Another Voice

I was at O’Hare airport in Chicago waiting for a return flight to Brussels. A young fellow sitting near me asked if I had ever been to Brussels. I told him that I knew Brussels quite well because I lived in Leuven, which is 15 miles from Brussels. He told me he worked for a multinational and was going to relocate to Brussels. I wished him well and told him that over the years I had known a lot of US expats who worked for multinationals.

He asked what I did, and I told him I was an historical theologian. He stared at me, chuckled and said, “So you are one of those guys who plays word games with official church teachings.” I replied, in a friendly way, that historical theologians don’t play games with church teachings but try to understand what those teachings meant in the past and what they do or do not mean for us today.” He didn’t react, and, at that point, we were asked to get in line for boarding our plane. He headed for his first-class line and waved goodbye.

Church teachings do change – or ought to change – because our knowledge and our understanding of languages, cultures, and human life develops and changes. For example, Adam and Eve were once understood as historic people. Today we realize that the Adam and Eve story in the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Scriptures is not an historical account but a symbolic and cultural creation. It serves as a mythological explanation for the origins of humanity and the presence of sin and suffering in the world. The same thing can be said about the Genesis story of Noah and the myth of the global flood.

People in every age need to examine how they observe and speak about religious beliefs and experiences. That has been my point from my very first post on Another Voice, fourteen years ago. I was inspired by lines from T.S. Elliot’s poem “Little Gidding” – “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.”

Today, we live in a world of tremendous and rapidly developing change. Understandings and realities are changing, whether people are comfortable or not about the new realities. Some people, fearful about change, are working hard to reassert their old, often prejudicial perspectives, creating an increasingly polarized society. Certainly, in the United States, we see a level of socio-cultural polarization that is higher than at the time of the nineteenth century Civil War.

We need a new stress on deep reflection and a new of level of serious conversation.

I have no desire to play word games with church leaders but the conversation we should be having with church leaders and politicians today is this: To what degree do the life and message of Jesus of Nazareth reverberate in your minds and hearts? To what degree does the Gospel guide one’s decision making: celebrating “loving your neighbor as yourself” to the extent that people genuinely care for others, support, and yes even forgive one another. This conversation undercuts racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and all human phobias.

Genuine Christianity promotes a healthy and healing ministry that sustains the individual and collective lives of people who genuinely try follow the way of Jesus.

If the life and message of Jesus do not animate and guide their lives, people who proudly wear the “Christian” label, whether conservative or progressive, are meaningless propagandists and phonies. 

Historical theology is anchored in Christian living and examines the experience of faith: the human relationship with God – described under various names such as “Creator,” “Ground of Being,” “the Sacred,” “the Divine.”

Theological understandings – statements of belief — can end up as official teachings (doctrines) when institutional leadership judges them useful guidelines for Christian life and belief. But it is important to remember that all doctrinal statements are time-bound, because language and understandings are time-bound. All doctrinal statements therefore are provisional until a better expression comes along.

Some guidelines for theological reflections:

•  Look less at the church as an institution and see it more as a community of faith-filled believers. What is happening within your own community of faith? What are the life-issues that really concern your family and friends? What does it mean for you to experience God today? Where do you find your support? How can you motivate and help the women and men in your community to truly minister to each other? What is keeping us from experimenting with new forms of parish life? Perhaps a parish should be a collection of many smaller communities of faith?
• Look deeper than the shortage of RCC male priests today and the questions about women deacons and women priests. Let’s look at the meaning of ministry itself. Let’s look at and examine the very idea of ordained ministry, as a ministry by trustworthy ministers. Jesus did not ordain anyone. Christian communities selected their own trust-worthy leaders for prayerful rituals and service.
• Years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, ordination was intrduced as a kind of quality control – to assure communities that the men and women who were their leaders were trustworthy and faith-filled leaders. Let’s scratch our heads about new forms of ministry and break out of the old patterns and paradigms. Why not have qualified graduate students — whether male, female, or nonbinary– with recognized faith and ministerial qualifications, helping out in liturgy and service in university parishes? If ordination is desired, could it not be for for two or three years? Does it have to be life-long? Why not ordain people for small or large group parish ministry? A parish could have several smaller “neighborhood churches.” Perhaps a parish could have many part-time ordained ministers who also have “regular” jobs? We can be creative.
• Healthy Christianity is rooted in being a healthy follower of the Way of Jesus. So, what does it really mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ today? This raises questions of knowledge and belief. What do we really know about the historical Jesus? He was not white, for sure. More likely dark brown. What about all of those very white, blue-eyed, and rather androgynous images of Jesus that really distort who he was and what he was all about? Was his biological father the Holy Spirit or the man we call Joseph? Isn’t the “virgin birth” more about saying Jesus was a very special and unique person than analyzing the biology of his conception? What if Jesus was gay or a married fellow? Would that make a difference for you? I have long thought that Jesus had a very close relationship with Mary the Magdalene. Would that destroy his meaning for Christian believers? Why? Was Jesus God? Early Hebrew Christians, including St. Paul, spoke with nuance about this. They understood Jesus as the revelation of God’s graciousness and love. And they understood that Incarnation involves all of us. As Jesus says in Luke 10:16, “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” Our humanity is anchored in divinity, whether people realize it or not.
• We need to change our conversation and move beyond the old worn-out and repetitive discussions.Changing the conversation means moving from lots of talk to making lots of real changes. And change rarely comes from the top. In my RCC tradition, for example, change usually starts at the grassroots level. People see the need and make the change. The old pattern is proven historically: (1) change is made; (2) change is condemned by church leadership; (3) change endures; (4) leadership allows the change as a limited “experiment;” (5) change becomes more widespread; (6) and finally church leadership allows it as “part of our tradition.”

Creative and critical reflection is not a dangerous activity, and it can be a source of life, because it brings a new focus, a new conversation, a new change, and new life. Moving beyond last year’s language.

On April 4th, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a Detroit, Michigan Catholic bishop, passed from this life. He was 94. Gumbleton became a national religious figure in the 1960s when he was urged by activist priests to oppose the United States’ role in the Vietnam War.

Tom, as friends knew him, was a founding leader of Pax Christi USA and a prophetic leader in the US Catholic peace movement. I first met him when I was a high school student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Seminary, where he had been a student. We met periodically over the years.

As Robert Mickens, Editor at La Croix International, wrote on April 06, 2024: “Tom Gumbleton was a friend and defender of the poor, the imprisoned, and the sexually abused, as well as those discriminated against because of their skin color, sexual orientation or female gender.”

Detroit’s strongly conservative Cardinal Edmund Szoka (Archbishop of Detroit from 1981 to 1990) and his conservative successors marginalized Gumbleton to the point that he eventually became the pastor of a parish of Detroit’s poorest and most run-down urban neighborhoods. He was still living there in a nearby apartment up to the day he died.

