The Body of Christ and the City of Men

 

 

 The “Statement of Principles” issued by select Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives on June 18, disapproving of Bishops in the United States for allegedly “politicizing the Eucharist” is an example of deceitful equivocation. Essentially, the Statement maintains that the Bishops should not “politicize” the Eucharist. On this the insight of Flannery O’Connor proves enlightening:

Those whose lives are not ordered by, around, and toward the Eucharist, therefore, are those whose lives are defined by some love other than love of the Christ who is present there. Rather, their lives are ordered by the earthly city, manifest in this case, by, variously, partisan political identity or individual, radially sovereign conscience. This applies across the American political spectrum, to those who deny human dignity of the unborn, the immigrant, and the person on death row.

In Catholic teaching the Eucharist creates St. Augustine’s City of God, the definitive political prerogative. The Eucharist makes final demands on those who are assert they are ordered by it. Love of the Eucharist defines “the people of God,” distinguishing it from those defined by other loves, as seem the Catholic signatories of the “Statement of Principles.” who show that their politics are those of Augustine’s City of Men, though these Catholic politicians in my experience would no doubt claim the benefits of heavenly citizenship all while hunting the ends of an earthly power, and give scandal to the Body of Christ.