place with Mary.
The three years we spent in Israel brought us a much deeper respect for our spiritual roots and for the continuity of the faith. It was a place where the divisions in the Body of Christ became painfully visible to us. Christian unity became a deeper concern than ever before.
Wherever we were in Israel, we bumped into Catholics. In Sweden, we rarely met them, but here in Israel, they were everywhere. And as we got to know them, they impressed us as great Christians, open and loving, with a great love for Jesus. Much of our ignorance and inherited prejudice crumbled in this atmosphere of free communication with our Catholic brothers and sisters. We had the usual questions, and they were important to us: questions about the Pope, Mary and the saints, — and of course purgatory. We needed answers.
These questions were rooted in our Protestant belief in Sola Scriptura, in which we were steeped. Gradually it dawned on me that “Scripture alone” was really not so scriptural after all. Nor was it true that Catholics put Tradition, the Church, and the Pope over the Bible, or that they never read the Bible. Another Protestant misconception was that the Catholic Church tried to keep the Bible away from the lay people. These were propaganda and myths that we had unwittingly inherited from the time of the Reformation, still prominent in our culture.
It was now that I encountered another term, much more in line with Scripture and how the ancient Church actually understood Scripture: “the primacy of Scripture.” I also started to realize that understanding true Tradition was basically the key to how to read Scripture. I began to see that there is a real need of a Magisterium which, with the help of the Holy Spirit, can discern the true interpretation of Scripture in times of arguments and disagreements. We were not just left to ourselves; so it was not just about “me, my Bible, and Jesus.”
This was actually a great encouragement. It was a tremendous help in discerning that there is an objective truth in Revelation, and that this truth was deposited in the Church, which has safeguarded it and handed it on safely to succeeding generations.
One day, we took a walk in the Yemenite valley outside Ein Kerem. As we passed an old olive tree, I felt a question from the Holy Spirit. He had a lesson about pride for me to learn. “Look at this olive tree; it is dead, isn’t it?” Looking at it casually, it really looked like it was dead. It had holes right through the trunk. So I thought: “Yes, it is.” Then I sensed: “Look again.” And, looking again a little closer, I did see many small green leaves all over the branches. It was not dead at all. And inwardly I heard something I will never forget: “Don’t you ever call anything dead again.” I understood it clearly to refer to the criticism and scorn that from time to time I had felt and expressed towards the traditional, historical churches. I had to repent of my sin of pride then and there.
Through the years we had the opportunity to travel frequently, and this opportunity took us to Rome. Rome made a deep impression on us. The first time we went there together was in 1999 before we lived in Israel. We spent a week looking at churches and ancient monuments. Along the way, we discovered some excellent religious bookstores. We prayed and read a lot and discussed many subjects.
At his Wednesday audience, Pope John Paul II came quite close to us in his popemobile. My wife took the opportunity to give him a loud greeting and shouted happily, “God bless you, Brother!” I wasn’t quite sure if he was a brother or not, but when I considered my thoughts on the matter, I felt rather ashamed. Of course, he was a brother in the Lord, but I had to admit there had been times when I was not willing to recognize this.
In that very moment of my review of conscience, a young man next to me turned to me, asking: “Who is the Holy Father for you?” Surprised, I replied diplomatically: “The Bishop of Rome.” The young man returned, with serious eyes looking at me: “Is that all he is?” I had no answer. I felt caught, uneasy, with a guilty conscience. As I fumbled for an answer, the Lord again had a lesson for me.
From Israel, we traveled several times to Rome and continued our discoveries. Once, when we were in St. Peter’s Basilica, we had the opportunity to go down into the Scavi (the archeological excavations) under the sanctuary, where some bones of St. Peter apparently had been found. For me this was astonishing. I stood there and looked at these pieces of bone that very well could be from the buried body of Peter the Apostle. And as we climbed up the stairway to the sanctuary again, I realized that right above this grave was the high altar in the center of this magnificent church, where the successors of St. Peter celebrate the Eucharist. In that moment, the unbroken line from the ancient Church until today overwhelmed me.
The reality of this unshakable faith and unshakable Church, built by Christ on His Apostle Peter, whom He called “the rock,” came crashing down on me. As we walked out, my mind was completely filled with questions and wonderings about what we had seen. Is this really and actually the Church that Jesus founded? As I stepped out on the stairs outside the church, together with my wife and a friend, all three of us in an instant saw the exact same thing: the sky was, as usual, filled with birds flying back and forth. But suddenly, from high up in the sky and down over the great square, the birds formed a gigantic exclamation mark, perfect in shape, complete with a dot underneath it. It seemed that all the birds stood still for a moment in that formation. All three of us saw this surrealistic phenomenon, independently of one another. Meanwhile, in my mind, all my question marks were turning into a huge exclamation mark, as if the Lord were saying. “Haven’t you heard and seen enough now to believe?”
Grace turns our questions into answers, not by our own independent intellectual strength, but by Him revealing truth to us. We can only receive in faith and believe.
We began to realize more in-depth that the Catholic Church is the original, authentic, and true Church. That did not mean we didn’t see other Christians in other denominations as brothers and sisters. Of course, they are! Instead, it meant that there is something about the Catholic Church that every Christian needs and actually yearns for, even though those on the outside often reject it. It means coming into the fullness of what God wants to give all His children, in and through His Church.