Tom Gumbleton’s death reminded me of the other Michigan Catholic bishop who was also a graduate of Sacred Heart Seminary and a very good friend: Kenneth Untener. On March 27, 2004, Ken, who was Bishop of Saginaw, Michigan, died of leukemia. In many ways he was my hero as well as my good friend. His death on March 27th at age 66 also coincided with my 61st birthday.

When Ken first came to Saginaw in 1980, he introduced himself to the people of Saginaw in the city hall. “Hello, I’m Ken and I’m going to be your waiter.” He loved to tell the following story: One day he was walking down the street toward a church with his genuine $12 shepherd’s staff in hand. “Look, Mom,” cried an 8-year-old girl, “there goes a shepherd,” and indeed Ken was exactly that.

Ken was “one of the few bishops for all those alienated women in the church and for liberal Catholics,” wrote Jesuit Fr. Thomas Reese, then editor of America magazine, at the time of Ken’s death. “These people could look at him and say, ‘Yes, there is someone in the hierarchy who is sensitive to our views and is willing to speak out.’ In that kind of prophetic role you won’t get your way most of the time, but you know five or 10 years from now, what people call outlandish may be accepted as normal. He was a point man, and it seems the point man always gets hit first.”

A year before his priesthood ordination in 1963 Ken broke his right leg playing handball. Because he had a genetically deformed ankle, doctors removed the entire leg below the knee. Ken never regretted the amputation. “A deformed leg,” Ken later said “was socially awkward. A wooden leg is not. … You can kid about it. But the experience of my leg was most valuable to me. I think I know something of what it’s like to be the only woman in a room of men or the only black among whites. I know what it’s like to be noticed. I’ve been made sensitive to that.” Nor did the loss of his leg impair his dedication to golf and hockey, games he indulged in with a lively competitiveness throughout his career.

I conclude this meditative reflection with a prayer that continues to inspire and motivate me.

“Prophets of a Future Not Our Own,” was written by Ken Untener in 1979. It was originally written by Ken not as a prayer but as part of a homily to be given by Cardinal John Dearden in 1979, at the annual Mass for deceased priests in the Archdiocese of Detroit, Michigan.

It helps now and then to step back
and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime
only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise
that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection;
no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds
that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations
that will need further development.
We provide yeast
that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and do it very well.
It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning,
a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter
and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.

(Another Voice is returning a week earlier than planned.)

On Tuesday of Holy week, former U.S. president Donald J. Trump said, on his social media outlet TRUTH SOCIAL, that the Bible is his favorite book. He then encouraged supporters to buy his special “God Bless the USA Bible” for $59.99. Trump’s “God Bless the USA Bible” includes copies of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance. It also includes country music singer Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA.” On Good Friday of Holy Week some of Trump’s faithful were saying – to DJT’s delight – that it is Donald Trump who is being crucified today.

The 45^th U.S. president is now working very hard to transform the Republican Party into a kind of Church of Trump. Robert Reich, who served as Bill Clinton’s labor secretary, observed on X (formerly Twitter) that “Donald Trump is starting the week by comparing himself to Jesus. Whether he has a messiah complex or is just conning his supporters, he’s playing to a growing GOP faction that wants America to be a white Christian Nationalist state, with Donald Trump as a divine ruler.” I thought immediately about the strongly pro-Trump Christian nationalist movement, the Society for American Civic Renewal. It is known as  “SACR.” Some even consider it a sacred movement.

SACR is an exclusive, men-only fraternal order which aims to replace the United States government with an authoritarian extreme Christian nationalism and religious autocracy. Its founders sought inspiration in the apartheid-era South African white men-only group, the Afrikaner-Broederbond. SACR is open to new recruits, provided they meet a few criteria: the potential member must be male, a “trinitarian” Christian, a heterosexual, an “un-hyphenated American,” and can supportively – meeting their far-right criteria – answer questions about Trump, the Republican Party, and Christian Nationalism.

SACR was founded by Charles Haywood, U.S. businessman, far-right commentator, and chair of the New Tomorrow Political Action Committee, formerly called Unify Carmel. It is a conservative education pressure group in Carmel, Indiana.

The SACR website describes the organization, which even has a lodge in Moscow, as raising leaders to “counter and conquer” the “poison” of “those who rule today.” SACR uses a cross-like insignia, described on the website as symbolizing “sword and shield” and the rejection of “Modernist philosophies and heresies.” SACR membership is by invitation only, and excludes women, LGBTQ+ people, and Mormons.  It is closely associated with the Claremont Institute, a far-right conservative think tank based in Upland, California.

The institute has been a strong defender of Donald Trump, ever since Joseph Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election. And, as Michael Bender wrote in the New York Times this year on April 1^st, “Mr. Trump’s political creed stands as one of the starkest examples of his effort to transform the Republican Party into a kind of Church of Trump.” And on the Saturday before Easter 2024, Trump shared an article on social media with the headline “The Crucifixion of Donald Trump.” Christian nationalism in DJT style.

A friend asked recently what is wrong with Christian nationalism. Certainly, between now and the next U.S. presidential election on Tuesday November 5, 2024, we will be reading and hearing a lot about it.

I am a U.S. citizen and a committed Christian but I strongly object to Christian nationalism. It is anchored in an anti-democratic notion that the United States is a nation by and for Christians alone; and it threatens the principle of the separation of church and state. Separation of church and state, I would emphasize, is good for the church and good for the state.

Christian nationalism leads to discrimination and violence, circumventing laws and regulations aimed at protecting a pluralistic democracy, with protections for all people.

There is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism is about power not belief.

Christian nationalism is hardly just a USA phenomenon. I have doubts that he is really a Christian, but another big contemporary Christian nationalist is Vladimir Putin. He has greatly increased the power of the Russian Orthodox Church and maintains close contact with Moscow’s Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill. Kirill has blessed the war in Ukraine as a “holy war” and claims that God is on Russia’s side. Hundreds of Orthodox priests in Ukraine and elsewhere, however, have accused Patriarch Kirill of “heresy” for his warmongering. Nevertheless, on March 27, 2024, the World Russian People’s Council (WRPC), an organization chaired by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, published a new document that further aligns the Russian Orthodox Church with Vladimir Putin’s political regime.

And a final example of contemporary Christian nationalism is Victor Orbán, the autocratic leader of Hungary, who has urged Christian nationalists in Europe and the USA to “unite our forces.” Orbán met with Donald Trump in mid March 2024 at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Trump heaped praise on Viktor Orbán while hosting the Hungarian prime minister at Mar-a-Lago. “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter, or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic,” the former president told a crowd gathered at his Florida resort. Trump added that the European autocrat is “a noncontroversial figure because he said, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it, right? He’s the boss and … he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”

Donald Trump’s comment reminded me of the observation by Desiderius Erasmus (c.1466 – 1536): “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

Jack

______

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

In ancient times, olive oil was commonly used for medicinal purposes. It was applied to injuries to hasten the healing process. In Luke 10:25-37, for example, Jesus describes the compassionate Samaritan who pours oil, and wine, on the man who was beaten by robbers and left for dead.

