In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Jimmy Akin to discuss the penalties associated with incorrectly performing the sacrament of the Eucharist. Jimmy continues with details about divine and church law penalties, including the serious consequences of desecrating the Eucharist, and dives into the heated debate over using wine versus grape juice in communion.
Transcript:
Caller: Is there a penalty for performing incorrectly the sacrament of the Eucharist or Communion? Also, the side question is more about, like, wine versus grape juice. It’s caused a huge debate in my family. I’m leaving the Methodist faith over it. The pastor thinks that sort of, like, sacrilegious to use wine. Okay.
Jimmy Akin: Wow. Okay. So regarding the first question. Is there a penalty for. For doing the Eucharist wrong? Well, it’s. It depends on what kind of penalty you’re talking about. In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul is talking to the Corinthians about some abuses that they’ve been committing in their liturgy and in particular in connection with the Eucharist. And he says that because of the way they’ve been abusing the Eucharist, many of you are weak and sick, and some sleep, which is a euphemism for death. So he said that because you’re abusing the Eucharist, some of you are weak and sick and some have died. So this would indicate. Now, this could be conceptualized either as God is positively inflicting these things as a form of punishment, or simply that God is not giving him grace. Them grace he otherwise would have given them to. To help them deal with illnesses and so forth. So God is more like. He’s not like sending a heart attack on someone, but he is withdrawing a protection that otherwise would have been there if these people had not been abusing the Eucharist. So that deals with the question of divine penalty for abusing the Eucharist. I wasn’t sure if you meant a divine penalty or like a penalty in terms of Church law, but indeed, there are penalties in Church law that can be applied to people who abuse the Eucharist in various ways. And if the form of abuse is small enough, then the penalty may need to be applied by a bishop after a trial. But there are some acts of desecration of the Eucharist that are so extreme that they will automatically trigger the penalty of excommunication in canon law. And that form of excommunication when that happens, because the Eucharist is Jesus Himself, when those extreme forms of desecration occur, the excommunication is reserved to the Holy See, meaning that if you’ve committed one of these acts and been excommunicated as a result, and you repent and want the excommunication lifted under ordinary circumstances, you’re going to need to go to Rome itself or to petition Rome itself to have the excommunication lifted.
Caller: Okay. Now, there was a second question. The Main reason I’m leaving this church is a debate over wine and grape juice. And I just, you know, I believe wine is fine. I never had a problem with grape juice, but the pastor compared it to drinking a beer at the altar and taking a toast. You know, it’s just, you know, absurd.
Jimmy Akin: Okay, so it seems like his argument would be based on the kind of low regard in which beer is held in our society. So, you know, people think of beer as a very casual thing, and, you know, you have a couple of beers after dinner or something like that, or you have beer at a sporting event, or you go drinking beer with your buddies or something. And so it does have a kind of lower place in the social scheme of things than other beverages. But beer is not wine. And the term. Now, there’s sort of two issues here, Tim. Is the question, is alcoholic wine ever permissible? Or is the question, is alcoholic wine permissible even though it’s permissible in other circumstances? Is it permissible for communion? Are you looking for an answer to a broader question or the narrower one?
Caller: Yeah, the narrow question is the pastor does not believe wine is ever acceptable at home, at the altar, at communion. They only do communion four times a year. But my wife, you know, she doesn’t believe in using wine because the pastor backs her up.
Jimmy Akin: Okay, so the. So the typical way that this gets argued in Protestant circles is that the term for wine, which in Greek oinos meant in the Bible in biblical uses grape juice. And so it’s non fermented. And it will be argued that sometimes this grape juice is called new wine or sweet wine. And that is clearly not the case, because if you go to Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost, you have the apostles speaking in tongues and various people in the crowd, and Peter talks about this, but various people in the crowd say these men are drunk with new wine. So the idea is they’re so intoxicated that they’re just babbling, they’re raving because they’re speaking in languages people don’t understand. And the text specifically refers to new wine or sweet wine, depending on the translation. And that reveals to us that new wine is not grape juice that’s so new it’s unfermented, because these people are referring to new wine or sweet wine, your preference for the translation as something that will intoxicate. So right there in Acts chapter two, we’ve got this identified, new wine or sweet wine, depending on the term you prefer, as alcoholic. So the idea that that’s non alcoholic is nonsense, then. If you turn to John, chapter two, Jesus turns water into wine. And the host of the event or the guy overseeing the wedding feast identifies this wine that Jesus has made as the kind of wine that is normally considered high quality and is normally brought out at the beginning of a wedding feast. And what will happen in the course of a normal wedding feast is they’ll bring out this kind of wine, and then as people drink freely, they lose their taste, and then they start bringing out the cheap stuff. Well, grape juice does not cause you to lose your taste. It requires alcohol to cause you to lose your taste. And so the maitre d has identified the kind of wine that Jesus has just made as alcoholic. Then if we go back to the Old Testament, when Jews would pay their tithes, they would need to transport it to Jerusalem. And sometimes they need to turn it into money and buy stuff for a feast in Jerusalem. One of the things God tells them it is okay to buy is strong drink. So as part of sacred services in Jerusalem, Israelites were told, you can buy and use strong drink, which obviously means alcoholic, to celebrate what God has given you.
Caller: Tim, thanks very much. Appreciate the call and the question. I’d like to send you a copy of Jimmy’s book. The Bible is a Catholic book. If you hang on the line, we will do that. Sorry to those we didn’t get to, but wow, what a busy day. Jimmy Akin, thanks very much. My pleasure. Psych Eller. And that does it for us. We’ll see you next time, God willing, right here on Catholic Answers Live.