Current Eucharistic debates cannot be reduced to allowing or not allowing the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass. If that was the issue rather than just a symptom, a solution might be more readily worked out.
But the current debates run deeper. Nor are they just “old” versus “new.” Those who cite posture for receiving Communion, for example, want to cast the issue in those categories.
Andrea Grillo, the Roman liturgist to whom it attributed authorship of Traditionis custodes, which restricts the Latin Mass, recently wrote a piece criticizing Blessed Carlo Acutis. Acutis’s canonization was deferred until September because of the papal interregnum. Grillo deems him to victim of “mal-education” when it comes to “Eucharistic theology” because Acutis was interested in Eucharistic miracles.
It doesn’t stop there. Consider Paul Turner’s Eucharistic Reservation (Liturgical Press, 2024), his recent book on Eucharistic worship outside Mass. Turner takes issue with the practice in many churches after Communion when all priests face the tabernacle while one places unused hosts in the tabernacle, and then all bow as he closes the tabernacle door. Turner also thinks that elevating the host at the consecration is a contamination from the old rites and that it would be better for the priest to extend the host more vertically versus populum for the people to see. That probably tallies with Charlotte Bishop Michael Martin’s obsessions over whether candles should be on or beside the altar and the angle of the sacramentary if upon the altar.
Recall that Cardinal Blase Cupich objected to an open Eucharistic procession through Chicago during the cross-country journey to Indianapolis’s Eucharistic Congress last year because supposedly adoration “privatize[s] one’s relationship to the sacrament and to the Lord himself, overlooking the communitarian dimension of Eucharistic worship.” The bishops’ three-year National Eucharistic Revival was regularly marred by similar sniping over its attention to adoration.
Nor are these issues stemming from suppressed desiderata under Pope Francis by partisans trying to see whether the new “papa” will indulge them differently.
We are at a key moment in Church history. Vatican II, like Trent and other councils before it, is passing into history. In twenty years, we’ve gone from a Pope who was a council father to one who was a conciliar peritus to one who was still in seminary to one who was a Chicago Catholic school student. Like debates over the Constitution, there remain debates as to what the Council Fathers wrote, what they intended, and what the “living Council” (the “spirit of the Council”) has imposed over the last sixty years. Those three things can be very different and, I would argue, the votaries of the third want to seize the narrative to fossilize their vision as the history of the Council. It’s called “seizing the narrative.”
July 1 is the fortieth anniversary of my doctorate, so I’ve seen theological arguments for a good period of the post-conciliar era. I’d argue that, particularly under Pope Francis, we were regularly served up a diet of 1970s retreads that didn’t make it the first time around (e.g., Cardinal Kasper’s Communion for the divorced) but got one more lap. And I’d suggest one of those retreads behind the current Eucharistic debates alludes back to a debate from the 1970s: is “Eucharist” a verb or a noun? Is “Eucharist” something/someone that is? Something we do? Or both?
Vatican II made clear that the “Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life” (Lumen gentium, 11). No one should argue with that. To the best of my knowledge, no Catholics ever did. It’s what’s overlaid on that clear statement that confuses people.
Yes, the most important act we do as Catholics is to celebrate the Mass. It reenacts Christ’s sacrifice to the Father, and it forms Catholics in an unrepeatable way as a communio personarum. Everything else we do leads to or springs from that act; nothing can take its place.
That is Eucharist as verb.
But what we do at Mass leaves something/Someone behind. The Eucharist does not cease when “Mass is ended, go in peace” (even though there were some Protestant theologians who conflated the Lord’s Supper with its celebration). The fact that we reserve the sacrament in the tabernacle means that an objective reality perdures. And that existence is not dependent on our state of grace. The grace of Reconciliation may go away when we commit a mortal sin, but what the sacrament did does not: sins that are forgiven do not return like Harpies. And, in the Eucharist, quite independently of the grace in the individual soul, another objective reality exists and continues to exist as long as the Eucharistic species exist. That’s why we place those species in a tabernacle or monstrance … and adore.
That is Eucharist as noun.