Jesus told those whom he healed that their faith had saved them. One could say his ministry was “faith healing,” but with no pejorative connotations. In the synoptic Gospels, Matthew records fourteen instances of healing by Jesus. Mark records six instances. In Mark 6:13, for example, Jesus sends the disciples out and they anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. Luke, traditionally said to have been a physician, recounts thirteen instances of healing. In John’s Gospel, we find three key healing accounts: the healing of a nobleman’s son who was at the point of death; the healing of a man at the sheep-gate pool in Jerusalem; and the healing of the man born blind.

The ministry of healing was an important ministry in the early Christian communities. In New Testament apostolic letters we find a number of examples. In his letter to the Corinthians, written c. 53 CE, Paul mentions that some members of the community have the gift of healing (1 Corinthians 12:9). In the Epistle of James, traditionally attributed to James the brother of Jesus and written before 62 CE, James gave instructions to the Christian community about the ministry of healing: the elders (presbyters) were to be called and were to pray over the sick person and to anoint the man or woman with oil in the name of the Lord (James 5:14-16).

In a letter from the third century theologian Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 220 CE ), he mentions a Christian who cured with blessed oil. There are no other surviving healing texts from the third century. Liturgical documents from the fourth century, however, indicate that the oil blessed for those preparing for baptism was also used for curing spiritual and physical sickness. And there is a prayer for the blessing of oil for strengthening and healing in the early Christian document called “The Apostolic Tradition,” dating most likely from about 375 to 400 CE. The document was once thought to be the work of Hippolytus of Rome, and was dated before 235 CE when Hippolytus is believed to have been martyred.

Up until the eighth century CE, anointing the sick was a widespread practice. It was done by Christian people for their relatives, by men and women with a reputation for healing, and by monks, nuns, and priests. Especially noteworthy, however, is the fact that anointing of the sick remained primarily a lay practice.

Indeed, blessed oil had long been regarded as a substance through which people could be healed. But there had been no official ritual for anointing the sick. That changed in the ninth century.

The blessing of the oil became more solemn and more restricted. It was reserved to the local bishop on Holy Thursday. And the anointing of the sick became a strictly clerical ritual. Most significantly, however, the anointing with blessed oil became an end of life experience, due no doubt to the high mortality rate and the fear of death, at this time.

The sacrament of the sick gradually lost its general healing dimension and became part of the “last rites” before death. Therefore, it came to be called “extreme unction” or “final anointing.” Many people who might otherwise have benefited from the sacrament avoided it or waited until death was imminent before requesting it. It had become indeed a priestly ritual for the dying person.

Reacting to the Protestant Reformation, the sixteenth century Council of Trent stressed that that anointing of the sick is a true sacrament, that it had been established by the historic Jesus, and that it was especially intended for people in danger of death. Trent stressed that only priests were the “proper” ministers of anointing.

The Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965) reclaimed the original meaning of the Sacrament of Anointing that emphasizes the concern and care of the Christian Community and the healing power of Christ. It is intended not just for the end of life but for any time of serious illness or special need. The Council said as well that “extreme unction” should more fittingly be called “anointing of the sick” because by the 1960s it had become clear that the purpose of the sacrament had originally been for the sick and not just for the dying. The bishops at Vatican II also acknowledged – especially noteworthy — that this sacrament was not a strictly clerical ritual until the ninth century.

My contemporary reflections: I very much resonate with the words of my, now deceased, sacramental theologian friend, Joseph Martos: “The only genuine way forward is to look away from ritual and to look instead at what is ritualized, that is, to look at life rather than liturgy and, indeed, to look at the communal lives of people in the church.”

Today we already have communal liturgical rites, in which the theme and focus are healing. I envision anointing rituals performed by ordained and non-ordained ministers/chaplains for people in hospitals, under hospice care or in homes. And more particularly, I would like to see regular informal rituals performed by parish nurses and lay ministers who regularly visit the sick

                    Happy Easter 2024.

Easter is our hope and encouragement to live in the Spirit of Christ. To live and act as Jesus did.

In often think about the words of the Christian humanist, Desiderius Erasmus (1466 – 1536) who lived for a few years in Park Abbey very close to where my wife and I live:

“If you just keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don’t do it, and it won’t happen.”

Jack

PS: I will be away from my computer for two weeks and will return on April 18.

Our understanding of priests, bishops, and deacons has changed dramatically in the church’s long history.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples of Jesus (c. 4 BCE – 30 or 33 CE) understood ther role as one of ministry and service to others. Sent out to spread the Good News of the Way of Jesus, they were called “apostles” from the Greek word apóstolos, meaning “one who is sent out.”

In the earliest Christian communities men and women were apostles. There was a variety of ministries; but ordained priesthood was not one of them. Contrary to what one occasionally hears, the historical Jesus did not ordain anyone at the Last Supper. In the medieval period, many thought he did. But ordination did not exist in his lifetime.

The letters of Paul, written between 48 and 62 CE, mention a variety of charismatic gifts which can be thought of as ministries benefiting the local Christian community, even though the ministers were not ordained in our sense of the word. For example, members, who could teach, taught. Those who were good organizers administered community affairs. Those who had the gift of prophesy could speak out and tell the community what they needed to hear, as faithful followers in the way of Jesus.

We know as well that men and women who were heads of households presided at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist); and hosted the gatherings in their homes. In Romans 16, Paul greets women leaders such as the deacon Phoebe, the apostle Junia, and the married apostles Priscilla and her husband Aquila. Clear evidence that women were respected leaders in the emerging Jesus movement.

As Christian communities developed, ministries and the ways of training and appointing ministers evolved to meet changing cultural conditions and changing social needs. Presbyters, from the Greek presbyteroi, were community elders. Supervisor overseers (later called bishops) from the Greek epískopoi had oversight and offered guidance in community affairs, and deacons, from the Greek diaconoi, were helpers, entrusted with assisting people in the community by caring for widows, doing charitable work, catechizing, and assisting in baptisms.

The approval and blessing of the community for diverse ministries was indicated by the laying on of hands. These ministries included preaching, prophesy, healing, working miracles, speaking in tongues, and interpreting what was said in tongues (see 1 Corinthians 12:12-30, Ephesians 4:11-12, Romans 12:4-8; and 1 Corinthians 12:4-11). None of the men and women exercising these ministries were ordained. Acts of Apostles, written between c. 90 and 110 CE, mentions the laying on of hands for elders or presbyters, but here it was a form of blessing for those in ministry. In the Hebrew tradition, the laying on of hands was practiced when a father would impart a blessing to his children (see Genesis 48:14-15). We also see Jesus do this: He lays hands on children and blesses them.

