Dear Pete,

What you say is both true and a scandal. It points to either of these two possibilities or both:

a. that Catholics have lost the sense of sin
b. that Catholics have lost their sense in the sacredness of the Eucharist

• How many contracepting women and men walk up to receive Holy Communion each week?
• How many are unwittingly killing preborn children with abortifacients and then receiving our Lord in Communion?

What Tertullian, not to mention St. Paul and the Catholic Catechism, mention about receiving Holy Communion in the state of sin is absolutely true. It is a sacrilege. Why people don't understand all of this anymore probably has many causes, but terrible catechesis is probably one of them.

Paul

Hi, Pete —

Thanks for the question:

I'd like to add to Paul's comments but come at it from a slightly different angle. It's absolutely true that we ought to examine our conscience and if we suspect we have committed a mortal sin and have not confessed it, we ought to abstain from receiving Communion.

For any of us to look around at others and presume to know, or even guess at, the condition of their soul as they receive Communion is another issue.  Unless we know that the person is openly in sin (i.e. a politician who supports abortion), then it's really none of our business.

Our business is to lead people to Christ and His awesome Mercy and Love. He died on the Cross for our sins out of love so that men could be saved; not so those of us, who think we are more Catholic than the Pope or a Church Council, can presume to pass judgment on the condition of anyone's soul.

I'm certainly happy that you've returned to the Church but I still notice some sarcasm directed at the Church regarding Vatican II.

• Tell me, have you bothered to read the sixteen documents of the Council?

Sadly, many heretical theologians saw that the Church changed some disciplines and they took this as an opportunity or license to promote their heretical ideas under the banner of the spirit of Vatican II. Nevertheless, the Council condoned none of heresies these guys were promoting.

Historically, it's not uncommon for there to be a lot confusion for two to three decades after major councils of the Church and it's not any different with Vatican II. The problem wasn't just the liberals and the heretics on the left (for lack of a better word). The problem included those who went into schism on the right because they felt they were more Catholic than the Pope of a Church Council. A heretic is a heretic, whether he is an ultra-liberal or an ultra-traditionalist.

Sorry if I'm being hard on you but now that you've come home to the Church, it's important that you actually read the documents of Vatican II, since that was the reason you left. Obviously,
if you had read the documents, you would have known the Church never changed any doctrines at
Vatican II because She can't. If you knew that already, then the sarcastic tone towards the Council is more than a little problematic, if not scandalous.

Again, It's not that I don't share your concern about the lack of good teaching in the Church but we have to be careful that we don't cross the line and start judging the condition of other men's soul.

John