Cardinal Kasper's Ghostly Communion

 In his interview with Commonweal editors Matthew Boudway and Grant Gallicho, Cardinal Walter Kasper speaks eloquently about mercy. He applies it to the question of whether divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive the Eucharist, and the answer he arrives at is yes, under certain conditions. He reprises several arguments from his address to the extraordinary consistory on the family a few months ago at the Vatican. The implications that his arguments have for Catholic moral theology and for sacramental theology may be many, but one of them in particular struck me as I read the interview. It had to do with the sacrament not of matrimony but of the Eucharist.

Kasper notes that Pope Benedict XVI emphasized that divorced and remarried Catholics have recourse to spiritual communion. Following tradition and a practice recommended by saints, I can join my spirit to the body and blood of Christ by lifting up to God my desire for Holy Communion even when I don’t consume a consecrated host. Catholics were probably more inclined to make spiritual communion before the cultural shift initiated a century ago by Pius X, who encouraged a more frequent reception of the Blessed Sacrament. At the time, most of the faithful at Mass still sat out Communion, judging themselves unworthy.