In the first three centuries of Christianity, therefore, we have no direct evidence of what would later be called an ordination ceremony. By the end of the third century, however, Christianity had a clear organizational structure headed by presbyters, supervisor-overseers (bishops), and deacons. Initiation into these orders was accomplished through a rite of ordination that inducted a person into a local office in a particular community.

It is important to clarify that ordination at this time was NOT about passing on some kind of sacramental power. As my former professor the “Dutch theologian” Edward Schillebeeckx once said about liturgical leadership in the past: “You led the liturgy because you were the leader of the people. You didn’t lead the liturgy because you were ordained to have the power of consecration.” Ordination was a blessing on the minister and an assurance to the community that the ordained man or woman was competent, a genuine believer, and trustworthy. There is ample evidence that in the West women were ordained as deacons and abbesses well into the Middle Ages. Women continued to be ordained deacons in the East and were ordained to a variety of ministries. Many contemporary scholars agree with Gary Macy, professor of religious studies at the University of San Diego, who argues that, during the first twelve hundred years of Christianity, women were also ordained as presbyters and bishops. I find the arguments in Macy’s book The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination well-documented and convincing.

It is very important to note, however, that in the 12th century ordination changed from its earlier understanding as a blessing for different ministries in service for a specific community to a bestowal of sacramental power “to confect” (make it happen) the sacrament of the Lord’s body and blood. The ordained now belonged as well to a higher social class. The classless and egalitarian church of early Christianity had disappeared. History is important.

The Council of Trent, held in three separate sittings between 1545 and 1563 in Trento in northern Italy, issued several doctrinal pronouncements about ordination, reacting of course to the Protestant Reformation. The Tridentine bishops declared as required Catholic belief that ordination was a sacrament personally instituted by the historic Jesus. The Council of Trent stressed that the sacramental power of ordination was passed on through the tactile laying on of hands, understood as “apostolic succession” going back to Jesus’ “ordination of the apostles as the very first bishops” at the Last Supper. Today we would say that apostolic succession is not about a tactile laying on of hands but about passing on faith, witness, and ministerial leadership from generation to generation.

The Council of Trent stressed as well that ordination brought about an ontological change in the ordained person – a change in the very nature of the person — which elevated the ordained to a level above the laity, leaving an indelible mark on the person forever. The Tridentine bishops emphasized that bishops have the fullest and highest degree of “sacramental power.” They forgot or were ignorant about the fact that the historical Jesus did not exercise power over people but empowered them them to care for others.

Thinking about Trent, one should not forget of course the influence that medieval feudalism still had on the church at that time. There were three estates: the nobility, the clergy, and the peasantry. Bishops, in strongly patriarchal feudalism, held positions of power as feudal lords and as advisers to kings and nobles. Bishops generally lived with the same hierarchical powers, ornate dress, and luxuries as the nobles.

Ordination is a ceremony that celebrates the beginning of a professional life of ministry. It could be much more flexible than it is today and open of course to men and women, married and unmarried, and of whatever sexual orientation. It could be for a specific number of years or life long.

What is celebrated in an ordination ceremony is not getting power over other people or one’s being elevated above the non-ordained. It is about making a commitment and responding to a call to preach the Gospel and care for others. It is about being of service to others, as genuine and credible ministers: helping others grow in and with the Spirit of Christ.

Thinking about ordination and pastoral ministry today, I would like to see some creative changes.

• I would like to see ministerial appointments – ordinations — extended to religious educators, youth ministers, pastoral counsellors, social workers, and others, whose faith and competence are well recognized. Perhaps some would only be ordained ministers for just a few years, and then others would carry on their ministry.
• Youth ministers for example could be ministers of confirmation.
• Pastoral counsellors could be ministers of reconciliation.
• Religious educators and youth ministers could preside at small group eucharists.
• Social workers could be ministers of the anointing of the sick during house calls and hospital visits as well as presiders at small group eucharists in residences for the elderly.
• I am sure there are many other creative ministry possibilities.

Jack

[A few friends have written that they miss my comments about contemporary issues. I understand that. But I would strongly suggest that we cannot deal effectively with today’s issues without a correct understanding of what TRULY happened yesterday. Please bear with me. The history of marriage is a good example. And that history is Christian history not just “Roman Catholic history.”]

During the first three centuries of Christianity, when Christians married, they did so according to the civil laws of the time, in a traditional family ceremony, and often without any special “church” blessing on their union. There was no liturgical ceremony for marriage, as we saw for Baptism and Eucharist.

The usual marriage custom was that, on the wedding day, the father handed over his daughter to the groom in her own family’s house. The bridal party then walked in procession to her new husband’s house for concluding ceremonies and a wedding feast. The principal part of the ceremony was the handing over of the bride, during which her right hand was placed in the groom’s and the draping of a garland of flowers over the couple to symbolize their happy union. There were no official words that had to be spoken and there was no ecclesiastical ceremony.

In the late fourth century, it became customary in some places in the Eastern Roman Empire for a priest or bishop to give his blessing to the newly wedded couple either during the wedding feast or before it. Priests or bishops were not in charge of, nor did they conduct the ceremony. Their presence was not necessary for the marriage to be valid.

Throughout the seventh century, Christians could still get married in a purely secular ceremony. By the eighth century, however, liturgical weddings had become quite common in the Eastern Empire, and they were usually performed in a church rather than in a home.

In the Western Empire, however, marriage developed along quite different lines.

The first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne (748 – 814 CE), initiated legal reforms in his empire, in both church and civil government. In 802 Charlemagne passed a law requiring all proposed marriages to be examined for legal restrictions, such as previous marriages or close family relationships, before the wedding could take place. Clandestine marriages were a problem, especially in matters of property ownership. Interestingly, Charlemagne himself had five wives in sequence, numerous concubines, and at least 20 children via his wives and concubines.

By the eleventh century, all marriages in Europe effectively came under the jurisdictional power of the church. It became customary to hold weddings near a church, often in front of the church, so that the newly married couple could go inside immediately afterward to obtain a priest’s blessing. But the priest did not officiate at the wedding. And…it was not until the twelfth century that a church wedding ceremony was conducted by the clergy. But marriage was still not considered a sacrament.

It was also in the eleventh century that celibacy became mandatory for priests in the west. Before that time many priests were married but they were encouraged not to have sexual intercourse with their wives. The last married Pope was Adrian II (pope from 867–872 CE), who was married to Stephania, with whom they had a daughter. There were two big reasons for the imposition of celibacy. First, there was a belief that the historical Jesus was a virgin and that therefore priests should be virgins. But there was a second important reason. Priests’ wives were starting to become too influential and threatened male clerical power in the institutional church.

At the urging of popes and councils, a kind of monastic austerity was gradually forced upon the clergy as a whole. Pope Benedict VIII in 1018 formally forbade priestly marriages. That prohibition was solemnly proclaimed by the First Lateran Council of 1123. The rule, however, was not easy to enforce.

