Why Be Catholic?

That's the core question that every Catholic must ask.  It is not enough just to ride along on some kind of "default" or "cultural" Catholicism -- "I'm Catholic because I was 'born' Catholic." Nor, although this motivation is important, is enough to be Catholic because of friendliness, hospitality, good feelings, or a sense of personal fulfillment.  Important, but not the "core," the center that I'm trying to identify in this little series of bulletin essays.

If the Trinity and the Incarnation are the core beliefs of Christianity, then what are the specifically core beliefs of Catholic faith, the particular beliefs that distinguish Catholic faith from the rest of Christianity?  The basic question here is, Why be Catholic, anyway?  It's an important question when many people, including myself, might find some very appealing, even tempting, attractions in other forms of Christianity.

It seems to me that the core beliefs of Catholic faith also boil down to just two: the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome.  As I've already discussed, there's a lot more that's very important to being Christian and to being Catholic than just the core beliefs.  But all the rest is somehow corollary to or derived from the core belief.  I'm not trying to give here a catechism or a summary of our faith; I'm trying to identify the nucleus, the very center.  It's a bit like scientists trying to discover the massively powerful object around which our entire galaxy revolves, although the name "black hole" doesn't express its real nature very well.

The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is not something that the Church, or its teachers and leaders, "invented" somewhere along the line.  It comes solely from taking Jesus Christ seriously in the New Testament.  Three of the four Gospels recount Jesus at the Last Supper saying essentially, "This is my body . . . this is my blood."  St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, is actually the first witness to these words, predating the earliest Gospel by at least twenty years.  The Gospel of John does not record these words, but in Chapter 6 gives a long discourse of Jesus in which he emphasizes, in unmistakable words, that one must eat his body and drink his blood in order to have life -- the life that he has come to give.

Throughout the centuries, authentic Catholic faith has discovered many layers of meaning in these words, but had never departed from an understanding that Jesus meant exactly what he said.

The Orthodox Churches share with us this belief in its full integrity.  While Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII also tried to hold on to essentially the same faith in the Real Presence of Christ, the churches they spawned, as they crumbled into fragments, pretty much let go of this belief, and most came to describe the Eucharist in merely symbolic terms, and some no longer even saw the Lord's Supper as an important part of Christian life and worship.

It's important for us to note that our Catholic faith does not deny that the bread and wine are symbols of Christ's presence and activity in the Eucharist.  But there's much more to it, and we cannot deny the underlying reality that is expressed in symbol.  I have not used the word "transsubstantiation," which the Church affirms accurately describes the process by which the Eucharist happens.  I find the word problematic because most of the people who use it today don't understand it, and think it'[s synonymous with "physically present."  It's not.  And I'm in agreement with the St. Thomas Aquinas and the Council of Trent on this point.

Obviously so much more could be said about the Eucharist, but not here and now.

The second core Catholic belief, the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome, will have to wait until next week for further treatment because I'm out of space.

I love you,

Fr. Tom Welbers

P.S. Please note that the fifth of my presentations on "the History and Heritage of Our Faith" will be given this Monday at 7:00 pm in the parish Hall.  The topic will be "Saints and Sinners: 19th and 20th century experience on being Catholic and catholic, Christian and human."  You can listen to all the past lectures (and view the notes) at http://tomwelbers.net.  I also have the complete itinerary for the 2011 Early Christian World Pilgrimage to Turkey after next Easter online at http://ecwpilgrimage.org.