Another thing I have seen time and again in my forty years around the theological block is the observation made by numerous thinkers on both sides of the aisle that Protestants are “either/or” types, Catholics “both/and.” For Protestants, it’s faith or good works, nature or grace, Scripture or nothing else. For Catholics, it’s faith and good works, nature and grace, Scripture and Tradition. Catholics prove that we can hold two complementary ideas together simultaneously without turning them into antitheses.
I fear that the Grillos and other Eucharistic minimalists find that idea challenging. That’s why they are fighting this rearguard effort to nail down their interpretations of the Council’s teaching.
Yes, the greatest miracle that happens occurs every day on altars in every corner of the world. But that miracle does not exclude or depreciate the various miracles that the Church has confirmed over the ages–miracles in which it seems Carlo Acutis was interested–that served to offer, at least by private revelation, divine warrant to the truth of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Those realities are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, one could argue that a domineering and excessive focus on Eucharist as verb, on celebrating the Eucharist to the neglect of Eucharistic adoration, is responsible for the very confusion the Pew Research Center identified about the Catholic understanding of the Real Presence (i.e., the objective reality of the Eucharist) and for which the bishops of the United States launched their three-year Eucharistic renewal program. Celebrating the Eucharist ought to make us more aware of Christ’s abiding presence with us, even after the Eucharist is celebrated.
Over the decades, I have noted that those most allergic to honoring the Presence of Christ in the Eucharistic host–be it by all priestly Communion ministers (who, by Church law ought to be ordinarily those distributing Communion) reposing remaining hosts after Communion or leading holy hours for the laity–are usually those who so accentuate the celebration of Mass that they are jaundiced towards Eucharistic worship outside of Mass. Yes, there can be abuses if Eucharistic adoration dominates Eucharistic celebration. But that hasn’t happened, I’d argue, for a good six decades. What has happened are attempts to sideline Eucharistic adoration outside of Mass (I remember a visiting deacon at a seminary once asking how to celebrate Exposition). Again, these forms of Eucharistic devotion are complementary. They reinforce each other.
Eucharistic minimalists will tell you that reservation of the Eucharistic species originated out of a practical need: having Communion (Viaticum) for the dying. That may be true, but the Holy Spirit did not stop inspiring the faithful at the end of the fifth century (the point after which some liturgists seem to think any subsequent developments automatically deform Christian liturgy). The fact that Eucharistic worship outside of Mass evolved in many forms (Corpus Christi, Exposition/Benediction, processions, 40 Hours, Eucharistic congresses) was not an aberration but a recognition that reservation of the Eucharistic species was not merely a utilitarian function.
Many Eucharistic minimalists also seem to have a very cramped notion of Church, focusing almost exclusively on this one “community” celebrating the Eucharist this morning in, say, New York. Yes, that is the Church. But the Church is also a lot bigger than that geographically and temporally–and that bigger Church has been constituted by the celebration of the Eucharist past, present, and future. Yes, what Catholics do at this moment here and now matters, but it cannot in practice be divorced from what Catholics are doing simultaneously at that moment somewhere else, nor what they have done or will do.
My concern is that the partisans of Eucharist-as-verb want to return us to 1969 (apparently the reset point at which the Holy Spirit returned to renew the Church following His hiatus after the fifth century). To 1969, with its attenuated Eucharistic spirituality that marginalized Eucharistic devotion outside Mass and, in the name of “noble simplicity,” imposed astringent rubrics that the faithful over the ensuing decades found inhibiting rather than facilitative of their Eucharistic piety. If we are indeed the “listening synodal” Church we are told we are, that insight needs to be evaluated against some hermeneutic of continuity.
“Backwardism” (indietrismo, one of Pope Francis’s favorite epithets) seems to be measuring 2025 by 1969 rather than 1969 by insights gained in the following 56 years. Eucharistic theology and spirituality did not begin in 1969. What preceded that year does not “contaminate” Vatican II Eucharistic theology but, in a genuine hermeneutic of continuity, needs to fit with it.