In the thirteenth century, marriage was often viewed by church leaders as a remedy against the desires of the flesh. Many church authorities, like Albert the Great (1200 – 1280), the teacher of Thomas Aquinas (1225 -1274), considered sexual desires themselves if not sinful at best dangerous. Thomas Aquinas stressed that virginity was preferable to marriage. In his Summa Theologiae (sometimes called Summa Theologica) he wrote, “By the example of Christ, who both chose a virgin for his mother and remained himself a virgin, and by the teaching of the Apostle [i.e. Paul] who counsels virginity as the greater good.”

By the early thirteenth century, however, marriage came to be viewed as one of the church’s seven official sacraments. This was confirmed by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1213, the Council of Florence in 1439, and was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent, meeting off and on from 1545 to 1563. Nevertheless, the bishops at Trent condemned the still ongoing practice of some priests getting married and strongly declared that Catholics had to believe that virginity and celibacy were superior to marriage.

Today many Catholic theologians and canon lawyers say it is better to let the legal regulation of marriage be a matter of civic control, without denying that church weddings are important communal celebrations or that Christian marriages are sacramental. And…marriages are sacramental because two baptized people make a commitment to each other. They are the “ministers of the sacrament.” The priest is an official witness. But what then about two baptized same-sex people who make a marriage commitment to each other? Is not their marriage also sacramental?

Times change. We acquire new knowledge and new insights about our human identity. In many respects we have better biblical and historical perspectives on the past. Our understandings evolve. Accepted patterns of human behavior do change.

My friend, who completed his doctorate in theology in Leuven in 1994, Todd Salzman and his colleague at Creighton University, Michael Lawler, have a new book coming out in May: Pope Francis, Marriage, and Same-Sex Civil Unions.Todd and Michael argue for the organic development of Catholic sexual teaching to recognize the morality and sacramentality of opposite-sex and same-sex marriage.

Contemporary pastoral ministry confronts a number of issues and concerns. Some have been resolved in other Christian traditions but remain problematic in the Catholic tradition, because many in church leadership have difficulty understanding that all church doctrines are time-bound and provisional.

The Greek word, agápē, is usually translated as “love” in the New Testament. It really means care or caring. When Jesus tells his followers to love one another, as we read for instance in John 13:34–35, he is telling them to care about each other and to take care of one another.

Jesus never said it mattered if someone was gay, lesbian, trans, or straight. Agápē is not a feeling word. It is an action word. Loving and committed people are bound together in agápē.

Jack

In the New Testament there is no description of a ritual or ceremony associated with Penance or Reconciliation. The only ritual of forgiveness known to the earliest Christian community was Baptism. Today in fact, biblical scholars view just about all the texts that speak of a call to repentance as a call to Baptism, and moral rectitude after Baptism. Penance was seen as part of Baptism. There was no separate sacrament as we have it today.

The early Christians clearly understood that Jesus began his ministry with a call to repentance (Mark 1:15). To those who showed sorrow for their sinfulness he announced that they were forgiven by the power of God (Luke 5:18–26; 7:36–50). When asked how many times people should forgive one another, Jesus said, in effect, “every time.”

By the second century, Bishop Ignatius Theophoros of Antioch (died c. 110) and other second-century bishops continued to speak of personal correction and praying for others as a means of combating sin. Polycarp the Greek bishop of Smyrna (69  – 155) wrote that pastors should be compassionate and merciful to the sheep in Christ’s flock who went astray.

Later in the second century, however, there was a new development. There could only be one penitential reconciliation after Baptism, for the serious sins of apostasy, murder, and adultery. The public sinner would have to confess sins to the bishop. During liturgies,  the public sinner had to sit behind the community and wear penitential clothing. The public sinner was not allowed to stay for Eucharist and had to leave after the Gospel.

By the third century, a general pattern for the public reconciliation of known sinners began to appear in many Christian communities. Those who wanted to rejoin the community went to the bishop and confessed their error. But before they could be readmitted to the ranks of the faithful they had to reform their lives. They had to perform works of repentance, fasting and praying, and giving alms to the poor to show that their repentance was sincere. The period of their penitence could be a few weeks or a few years depending on the penitential customs of their community. In effect serious sinners were thrown out of the community: excommunicated. When their time of penance was over, the bishop imposed his hands on their heads as he had done after their Baptism.

There were extremes in interpretation. The rigorists claimed that excommunication for sins like apostasy and adultery should be permanent.

Penance, by the late fourth and fifth century, became a very public matter. But it was still normally received only once in a lifetime. The majority of Christians, however, felt no need for public penitence. They were not great saints but they were not great sinners either. During this time, therefore, we see a new development especially in Ireland.

Christianity first came to Ireland in the fifth century, around 431 CE. Missionaries, most famously including Saint Patrick, converted the Irish tribes to Christianity. The Celtic practice of Penance became the seeking of private spiritual advice. Devout Christians were encouraged to personally confess their shortcomings to a spiritual “guide” or “physician” who would give them direction in works of prayer and repentance. The person to whom they went, note well, was not necessarily a priest. Confession could be made to a layperson, but was usually to a monk or a nun.

Penitential books containing rules concerning Penance were also first developed by Celtic monks in Ireland in the sixth century. They gave lists of sins and the appropriate penances prescribed for them. They became a type of manual for spiritual guides. The number of penitential books and their importance is often cited as evidence of the particular strictness of Celtic spirituality in the seventh century. Depending on the penitent’s social status, a penance could be harsher or more lenient. For example, if a member of the clergy murdered a person, how long he had to fast depended on his position in the hierarchy. A bishop had to fast for twelve years, a priest or monk had to fast for ten years, and a deacon had to fast for seven years. And no matter the clergyman’s status, they were defrocked.

In the twelfth century, the rules changed. Only priests could listen to the confession of sins. Only priests had the “sacramental power.” But fortunately, people could receive the sacrament of Penance many times during one’s life. The formula that the priest used after hearing a person’s confession changed as well. What had been “May God have mercy on you and forgive you your sins” was changed to “I absolve you from your sins.” Thomas Aquinas, with his limited knowledge of the early centuries of Christian life, mistakenly asserted that the changed formula was in fact an ancient formula.

It was also in the twelfth century that the understanding of “purgatory” developed. Medieval theologians said sins were forgiven but that, after death, sinners’ souls still needed to be cleansed before they could enter heaven. Purgatory was suggested and presumed to be a place of a cleansing or “purgatorial fire,” outside the gates of heaven, to enable the deceased to achieve the holiness necessary for them to enter the joy of heaven.

At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, the Western Church defined, for the first time, its teaching on purgatory, but the Eastern Orthodox Church did not adopt the doctrine. [Much later, Popes John Paul II (1920 – 2005) and Benedict XVI (1927 – 2022) wrote that the term “purgatory” does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence. But neither pope could acknowledge that “purgatory” was simply an imaginative thirteenth century conjecture.]