One thing that divides all Christians into two distinct camps is the sacraments. If it is true that the sacraments actually confer grace and are not just symbols of the grace God wills to give us, then many questions arise. In what way is grace conferred? How is the Church safeguarding the sacraments, so that grace can come to us? When are the sacraments valid or invalid?
Of course, Christians differ a lot on such questions, but we were beginning to understand that God’s grace was truly present in the sacraments. The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist became very important to us. But if the Catholic Church taught this and we believed it, we were still on the outside. To be able to receive God’s grace in its fullness, we had to partake of the sacraments and to partake of the sacraments we had to be in full communion with the Catholic Church. I felt like someone standing ready outside a bakery shop. There was a glass window separating me from the good things inside the shop. I saw them, and I wanted them, but I could not participate in them. Frustratingly, we had to become Catholics to partake in their fullness.
From this point on, it became increasingly important how we were to treat and value these truths and treasures deposited in the Catholic Church. It now became a question of communicating what we had been discovering and sharing it with our dear Evangelical brothers and sisters in a good and proper way.
This journey of discovery had taken several years. During that time, over and over again, I heard four short exhortations: “Discover! Appreciate what you discover! Draw nearer to that which you have discovered! Unite with what you have discovered!” The last sentence I put on the back burner for a long time. I was not at all ready for that! Honestly, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to bring myself to become a Catholic. However, I did appreciate the Church and was strongly attracted towards it. My objections were melting away.
After three years in Israel, with this inner controversy raging, we moved back to Uppsala, Sweden. It was 2005, and I continued as pastor of Word of Life. My views had changed; my teaching and preaching had changed, and I started to share my nascent convictions. Many accepted this change, but not everybody, and I was still not sure of where all this would lead.
After our return to Sweden, we organized several tours to Rome with pastors and leaders from our international network. For many of them, it was a profitable experience, a real eye-opener that helped them to confront the ignorance and prejudices in their own lives, as it had my own. It felt good to be able to share this ecumenical openness with others, and sometimes it seemed like this would be enough. But the question of the meaning of the word “unite” that lingered in the back of my mind was still not resolved. Being in a position of pastoral leadership, with all the responsibilities this entailed, I could not simply forsake the sheep and leave. Over the past thirty years, we had built a community of some 200,000 Christians in many nations. How were we supposed to handle this situation?
From time to time, my wife, Birgitta, would ask me a simple but very compelling question: “But Ulf, what is the truth?” The truth — not convenience, not fear, nor the opinion of others — should be our guiding principle. But we did not want to hurt our people. Sometimes this looked like an impossible equation.
As I was more and more open about my convictions in my preaching and teaching, I also started to get more resistance and criticism. This openness towards the Catholic Church was not what some people wanted to hear, and deep-seated criticisms of the Catholic Faith surfaced. It was quite astonishing how deeply this bias was rooted throughout Sweden and all of Scandinavia. Since the Reformation in the 1500s, it seems the bias had been in our culture, even in our DNA. People who had never studied the subject could become furious if they perceived that I was inching toward Rome. Emotions started to run high, and we took some heat.
Some people started to accuse me of having a hidden agenda, and rumors came out, especially on the Internet, that we were already Catholics. Certain blogs were spreading wild rumors. We were accused of trying to collectively affiliate the whole of Word of Life with the Catholic Church, and there was a lot of murmuring. But the truth was that we, at that point, were not ready, not totally sure and did not yet have answers to all questions ourselves. So I stated what I was convinced of, nothing more. Eventually, we started to see that this position was not acceptable to anyone. I was praying a lot, trying to understand God’s will in these things and how to handle the criticism.
Around this time, we spoke with the Catholic Bishop of Sweden, to let him know where we stood. As I was a well-known public figure, it was arranged that we could receive the RCIA classes privately, with no strings attached. We could make up our mind either way when the course ended. We agreed to have a kind and loving Jesuit priest meet with us once a month for a year.
One night, at two in the morning, I was suddenly wide awake and heard in my heart: “It is time to step out into the water. You can do it in the way of the prophet Jonah or in the way of the Apostle Peter.” Well, I did not want Jonah’s way, running away from God’s calling and getting in all kinds of trouble, so I said: “OK, I want to do it in Peter’s way.”
Following that decision, I fell asleep peacefully. I knew I had been dragging my feet and procrastinating this important decision, but now that time was definitely over.
My wife and I made our move in total unity. Shortly afterward, we told our congregation that we were convinced that we needed to be in full union with the Catholic Church. A media storm erupted, going on for months, but now our hearts were at peace. With great joy and thankfulness in our hearts, on a beautiful spring day, the 21st of May, 2014, we were received into the Catholic Church in a small Brigettine chapel. We have never since doubted this decision for a moment, and every day we are thankful to God for this grace and privilege.”
“O Jesus, sweetness of hearts, delight of the spirit, by the bitterness of the vinegar and gall which You did taste on the Cross for Love of us, grant us the grace to receive worthily Your Precious Body and Blood during our life and at the hour of our death, that they may serve as a remedy and consolation for our souls. Amen.” -Saint Bridget of Sweden
Love,
Matthew
Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom
