A Theology of Unworthiness

At this summer’s greatly anticipated meeting of the USCCB, the topic of “Eucharistic Coherence” gained center stage. In reading the National Catholic Register’s reporting of the meeting, I was struck by a comment that Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego had wrote in America magazine, where he claimed that denying Communion to those obstinate in public and grave sin was “weaponing the Eucharist”, and part of “a theology of unworthiness and exclusion”. Truth be told, this sort of language completely astounds me.

This language astonishes me because it seems so completely opposed to Biblical spirituality as well as basic human (legitimate) psychology. In the Scriptures, I think we can identify two ends of exclusion: the exclusion of the unworthy to correct, the exclusion of the worthy to protect. The former has so many instances that it would be difficult to include them all. Adam, having sinned, was excluded from paradise and barred by reentry by an angel. Cain experienced exile as a wanderer after his fratricide. The latter case is also prevalent: the Israelites’ departure from Egypt, the journey of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, and more. That’s not even counting the New Testament, where Jesus routinely takes his disciples to himself alone, or we find the command of St. Paul, “expel the wicked person from among you” (1 Cor 5:13). There are many times in the Christian life that bring a good disciple means excluding oneself, or experiencing the rejection of, one’s nearest and dearest. Many of us have paid that price for the love of God. Many of us also have seen that stand bear fruit.

So much of the postmodern understanding of ethics is rooted in emotivism and nothing more. Even worse, postmodern ethics, like its metaphysics, has the nasty habit of making the non-essential, essential, and the essential, optional. There is no teleology in it at all. What are we being diverse or inclusive for? I can see the advantages of diverse perspectives, skill sets and styles of thought and intuition. It’s good to be well rounded, to be challenged so that you can grow. But what is the purpose of diversity in the areas of which people have literally no control, either for merit or demerit? I speak of gender, race, socio-economic background, sexual orientation, etc. None of these things add value or destroy value in and of themselves. You could have one hundred Caucasian people who are incredibly diverse. You could also have one hundred of the same who are utterly homogeneous. My point here is that without teleology, diversity is a mirage at best.

I can think of only one Biblical example where diversity is explicitly mentioned, and that is in the spiritual gifts (charismata) given by the Holy Spirit to the Church. St. Paul sees them as gifts meant to edify the whole Church. Certainly we are richer as Christians if we allow the Holy Spirit to bring us via a diversity of gifts to a unity of faith. But that is precisely the endgame, the terminus ad quem: the Holy Spirit knows how to use the diversity of the Church to the end of making them one, just as Our Lord prayed in his High Priestly prayer in John’s Gospel.

The current debate on Eucharistic coherence is simply the latest problem which emerges from a complete collapse in Church discipline. I truly do believe in the gentleness of the Church and the use of the “medicine of mercy”. But as we were reminded even by Pope Francis in his recent promulgation of a new Penal Code for the Code of Canon Law, an appeal to the concept of medicinal mercy without justice fulfills neither mercy or justice, and is more laxidasical than anything. So many of our greatest triumphs as a Church body have come about when we were willing to administer remedies which help restore and protect our identity. St. Ambrose rebuked the Emperor Theodosius II for his massacre of civilians, and thus shone the light of conscience upon the darkness of autocracy. St. Thomas Becket was willing to die in order to defend his clergy in their rights to due process. The great reformer Pope Gregory VII made the Emperor Henry IV kneel in the snow in penance for his damage to the libertas ecclesiae. Our holy ancestors clearly believed in a theology of unworthiness and exclusion, and they did that precisely because diversity in the Church does not mean diversity in dogma or morals. In every case, exclusion was meant to protect the ‘body politic’ of the Church of Christ.

How is a President like Joe Biden, or a politician like Nancy Pelosi not as guilty or more guilty than Theodosius II in their callous and recalcitrant attitude toward the infamous act which is abortion? Theodosius murdered a ‘few’ thousand adults. Biden and Pelosi over the course of their careers are complicit in the death of millions. The Bishops, our fathers, have the duty, the sacred duty, to speak “in season and out of season” the truth that such a sin is of such a nature that there can be no acceptable equivocation. The only reason the very concept of discipline in this area is controversial is because there is such a deficit in our lifetimes of loving correction. As is usually the case, such indifference on the part of our leaders does not only embolden our enemies, but it punishes and discourages the countless men and women who take the mystery of the Real Presence seriously. How can we expect people to believe in the Real Presence when we tolerate public and obstinate support of grave sin? And why is this more tolerable in the case of abortion, and not in the case of mob bosses and other individuals and nations which commit heinous crimes against human dignity? The opponents of Eucharistic coherence may say that such moves would “politicize” the Eucharist, all the while they disregard the fact that these men and women have politicized it already, by flaunting their reception of the same.

A theology of unworthiness, if we want to call it that, is part of the native vocabulary of any sincere Christian, but especially when we consider the reception of Holy Communion. Do we not state as such at every single Mass, “Domine non sum dignus”? The centurion, who was technically a pagan Gentile in the story, truly understood to whom he was speaking when he begged Our Lord for the life of his servant, and that very faith saved him. Eucharistic coherence not only is a path to ecclesiological cohesion and sanity, it is a sine qua non of our soteriology. We are all sinners, unworthy of grace. We repent, we commit to change, and we try to grow in that same grace. How different that is from a “theology of worthiness”, a product of the triumph of “therapeutic-moralistic deism”, which insists, in spite of facts to the contrary, that we somehow deserve to receive Our Lord sacramentally?

I take great comfort in the fact that the majority of the Bishops in this country seem to be motivated by a truly Christian understanding of grace, and know that such a grace is not cheap. To be a Christian, to be a Catholic, to know Christ and to love Christ is not some ornament to life, like having a nice car or extra money in the bank. To know and love Christ is life. Eucharist coherence is exactly what it means…to adhere, together (hence the prefix co) to the mystery of Christ. We cling to Christ together when we share the faith and the path of Christian discipleship.

If the USCCB is adopting, by its drive toward Eucharistic coherence, a theology of “unworthiness and exclusion”, I can only reply with a hearty Amen, because such is the attitude of those who are being saved. For to the blessed in heaven, the only one “worthy” is the “Lamb who was slain” (Rev 5:12), to whose altar we, unworthy sinners, dare approach. And to approach that altar any other way than with humility and repentance is gross audacity, and wicked indifference.