In any case, it was in the fifteenth century that indulgences — from the Latin verb indulgere meaning “to forgive” or “to be lenient toward” — were introduced as a way to reduce the “days” of purgatorial punishment one had to undergo before entering heaven.

One could get an indulgence for saying special prayers, visiting holy shrines, performing good deeds, and later by contributing money to the church. The main funding for the early stages of building St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, for example, came from the sale of indulgences. The German Dominican friar Johan Tetzel (c.1465 – 1519) gathered indulgence money for the St. Peter’s building project. Although it is now disputed, the old legend was that Tetzel had said: “When the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

When Pope Leo X (1475 – 1521) excommunicated Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) from the Catholic Church in 1520, the bill of excommunication also condemned forty-one of his ideas, including six on indulgences and twelve on penance.

In the mid-16th century, the bishops at the Council of Trent (1545 – 1563) stressed private confession to a priest as the approved approach to the sacrament of Penance. In fact, Trent’s bishops – not always historically aware ecclesiastics – stated that private confession dated back to the early days of Christianity. They simply presumed that the historic Jesus had created the sacrament of Penance as they understood it.

The Council of Trent’s medieval conception of sin and its remission through the confession of guilt and the performance of penitential works lasted into modern times because the Catholic Church, for a long time, retained its medieval cultural form, while the world around it changed.

The Roman Catholic approach to Penance began to change after the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965) when the name of the sacrament was changed from Penance to Reconciliation, and the rite allowed for a meeting of priest and penitent that was more like counseling than confession.

How should Christian communities practice Reconciliation today? People do need to acknowledge their sinful behavior and seek forgiveness. But forgiveness also requires reconciliation.

I suggest that at the local parish level, Christian communities should devote resources and personnel to focus on conversion and reconciliation about racism, misogyny, and homophobic discrimination. They should also focus on reconciliation within families: between husbands and wives, between parents and teenagers, between brothers and sisters who are angry with each other, and perhaps even between extended family members.

Sacramental forms and ministers can be adjusted to fit contemporary needs and circumstances. Such a ministry of reconciliation would require specially trained men and women as Ministers of Reconciliation. Then indeed the local Christian community would truly exercise sacraments of Reconciliation.

Jack

The word “eucharist” comes from the Greek verb eucharistein meaning “to give thanks.” At Jesus’ Last Supper, he gave thanks, giving special significance to the bread and wine he passed to the men and women who were his disciples. Bread and wine had long been used in Hebrew religious practices. When Jesus said the bread and wine were his body and blood, he was speaking about giving his life for his followers.

Paul refers to the Christian practice of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11. Acts of Apostles mentions three occasions, when the early followers of Jesus gathered to give thanks and break bread together: Acts 2, Acts 20 and Acts 27.

The early eucharistic services were presided over by the men and women who were leaders of the local Christian communities. Ordination was not yet a requirement for eucharistic leaders, because it did not even exist at that time.

Early Christians understood, much better than the medieval Christians who came centuries after them, that social realities can be powerful spiritual realities. The Body of Christ, as Paul stressed, was the Christian community. The Gospel According to Matthew is very clear: Jesus says: “Where two or three gather together in my name, there I am, with them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Interestingly, when the Gospel According to John describes the Last Supper, it mentions the washing of feet but not Jesus’ actions with bread and wine. But the sixth chapter of John’s gospel does quote Jesus as saying, “I am the bread of life. . . This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Nevertheless, John is very strong in his affirmation of the presence of Christ in the community. In chapter 17 we read Jesus saying: “Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity.” (John 17:20-26)

 By the late first and early second century, the weekly ceremonial meal of the Christian communities was called a “Thanksgiving” (eucharistia). The Palestinian Christian leader Justin (100 – c. 165 CE) argued that the Christian Eucharist had replaced Hebrew sacrifices. Justin took a text from Malachi, the last book of the Hebrew Bible, and applied it to Christians in his own days: “Everywhere a pure sacrifice is offered to my name because my name is great among the nations, says the Lord almighty.” (Malachi 1:11)

A “pure sacrifice” in the ancient world was a religious meal, shared by individuals who were ritually “pure.”

Centuries later, in the the eighth and ninth centuries, the ritual changed from a community celebration to a priestly action and worship arrangements in churches changed significantly. The presider became the “celebrant” and no longer faced the people but faced the apse: standing before the altar with his back to the congregation.

The new priestly practice was first adopted in the basilicas of Rome and then became common practice across Europe. What was lost was the sense that the congregation was the Body of Christ. What had been a community ritual became the celebrant’s ritual. The celebrant “said Mass.” The congregation watched everything from some distance. The word “Mass” was derived from the concluding words of the ritual in Latin: Ite, missa est, “Go, it is the dismissal.”

By the eleventh century, the ritual performed by priests was no longer understood as a sacred meal but as a priestly sacrifice: a sacrificial offering of God’s Son to God his Father. Medieval theologians misinterpreted Justin’s quotation from Malachi. Key among them was Anselm (1033 – 1109) the Archbishop of Canterbury with his “satisfaction theory of atonement.” Anselm created a theological distortion with his understanding of God not as a loving Father but as a hard-nosed and vengeful judge, demanding the death of his own son. Quite a departure from “God is love.”

Not long after Anselm, the influential Dominican philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) introduced another important change in eucharistic understanding. He noted significantly that the Eucharist was different from the other sacraments because it was not just a sacred ritual, but Eucharist was a sacred object. Popular piety shifted to adoration of that sacred object: the eucharistic bread, called the “host,” from the Latin word “hostis,” meaning victim.

The changed understanding became official when the Fourth Lateran Council (1215 CE) decided that it was not necessary for Christians to receive communion regularly. The Blessed Sacrament (the name given to the consecrated bread), however, was to be adored. As a natural development of the changed focus to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the feast of Corpus Christi (eucharistic Body of Christ), was established in 1264 by Pope Urban IV (1195 – 1264) shortly before his death. The worship of the consecrated host greatly expanded into the public adoration of the host exposed on the altar. Monstrances, ornate display cases, were created to display the consecrated host. Stories about bleeding hosts and apparitions of Christ in the consecrated host were widespread.

Protestant reformers reacted to many eucharistic aberrations. The variety of Protestant teachings about the eucharist forced the bishops at the Council of Trent (meeting in twenty-five sessions between 13 December 1545 and 4 December 1563) to restate the meaning of the sacrament.

The Council of Trent produced three documents on the Eucharist, based on Aristotelian scholastic theology. The bishops declared that “Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really and substantially contained under the appearances of bread and wine.” This presence, due to “transubstantiation,” was based on medieval Aristotelian metaphysics. It was understood as “the real presence,” localized in the sacramental bread, and not just a spiritual presence. The bishops at Trent said nothing about the earlier ceremonial meal and nothing about the real presence of Christ in the Christian community, the Body of Christ.