What is being advanced by the Grillos of the world as the “normative” interpretation of Vatican II is anything but. It is “normative” in the sense that interpretation was imposed, and its liturgical keepers refuse to consider its ongoing adequacy. But can one really believe that the Conciliar Fathers in 1965 intended worship of the Eucharist outside Mass to fade away? And that what is done with the remaining Eucharistic hosts after distribution of Communion should more reflect “clearing the table” than their respectful reposition?
As I’ve said, I accept the Novus Ordo Missae and am not interested in returning to the traditional Latin Mass. But today’s Eucharistic controversies go far beyond that debate. Their honest engagement requires recognizing that questioning what was done—especially by liturgists—“in the name of the Council” is not the same thing as questioning the Council itself, and that conflating that today is either theological sloppiness or dishonesty.
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The absolute simplicity of God: He is what He does and does what He is. The Triune One is Love, but also Truth—as the One, the Good and the Beautiful.
Benedict accented the “immediacy” (!) of the incarnate Mediator Christ—as one who is not suspended in some imaginary space between God and man.
Of the sacramental Real Presence, the uncomplicated response in wonder by one who converted on the spot from devout Protestantism: “Is that really YOU, Jesus?” The personal Real Presence of Christ and our personal relationship with Jesus should be and are one and the same “thing.”
“In leaving Protestantism I gave up nothing, but gained what I always thought I had.”
Grondelski raises valid concerns about Eucharistic theology but suffers from a polemical tone and a selective reading of both Sacrosanctum Concilium and Traditionis Custodes. While he claims to transcend debates over the Latin Mass, much of his critique targets post-Vatican II reforms, implying that Eucharistic adoration and reverence have been eroded by contemporary liturgical theology. He misrepresents the actual intent of the Council and the trajectory of magisterial teaching since. Sacrosanctum Concilium, Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, affirms the Eucharist as both sacrament and worship, even as it calls for “full, conscious, and active participation” by the faithful (SC 14), a vision rooted in patristic and biblical sources rather than medieval devotionalism. The Council did not reject Eucharistic adoration but emphasized that such devotion should “draw [the faithful] to the liturgy” and exist in harmony with it (SC 13). Grondelski’s nostalgic tone for pre-conciliar forms misses this point of integration and renewal.
Traditionis Custodes, issued by Pope Francis, is not about suppressing reverence but ensuring ecclesial unity. It reaffirms that the “lex orandi” of the Church is embodied in the reformed liturgy of Vatican II. The document responds to the fragmentation caused by the expanded use of the older rite, not a disdain for tradition itself. Portraying theologians like Andrea Grillo or bishops like Blase Cupich as “minimalists” flattens the theological complexity of their positions. It implies that any evolution in liturgical theology is regression, when in fact Vatican II sought “ressourcement,” a return to the sources aimed at deepening understanding, not diluting it. Instead of framing Eucharistic theology as a battle between “noun” and “verb,” a true hermeneutic of continuity respects both aspects while remaining faithful to the Church’s liturgical and doctrinal development over time.
“Portraying theologians like Andrea Grillo or bishops like Blase Cupich as ‘minimalists’ flattens the theological complexity of their positions.”
Comedic gold. Bravo.
St. Annibale Bugnini, pray for me, a verticalist. Intercede for me to somewhere that my head might flatten like your brothers Grillo and Cupich.
Deacon Dom thoroughly misreads my arguments and accuses me of polemics. I do not think Eucharist as verb and Eucharist as noun as incompatible: that’s my whole argument. I think the outcome of the “theological complexity” of Grillo et al. is exactly what makes them incompatible. I am not hankering for some nostalgic times (I don’t attend the Latin Mass nor am particularly interested in it) but, like the Gospel, I think the steward is responsible for things old and new — and that they are not antithetical to each other. When the whole country has no problem with processing the Blessed Sacrament publicly through the streets en route to the National EUcharistic Congress but one Archdiocese (or, specifically, one Archbishop) does, what does that say? And, as I argue, the practical outcomes of post-1969 Eucharistic theology are arguably NOT grounded in Vatican II as much as in what some liturgists decided Vatican II meant, which is a whole different thing. I take adoration as an example, because prior to and during the Council, ordinary people and clergy did not seem to think that is was detracting from the Mass (a lot more people went to Mass then than now). It takes a particular blindness to deny that as adoration fell into disuse, Catholics also began to decide that the obligation of Sunday Mass also wasn’t so obligatory. It also takes a particular blindness to see that parishes that have recovered adoration (e.g., regular days or evenings for exposition) generally are thriving and that such outcomes should, therefore, be pastorally fanned, not quenched.
