After being asked “Is it a sin for Catholics to join in non-Catholic worship services?” at 24:05, Bishop Rhoades offers a number of directives that have become fairly standard since the Second Vatican Council. While reminding Catholics of the prohibition against receiving non-Catholic sacraments (although it remains unclear what would qualify as such, or what their reception would entail), he goes on to assure Catholics that they may:
- Participate in Protestant worship, “in the singing and the praying”
- Participate in “ecumenical” worship
- Participate in Jewish temple or synagogue worship
- Participate in non-Christian worship; but not “to a deity we don’t believe in”
To restate Rhoades’ directives in the classical categories: Catholics are welcome to participate in the rites of heretics, schismatics, Jews and other infidels; provided that there is a “believable” deity involved (the criteria or determining body for discerning such a deity being uncertain) and no false sacraments are received (the nature of these or their reception remaining likewise unclear).
Coming from a bishop in a significant doctrinal role for the United States, one would expect these statements to have some grounding in the constant and uniform teaching of the Church; for they entail not only a moral question (what to do) but also a number of critical underlying doctrines (what to believe), e.g. that worship is man’s principle duty in the natural order and by grace, that worship can be either true or false, and that true worship is retained in the Catholic Church alone.
Yet even a cursory review of Scripture and Tradition lends no support to the Bishop’s directives. Instead, they stand clearly and consistently condemned by the same, at least until a certain fuzziness appears around 1962. Limiting oneself to only a few magisterial *pronouncements on the point, the discontinuity is still rather jarring:
- “No one shall pray in common with heretics and schismatics” –Synod of Laodicea, 363
- “No one must either pray or sing psalms with heretics” –Council of Carthage, 397
- “Let a bishop, presbyter, or deacon, who has prayed with heretics be excommunicated” –Apostolic Canons, c. 450
- “If any cleric or layman shall enter into a synagogue of Jews or heretics to pray, let the former be deposed and the latter be excommunicated” –Ibid.
- “If anyone refuses to avoid heretics after they have been pointed out by the Church, let them also be excommunicated” –Council of Lateran IV, 1215
- “Heretics and those stained with some taint of heresy, or Judaizers, are to be totally excluded from the company of Christ’s faithful” –Council of Lateran V, 1512
- “It is illicit to invite heretics into choir during sacred services, to sing alternately with them, to give them peace, sacred ashes, candles and blessed palms, and other such tokens of external worship” –Cong. of the Holy Office, 1859
- “It is not licit for Catholics to attend or take part in an active way in non-catholic ceremonies” –Canon Law, 1917
- “In all these meetings and conferences, any communication whatsoever in worship must be avoided” –Cong. of the Holy Office, 1949
To distill a bit further, one could hazard an illustration:
If one gathered the bishops of the first nineteen centuries in a room together with Bishop Rhoades, and asked the group whether it is sinful to actively participate in non-Catholic worship (with or without fake sacraments), every bishop would respond “Yes,” with the exception of the USCCB’s current Doctrine Committee Chairman.
Of course, that lone voice of dissent could stand for any number of bishops since the Second Vatican Council; and this is precisely the problem.
Continued
https://whispersofrestoration.blog/2018/09/19/futurecatholic-usccb-chairman-on-doctrine-offers-case-in-point/
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