As sacramental theologian Joseph Martos so often observed, the Catholic Church officially still recognizes the doctrines of the Council of Trent, but contemporary Catholics and Catholic theologians are quietly laying them aside.

Most contemporary theologians no longer speak about the Mass as a sacrifice. The term “transubstantiation” is virtually unknown to younger Catholics. Even the word “mass,” though still in popular use, is disappearing from the vocabulary of theologians and liturgists. Today more prefer to speak of the Mass as the “Eucharistic Liturgy.” (The English word “liturgy” is derived from the ancient Greek leitourgia, which means “a work or service for the people.”)

I remember when my former professor Edward Schillebeeckx (1914 – 2009) said we should stop talking about “transubstantiation.” He stressed that in the eucharistic celebration the bread and wine take on a new significance and proposed the term “transignification.”

In 2019 a Pew Research Center survey found that most self-described U.S. Catholics did not believe in transubstantiation. Nearly 69% said they personally believed that the bread and wine used in Communion “are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” U.S. Catholic bishops were greatly dismayed – some even angry — and said something had to be done.

During their November 2021 annual meeting, The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) voted overwhelmingly (201 – 17) to launch a three-year Eucharistic revival initiative – to teach Catholics about the Eucharist — that will culminate this year, 2024, in a National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Most Catholics who reject the idea of Christ’s “real presence” in the Eucharist think it means that Christ is physically present in the Eucharist. In fact, Christ’s presence is not a physical presence.

But we do perceive spiritual realities, however, through physical realities. When one looks, for example, at the physical words on a page, one perceives things that are not physical, namely meanings or ideas. Our eyes look at black marks on a white background, but the mind perceives what the words mean.

Contemporary theologians understand all of the sacraments as ritual actions of words and gestures, which embody and reveal not only human realities but also divine realities. At his Last Supper, Jesus changed the meaning of a common Hebrew ritual to a memorial of his own death and resurrection. He changed the meaning of the bread and wine from what they signified for the Hebrew people to a sacrament of his body and blood.

Today we better understand that just as the Word of God is present in the reading of Sacred Scripture at each liturgy, so also Christ is present sacramentally in the bread and wine celebration shared in the Christian community as signs of spiritual communion with him. As Paul the Apostle stressed, Christians are the Body of Christ.

The worshiping Christian community, the Body of Christ, makes it possible for Christ to be present in the proclaiming of God’s word in the Scriptures, in the thanksgiving that it offers to God in remembrance of Jesus’ Last Supper, and in the giving and receiving of the eucharistic bread and wine.

If we believe the Christian community gathered for Eucharist is the Body of Christ, it is not enough to just believe it. We must also live it, practicing love of God and love of neighbor as outlined in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7).

Our Christian faith is not a relic of the past. It is a life-giving program for today and for tomorrow. We are called to be in dialogue with the times and the world in which we live, faithful to the Word of God, and striving to harmonize life and faith.

Jack

In many Christian denominations, Confirmation is a rite that often includes a profession of faith by an already baptized person. Confirmation is not practiced in Christian traditions that stress the importance of believer’s adult baptism.

Confirmation as a separate sacramental ritual in Western Christianity did not exist at first. Contrary to what some people still think, the historical Jesus did not “institute the sacrament of Confirmation.”  Its origin in early Christian communities was in the blessing that the baptizing overseeer (bishop) gave right after doing the baptismal water ritual. It was therefore part of Baptism.

The early practice changed, however, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 CE and the number of Christians grew tremendously. Very quickly there were more baptisms than a single bishop in each city could handle. Priests, therefore, began doing the baptizing.

What had originally been a bishop’s blessing administered after doing a baptism then became, in the fourth century, a bishop’s blessing separated in time and space from the water ritual. The episcopal rite was called a blessing or anointing, and in various places it was given names such as “Chrism” or “Consignation.”

In the fifth century, in what is today’s France, the post-baptismal blessing was called “Confirmation” and this name eventually gained wide acceptance. Many people really did not see the necessity for this Confirmation ritual, because Baptism was the key sacrament of initiation into the Christian community. For the most part, therefore, episcopal Confirmation fell into disuse.

In the ninth century, however, reform-minded French bishops made an attempt to revive Confirmation, suggesting that it bestowed “the gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Nevertheless, by the twelfth century, Confirmation was mostly only received by those who wanted to be members of the ordained clergy.

Another change, called “the bishop’s slap,” arrived in the thirteenth century. But the post Vatican II (1962 – 1965) reformed rite of Confirmation enacted in 1971 removed it. It had been added to the ritual in the 13^th century by Durandus of Saint-Pourçain (c. 1275 – 1332). He was a French Dominican, theologian, and bishop. The bishop’s slap happened, after the anointing, when the bishop (usually gently) slapped the confirmand’s cheek while saying, “Peace be with you.” The slap inspired military imagery and fostered an interpretation of confirmation as a maturity rite for new “soldiers of Christ.” Its meaning however was poorly understood and so it was removed in the 1971 reshaping of Confirmation.

In 1563 the Counter-Reformation Council of Trent stressed the importance of the Sacrament of Confirmation because the bishops believed it had been established by the historical Jesus. Their belief was not grounded in any documented history but in their own historic conjecture. They simply presumed Jesus had created it.

Historical understandings can and do change and better historical information brings changed institutional and personal understandings as well. Over the centuries, Confirmation has gone through a number of changes in understanding and ceremonies.

In the Eastern Catholic Church, the sacrament is called Chrismation and it is conferred immediately after baptism for infants along with their First Communion. In Western Christianity, Confirmation is ordinarily administered when a child reaches the age of reason or early adolescence. In Belgium, for example, young people are confirmed at age 12. In Germany Protestants were usually confirmed around age 14, Catholics about age 12.

In the United States the debate about Confirmation has been growing ever since the decision of the Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in 1972 that Confirmation should ordinarily be celebrated for adolescents in junior high. In the late 1970s and early 1980s a number of dioceses moved Confirmation to high school years, like a Christian Bar or Bat Mitzvah – a coming of age ceremony for boys and girls when they reach the age of 12 or 13. But in the late 1980s some dioceses moved in the opposite direction, celebrating Confirmation just before First Communion in second grade. There are of course variations. In the Diocese of Fargo, North Dakota, the sacraments of Confirmation and First Holy Eucharist are celebrated together at the same Mass. The usual age for the reception of these sacraments is third grade.

Concluding thoughts: Meaningful sacraments are not just rituals that celebrate beliefs, but rituals that truly celebrate lived realities. If Confirmation is truly a rite of passage, it needs to facilitate and celebrate a genuine change in people’s lives. A dynamic and meaningful Confirmation should connect people, whatever their age, with an experienced spiritual reality: an experience of the Sacred in the depth of our human lives. Such an experience gives people what we so desperately need today: faith, hope, and courage to journey forward.