Deacon Dom:
It is no wonder that the views on The Mass and other parts of the Church’s Liturgy are all over the place today, and thus no wonder why an ordained man has such wild ideas.
Sacrosanctum Concilium said (paraphrasing), “The Liturgy is Source, Center and Summit; everyone needs to more deeply participate in It. Thus everyone at all levels needs more education and formation to enable this participation…”.
There has been no (real) education and formation (except by two saints to whom no one listened, even though God elevated them to the level of the papacy, making them Authentic Interpreters of the Council).
You criticize the author of this article for polemics, while blindly ignoring the papacy of Francis and what he either instigated directly or permitted in his own sight.
Francis once declared that he himself was no saint. On that, we can all agree.
I ask you, Deacon, “Where does one find the Church?” While there are several answers to this question depending on context, I would point out that, in the context of this topic, the only conclusive answer is that “We find The True Church and Her Lived Teachings in His Saints.”
You and all the others who hold and “teach” and force this garbage down God’s Throat at Mass hold views all at odds with His Holy saints.
As “the Call to Holiness” is universal, NONE of us who are “not there yet” can EVER discount the teachings of the saints. And while they may diverge in certain manners and ways, when it come to The Mass, The Eucharist, and the Liturgy of the Church, they ALL point in the OPPOSITE direction that you and your worldly, political ilk do.
They all say, as did The Baptist, “He must increase, I must decrease.” The Church desires THIS in The Mass. You and all our modern-day Arian bishops (in the sense that they do not credibly hold The Faith they are bound to defend) have rather been watching and believing too much Star Trek, wanting to focus more and more on the glorification of Man.
Have you studied ANY (real) Philosophy? Spirituality? Given even a moment’s serious thought to John Paul’s and Benedict’s teachings (authoritative AND having the trustworthiness of coming from immensely sanctified minds and hearts)?
What you propose is ontologically not possible. You most likely would assert the opposite, but, those educated in the Truth more than others have far more valid arguments and points than those who merely stand on authority: the vast majority of bishops were Arian all those many centuries ago, and that mere fact could not change Jesus Christ into Not Being God. Neither can all of the weak, mal-educated bishops of our day change the ontological reality of The Mass. Neither can you.
I assure you, the glimpses we are given in His Scriptures of the Heavenly Liturgy are real – and His Holy angels are not strumming guitars and looking at themselves and trying to make everyone feel good. Yes, of course, we are not angels, but they nonetheless are here to guide and enlighten us.
Bugnini and his henchmen intentionally made ambiguous everything they could (from their own admissions). And, again, Ordained Man – have you ever read ANYTHING of the ever-growing body of credible research on what he and they did? What they said? What they admitted? NO ordained Catholic man should proceed without doing so. Yes, you can use the weak “Oh, no, Conspiracy Theories!” response, in spite of all the mountains of evidence and “fruit” of division and confusion. However, that just underscores laziness and lack of concern and credibility.
The Mass and other parts of the Church’s Liturgy is Source, Center, Summit…
Is It yours? Truly?
Then, why are your views, which are so minimalistic, so very far, far away from those of His saints?
Excellent discourse on the meaning of the Eucharist and liturgical adoration befitting its preeminence.
Dear Sir
Thank you for a wonderful article.
The Eucharistic “minimalists” that you refer to are at least some of the ones Pope Benedict referred to as “Practical Atheists,” and they act in this way in both aspects, in looking at The Eucharist as verb and noun.
Unfortunately this applies first of all to the vast majority of our bishops, to those first responsible for teaching The Faith, and responsible for protecting and defending the Eucharist in all manners, including correct (and true) thought and practice.
