Toledo (Spain), infantry cadets paying homage to the Blessed Sacrament on the feast of Corpus Christi.
Corpus Christi: A great example of the Church’s militancy
Excerpts from the "Saint of the Day", 28 May 1970, without revision by the author
We are on the feast of Corpus Christi and I would like to show you something about why this feast was instituted.
Denial of the Real Presence: fracture point between Protestants and Catholics
You know that the Protestants, heretics, denied and still deny the real presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. This was one of the greatest scandals of the Church in the 16th century, a century of many scandals. The medieval people had a profound faith in the Blessed Sacrament, in the Real Presence, and therefore an enormous devotion to the Holy Mass or to the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. And the Protestants brutally denied the Real Presence.
This denial was one of the fracture points between Protestants and Catholics and was received by Catholics as one of the worst outrages ever committed against Our Lord.
What pastoral tactics did the Church use in the face of this?
So what was the policy, because here we can speak of policy in the highest sense of the word, that is, what was the pastoral tactic used by the Church in the face of this fact?
The Church had two paths. It could have said: "Well, our separated Protestant brothers are denying the real presence. If we strongly affirm the real presence, we increase the separation. Since they do not accept that dogma in any way, to the extent that we affirm it, they will move away; therefore, it is worthwhile for us to rethink the dogma of the real presence. And, considering that times have changed, because the year 1500 was to all intents and purposes a long way from year 1 of the Christian era, it was only natural that we would now express the real presence with a different vocabulary that might please Protestants. It would not be a denial of the real presence - never! It is a dogma defined by Our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, we will not say the opposite of this dogma".
"But instead of loudly affirming that Our Lord is really present under Eucharistic appearances, present with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, we could say the following: what is this presence really? God is present everywhere, and good Protestant friends may understand that God is present there, as he is present, for example, in a flower, or as he is present in a piece of bread. We understand that this is not so. That He is really present with Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, but we're not going to say that so as not to create a schism. We're going to use a confusing term, an equivocal term, and that way they'll be united with us. Then we'll start the dialogue. In the dialogue we say to them: "What would it be like if we went back and studied the fundamentals of the dogma of the Real Presence, to ascertain, on the whole, to what extent this dogma has or has not its foundation in Holy Scripture?"
The Protestant would say: "Your doubt is brother to mine. I, too, want to study the question, as you also want to study it". He will be left with the impression that I have a doubt, but I did not say that I have a doubt".
Then a conversation began about the Blessed Sacrament in which one would say: "Look, it would be more interesting, instead of taking a rigid position, that we study how we could come to an agreement. So that from the thesis 'Jesus Christ is really present in the Eucharist' and the antithesis 'Jesus Christ is not really present in the Eucharist' a third position could be deduced. Which wouldn't be entirely one thing, nor entirely the other. You give in a little, I'll give in a little. And we will affirm together that Jesus Christ is indeed present in the Eucharist. Now, whether he is present only as God or as the God-Man is a detail on which each of us claims our freedom of position. Then we will have finally reached a synthesis."
"In this way, the split between Protestants and Catholics could have been avoided, and the Christian world would today be unanimously Catholic. This would have given the Catholic Religion a strength, a vigour, a greatness very different from the sadness of this rupture, this division that exists. You Catholics, when you see the Protestant sects pulverised and from above and from within your unity you laugh at this pulverisation, can you imagine what misfortune you are laughing at? Do you have any idea how much this has represented for the moral detente of this divided Protestant world? How much struggle, division, pain and suffering it has represented? The first commission came from you, when you rejected our novelty. The other commissions came in a chain, precisely because of that rejection you practised. You are the authors of the evils of which you complain, and you laugh at us, since you have reduced us to the state we are in."
If Satan were to use the word more intelligently and more attractively, he would say much the same thing.
The Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ to teach the truth
The saints, the theologians, the popes who lived at that time, followed a completely different policy. And they thought this: the Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ to teach the truth. It has no right to give a confused teaching, because a confused teaching is not a teaching worthy of the name. A confused teaching is unworthy. Even if it is not intentional, and the teacher out of incompetence lets confusion reign over the content of what he is teaching, he is not worthy to be a teacher. For clarity is the first quality of the teacher.
The first requirement of teaching is clarity
Therefore, the first requirement of teaching is clarity. If one who intentionally teaches does not do so with clarity, he is worse than an incompetent: he is dishonest. Indeed, it is dishonesty, it is fraud, to present oneself with the ulterior motive of not giving the whole truth, when that is what is expected.
If, according to what those great theologians and doctors thought, the Church were to keep silent on this matter, and the faithful were to listen to a confused teaching on a truth indispensable for salvation, she would be defrauding the faithful. And she would fail in its mission.
Secondly, if the Church were silent on the Eucharist, it would lead the faithful to receive Communion in the wrong way. Who can make an act of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament if they are not certain that Our Lord Jesus Christ is there? It is not possible! In other words, to maintain a putrid unity, the Church would sacrifice the spiritual life of its faithful.
The Fathers of the Council of Trent understood that it was necessary to do the opposite. And, in opposition to Protestantism, accentuate the cult of the Blessed Sacrament. Establish a feast for the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Make a procession in which the Blessed Sacrament would go out into the streets, adored by all, in which the crowds would adore it while kneeling on the ground, recognising that beneath the Eucharistic appearances is Our Lord Jesus Christ. And to promote this worship in every way, reaching that fullness that is the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, instituted by St Peter Julian Eymard.
The policy of honesty, loyalty and integrity
It was the politics of confrontation, of not conceding, of fighting, of affirming, of proclaiming. It was the politics of honesty, loyalty, integrity, consistency. From it came to the Church a torrent of graces; precisely the graces of the Counter-Reformation, which represented one of the greatest showers of grace the Church has ever received.
The accentuation of the cult of the Blessed Sacrament, of Our Lady, of devotion to the papacy, was the Church's response to Protestantism. It was a 300-year-long response that became more and more accentuated. In the 19th century, the proclamation of papal infallibility, the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and, in our day, the dogma of the Assumption. We had a series of statements, institutions, etc. that developed and affirmed what Protestantism denied. Thus, the more they persisted in their error, the more we loudly proclaimed the truth. The more they were divided, the more our unity was affirmed.
Until other winds blew... Let us tell the truth at once: there are countless Catholics who no longer have the consistency of their faith. They no longer have the combativeness, they no longer have the integrity that characterises the institution when it is alive.
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