Sir, - Dr Enda McDonough (The Irish Times, January 11th) has said that "members of other churches with a basic belief in the Eucharist as instituted by Jesus Christ should be invited and encouraged to participate in the Catholic Eucharist"; and, in similar fashion, "Catholics should be invited and encouraged to join in the Eucharistic celebrations of other churches". This change was called for, he argued, if Christ's prayer for unity was to be taken seriously, and "if the world is to believe".
Whatever the attitude of the moral theologian, these proposals present the dogmatic theologian with several problems, which, if we take the dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church seriously, would seem to be insoluble.
For the Church has solemnly defined that in the Eucharist, through the wonderful change which is most aptly designated as Transubstantiation, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ becomes truly, really, and substantially present, with His body and blood, soul and divinity, only the species, or appearances, of bread and wine remaining.
This is not what our separated brethren in the Protestant Churches believe regarding the Eucharist. But it does represent the faith of the Churches that make up Orthodoxy.
Similarly, the Catholic Church does not admit that the Orders received in the Protestant churches confer the power to bring about the presence of Christ by transubstantiation.
What will be the interior attitude of a Protestant who receives the Sacrament of the Eucharist, not believing that Christ is present in the manner defined by the Church? Similarly, what will be the interior attitude of the Catholic, who has been used to adoring Christ after receiving Communion, when he partakes of the sacrament in a Protestant church?
Dr McDonagh has cited the agreed statements arrived at by the churches. If, as is likely, he is referring to that of ARCIC on the Eucharist, it should be pointed out that this was repudiated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Nor was this surprising, for in formulating the agreed statement, the framers made no mention of such contentious issues as transubstantiation and the sacrificial character of the Mass. - Yours, etc., G. H. Duggan,
St Patrick's College, Silverstream, New Zealand.