Sadly, we see this almost nowhere today. Our bishops today rather deem themselves “masters” of the Liturgy of the Church, and not Its servants, recipients, teachers and guides. The only “teaching” we get seems to all be horribly in error, and virtually always hostile to all things traditional.
Like you, Sir, I am not one who feels drawn to the Extraordinary Form (although I do vigorously and financially support them), and hope and pray for The Real Vatican II to be “unleashed.”
To our young men, young seminarians, and young priests: Pope Benedict XVI (I truly believe he was/is a great, enlightened saint, given great Light and Wisdom especially regarding Ecclesiology and Liturgy and more, thus a source totally credible and trustworthy) said that National Conferences of Bishops are not part of the Church’s Divine founding; further, the great saintly Fulton Sheen pointed out the errors found in these gatherings, being “collegial” amongst themselves AGAINST being “collegial” with the Successor of Peter in Christ; instilling, growing and perpetuating the sad lived reality that bishops are politicians and administrators, united in Lowest Common Denominator thinking, instead of being saintly, credible, leaders towards The House of God, teachers of His Word, true defenders and teachers of The Eucharist.
Thank you again for this article. We hope and pray for the end of the chokehold that these (practical) atheistic minimalists have on our parishes, chanceries, seminaries, and dioceses, upon His Holy Church…
Re bishops as “masters of the liturgy” —
It is the bishop’s mission to regulate the celebration of the liturgy in his diocese. That is a time-honored principle. Mass is always celebrated in union with the local bishop.
But bishops have a duty not to be one-sided, e.g., to be bent out of shape about Catholics who kneel for Communion but silent if not indulgent about, say, clergy who think the Eucharistic Prayer can basically be improv. In comparing those two, one might call to mind a Gospel passage about specks and beams. That said, bishops are also not immune from criticism when in fact they do engage in such one-sided governance of the liturgical life in their dioceses.
That, simply put, is clericalism — the kind of clericalism that most of the same bishops in their synodal paeans are wont to criticize. At root, it also comes from a very distorted relationship between liturgy and canon law, an understanding of canon law that arguably is very pre-Conciliar (episcopus locutus, causa finita) but has been rehabilitated in some quarters because it serves ideological purposes. I have an article on that forthcoming in the July New Oxford Review.
Dear Sir
I am humbled by your response. I certainly bow to your greater education and wisdom.
One comment, Sir, going along the lines of Canon Law which you mentioned, and language. Perhaps it is a question…
While in our day the present Code does refer to the bishop of the diocese as “moderator” of the liturgy, the “regulator” and so on, as you stated, I believe that work and teachings of John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict point to…The Ultimate Primacy of The Mass and other Parts of the Church’s Liturgy, over and above all else.
The language of today gives a too-broad impression that the “things of the Mass and Liturgy” are “up to the bishop,” as if It is his own plaything almost, to permit or not permit whatever he wants. And, this is indeed the lived experience of the Church in our time.
But, this is false. John Paul The Great taught such. Benedict XVI did too. The saints, and holy pastors down through the centuries — those given the credibility of holiness — did the same.
As needs to be more and more acknowledged, the intentional confusion, errors, and ambiguities of Bugnini and his co-conspirators spread far and wide, and thus much, very much, needs to be taught, re-taught, more deeply taught, corrected, translated and/or re-translated correctly, to begin to finally carry out the education and formation of all in the Church, so that the The Real Vatican II can finally break forth.
The primacy of The Mass and other parts of the Church’s Liturgy has to be re-established, the Primacy of Christ.
Ignorance of The Mass is ignorance of Christ.
Bishop Sheen decried the “de-Eucharisticization of the Church.” It is not ontologically possible — but our bishops are doing their best to make it so.
Our bishops have virtually no real credibility in this area. None. Or education. Virtually no one is educated in this area (and I would include a large percentage of “traddies,” too). And, the bishops and their chanceries keep a chokehold of minimalism and error on seminaries, seminarians, and young priests who were not de-formed before the year 2000.
