My latest from Planet Envoy…
What Every Catholic Apologist Should Know About Canon Law
I BIT MY TONGUE AND RESISTED the urge to fire off an angry email. Reading through an on-line discussion board for budding Catholic apologists like myself, I had come across a message written more with an excess of zeal than with a correct understanding of canon law. Granted, the offending message was written with the best of intentions, and I also admired the offending author as a competent biblical apologist when it came to defending the Catholic faith against Protestant challenges. Nevertheless, this apologist’s competency with the Bible didn’t extend to the Code of Canon Law. And the question had come, not as an attack upon the Church, but from someone sincerely seeking to return to the Church.
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Nice article, Pete! Very educational. I was wondering if you would care to offer an opinion on an issue that is a source of disagreement among some of my friends:
A local monastery uses communion bread that includes whole wheat flour, water, honey, baking soda, milk, vegetable oil, and salt. It ends up being about a half-inch thick, and very dense (they claim the honey holds it together). Do you think this matter is invalid, or just illicit?
Pete’s very enjoyable new book, Surprised By Canon Law: 150 Questions Laypeople Ask About Canon Law, available from Amazon for only $8.99, contains a point about this. Canon 10 says that violating a canon only makes an act invalid if the canon explicitly indicates so.
The canon about material for the Eucharist (c. 924) says the bread must be wheaten only and recently made, but it doesn’t mention the issue of validity if someone should do otherwise.
It would seem that such a bread might be valid, although illicit, unless there is a law in some other document providing otherwise. (A possibility which I wouldn’t rule out.)
Pete?
Walter and Rich — Rich, you could pass for a canonist given how smoothly you wrote that (and thanks for the book plug!)
For validity, it must 1) be bread and 2) made out of wheat.
That being said, this becomes one of those cases where we must rely upon the “common estimation of the people”. In other words, we know the addition of honey does not absolutely invalidate the matter since some of our Eastern Catholic brethren, according to their Tradition and Patrimony, lawfully add a small amount of honey to the wheat when baking bread that will later be consecrated during the Divine Liturgy (Sacred Mass). And since it is lawful, it follows that its usage in the East will also be valid.
That being said, in the West, this addition remains gravely illicit. In my opinion as a canonist, it would not be invalid, however, if in the common estimation of most people the matter for consecration remained wheaten bread. If most folks consider it honey cake, however, then it is obviously not valid.
To use another example, the matter used for baptism must be water according to the common estimation of most folks where it is being used. So a mixture of four five parts water and one part dirt may be valid for baptism in a small tribal village in the middle of Africa where in the common estimation of the villagers it is water that’s a little dirty. On the other hand, it would be invalid matter in Switzerland, given the Swiss stereotype as a very clean and hygenic people. Thus in the common estimation of most Swiss, this same mixture would be mud.
Any idea whether the requirement of wheat for validity is specified in law anywhere?
Richard and Pete: Thank you. Very enlightening. I had always assumed it was invalid for two reasons: 1) a line in the document “The Sacraments and their Celebration” (on the “Welcome to the Catholic Church” reference CD-ROM from Harmony Media) that states: “Bread made with milk, wine, oil, etc., either entirely or in notable part, is invalid material. 2) a teaching that I read that stated that substantial changes to the matter (i.e., altering the substance) rendered the matter invalid, versus accidental changes (i.e., altering the appearance only) which rendered the matter illicit. But your explanations give me a new perspective. I had never even considered the possibility that the validity of a sacrament involving questionable matter could actually be determined by the general perception of the assembled congregation.
Thanks again!
Dear Sir,
Canon law is indeed law in all of its appurtenances. I discovered this through another book by you and Mr. Madrid that I would recommend to the interested More Catholic than the Pope. It was difficult going but interesting–so too with your article.
I agree with your point that apologists should be very careful in answering such difficult questions. As should we all. When in doubt (and perhaps it would be good were doubt more prevalent), it seems a good policy to provide comfort reassurance and swift direction toward the local priest who will either refer her to the Ordinary, or be able to answer the question. Either way, the path has been smoothed.
shalom,
Steven