Perhaps we all need to spend more time studying and reflecting on Christian spirituality, as a good friend said recently, “where we see the glimmer of the living Spirit peeking through, calling us forward, and joining us together, healed, whole, and holy.”

I personally would like to see Confirmation as a ritual of adult commitment to the Christian way of life: a faithful commitment to caring for others and to the spiritual transformation that results from living according to the Gospel. But I would say that Confirmation in many places is a sacramental ritual still in evolution.

Jack

P.S.   Readers have asked me for a couple book recommendations about sacraments. Two books by sacramental theologian friend Joseph J. Martos (1943 – 2020) are on the top of my list: Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Catholic Church. Be sure to get the version updated in 2014. The other Martos book I really like is Honest Rituals, Honest Sacraments which he completed in 2017.

The Synoptic Gospels (Mark 1:9–11; Matthew 3:13–17; Luke 3:21–23) mention the ritual immersion practiced by John the Baptizer in which Jesus himself participated. Matthew 29:18–20 also portrays the risen Lord, in a post-Resurrection narrative, commanding his disciples to baptize using a Trinitarian formula. The words came not from the historic Jesus, biblical scholars suggest, but from early church practice around the year 80 CE.

The word “baptism” is derived from Latin and Greek words meaning to immerse or to plunge in water. Historically people have participated in Baptism by being dipped or immersed in water, having water poured on their heads, or even just splashing some water on the head of the person being baptized.

John the Baptizer was an itinerant Hebrew preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the first century CE. John used Baptism as the central symbol of his pre-messianic movement. Most scholars agree that John baptized Jesus and that certainly some of Jesus’ disciples had been participants in John the Baptizer’s religious movement. Being baptized by John demonstrated a desire to refocus one’s life and make a commitment to follow God’s law in anticipation of the Messiah’s arrival.

For Jesus, his Baptism marked a moment of personal discernment and preparation for his own public ministry, which was far greater than the ministry of John the Baptizer.

That a ritual immersion in water was important in the earliest decades of the Jesus movement is clear from the many references to it in the New Testament. When Paul speaks of being “immersed in one spirit” and “into one body,” he is talking about the ritual’s marking an entrance into the community and sharing a communal spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13). But Paul did not develop an elaborate theology of Baptism. Borrowing from Hebrew ideas with which he was familiar, Paul saw it as a symbolic immersion and an initiation not only into the community of believers but into the very way of life that Jesus himself had lived.

The earliest and best second-century source on believer’s Baptism is the Didache or “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” 100-110 CE. It reveals how Hebrew Christians saw themselves and how they adapted their practice for Gentile Christians. The Didache not only establishes moral qualifications for the adult who is about to undergo Baptism but also requires the baptismal candidate to fast for a day or two.

Originally the minister of Baptism was the overseer (bishop). Later presbyters (priests). But over the years, official RCC teaching about the minister of Baptism has evolved. A layperson can baptize when a priest or deacon is not readily available. This, for example, has been happening for some time in Austria and Switzerland. Most recently, in March 2022, Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck, Bishop of Essen, Germany, appointed 18 lay pastoral and parish workers – 17 women and one man – as extraordinary baptismal ministers, for a three-year period. Then in November 2023, Bishop Gebhard Fürst, in the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart in Southwestern Germany, commissioned 26 theologically trained, non-ordained, men and women to administer the sacrament of Baptism in his diocese.

Infant Baptism? Traditionally, advocates of infant Baptism say that its practice dates back to the apostles. Yet there is no proof for this assertion. No clear evidence for infant Baptism exists before the third century.

Baptism began as a ritual for adults. But it developed greatly in the third century, and by the fourth and fifth centuries, Baptism had become a several-weeks-long adult exercise involving prayer, instruction, and learning the creed: all leading up to the actual baptismal washing on Easter. The ceremony was usually conducted by the overseer (bishop) of the Christian community.

Although some infants were being baptized in the third and fourth centuries, infant Baptism did not really become widespread until the fifth century, thanks to the introduction of his Original Sin understanding by Bishop Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430 CE).

For many traditionalist Christians, the doctrine of “Original Sin” is firm and definite. In fact, however, there are no biblical and no historical indications that Jesus knew of or believed this doctrine. Neither did the early church. Original Sin is a theological construct created by Augustine of Hippo in the late fourth century. Augustine taught that through sexual intercourse all humans inherited a tainted nature. He identified male semen as the means by which Original Sin was inherited and passed on. He stressed however that the historic Jesus of Nazareth was free of Original Sin because he was conceived without any semen.

Augustine believed as well that sexual desire itself was a consequence of Original Sin. Oddly enough, as a young man, Augustine had had few qualms about sexual desire and engaging in sexual relationships. When an 17 years old student in Carthage, he began a long-term relationship with a mistress. He had at least one son, who died as a teenager, named Adeodatus i.e. “a gift from God.” He left his mistress at the prompting of his mother, Monica, who wanted him to marry a young heiress in Milan. That did not happen. Augustine did find another mistress. But then he had an anti-body and anti-sex “conversion,” and became a celibate priest.

Most importantly we need to understand Augustine’s Original Sin impact on infant Baptism. Augustine held that when unbaptized infants died, they went straight to hell as a consequence of Original Sin. Remember that infant mortality in those days of course was quite high. Augustine therefore became a strong advocate of infant Baptism, and in the church, thanks to Augustine, infant Baptism would become the norm.

Quite honestly, Augustine’s negative understanding of human sexuality and his creation of the Original Sin doctrine have always been theologically problematic.

Back to adults. Some post-Reformation Christian traditions strongly rejected infant Baptism. The Anabaptists, started in 1527, believed that Baptism was valid only when candidates freely acknowledged their faith in Christ and requested to be baptized. The word “Anabaptist” comes from the Greek word ana meaning “again” as in “baptized again.” Anabaptist groups today include mainly the Amish, the Brethren, and the Mennonites.

Other contemporary Christian traditions, of course, stress the importance of adult believer’s Baptism. “Baptists” form a major branch of Evangelical Christianity distinguished by baptizing adult professing Christian believers and doing so by immersion.

In many ways I can resonate with the stress on adult Baptism, but I doubt very much that infant Baptism will disappear. Regardless, Baptism is not a thing. It is an initiation into the community of believers. The communIty of believers, therefore, has a major responsibility to support and promote the healthy Christian development of all of all of its members. Just as parents, family, and friends promote the physical, mental, and intellectual development of babies and children, so too parents, family, and Christian communities bear a heavy responsibility to promote and support the Christian faith and values development of their babies and children.

Yes, there is “continuity and change” in all of the sacraments. Meaningful sacraments are not just rituals that celebrate beliefs but those that truly celebrate lived and living realities. A dynamic and meaningful sacrament should connect people, whatever their age, with an experienced spiritual reality: an experience of the Sacred in the depth of our human lives.

Jack