Yes, the “language” and (mis-)understanding of our time is that the bishop is indeed moderator, regulator, etc. But that cannot any more be understood in any way other than “Receiver,” “Guarantor,” etc, for which is REQUIRED a TON of Real, True Formation. And sadly, virtually none of them today have it.
Again, Sir, thank you for a wonderful, NON-polemic article, “right down the pipe,” as it were.
I, like many, look forward to reading your writings on This most central, important, and interesting of subjects.
Things are absolutely NOT “up to the bishop.” The bishop is supposed to maintain the integrity of the liturgy — to see that it is properly offered — in his diocese. That, as I said, cannot be a one-sided mission. But the idea that if the bishop said it, it must be true is NOT true. We see where bishops clearly are derelict in addressing abuses.
I always appreciate Mr. Grondelski’s articles, and I appreciate his including the phrase, “Yes, the most important act we do as Catholics is to celebrate the Mass. It reenacts Christ’s sacrifice to the Father…”
The emphasis in articles of this type is almost always on, Celebrating the Eucharist, Eucharistic Coherence, Celebrate the Liturgy, etc. In my youth long ago we celebrated The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – a re-presentation in an un-bloody manner of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. At least partly because of the terminology today many Catholics see the Mass as a process for consecrating the bread and wine, and not as a sacrifice.
With regard to the Mass and Vatican II, I say let’s have the Mass of Vatican II, which is not the Mass of 1969. If we had the Vatican II Mass, a mixture of the vernacular and Latin we may well have avoided all the controversy of the Traditional Latin Mass and the Novus Oredo ( and also the issues of standing to receive, receiving in the hand, etc.)
All I can say is, the Mass is us participating in the one sacrifice and receiving our super substantial food. It’s what Jesus does.
But adoration, benediction of the blessed sacrament, is us getting to say “I love you, I love you, I love you “.
“…when in fact Vatican II sought “ressourcement,” a return to the sources aimed at deepening understanding, not diluting it.”
This struck me as contradictory, Dom. How does one “return to the sources” when what is being done is attacking the actual understanding of the Latin Rite practiced for some 1,900 years? I apologize, but the Church went from a liturgy of the sacred and the divine to a NO of felt banners, truly horrid guitar music, and a mass that had more to do with passing out Cracker Jacks at a baseball game; all of which had very little to do with ressourcement. It is impossible to deny that the Latin Mass, the lifeline and direct lineage back to the first popes has been under attack and for no reason. The LM demonstrates the unity of the last 2,000 years.
It is time we stop dancing around this issue, and we need to start speaking plainly. There is no valid argument against the Latin Rite of the Mass. Cease with the hippie generation’s meaningless word salads and start with how to best feed the Body of Christ.
Reading this article is like breathing clear, fresh air. Thank you, Dr. Grondelski!
Our intellect can allow us to ponder variable descriptions of the Eucharist, and how it should be presented and maintained. But in simplicity, it is the body of Christ, and the absolute essence of the Catholic Mass, and of our faith. The Eucharist is simply a miracle every time we receive it. That is really the only concern we should have about it.
Brant Pitre’s work sees Eucharistic Adoration prefigured in Exodus 25:23-30 and elsewhere. God instructs Moses to build a table upon which he should place the Showbread, the Bread of the Presence, or in Hebrew, “lechem hapanim,” (literally “FACE” bread). Shaped as an “ark,” the bread was to be kept on a special table in the tabernacle (later the temple), and renewed every Sabbath after the afternoon sacrifice. It served as an offering of the people to God and for the people to see and recall the covenant between God and Israel. Exodus 25:30 has God commanding Moses: “And place the Bread of the Presence on the table before Me at all times.”
For more, see: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2974301/jewish/The-Showbread-The-How-and-Why-of-the-Temple-Bread-Offering.htm
Pity those who have no need of Eucharist outside of Mass. Minimalism doesn’t begin to describe the paucity of devotion and starved love such thinking portends.
The Eucharist is both a noun and a verb because Perfect Divine Eternal Love is an action word.