Canon E.J. Mahoney, Priests’ Problems, 1957.
XXV. JOINT WORSHIP OR ACTION WITH NON-CATHOLICS
294. PRAYER WITH NON-CATHOLICS
The recent papal instruction on the Oecumenical Movement permits a “Pater Noster” to be recited together by Catholics and non- Catholics before and after a joint conference, whereas in this country at least the view has been widely held, up to the time of the papal pronouncement, that common prayer of this kind is not permitted. What is the explanation?
S. Off., 20 December, 1949, Instructio ad locorum Ordinarios, “De Motione Oecumenica”, ad. V: Quamquam in omnibus hisce conventibus et collationibus quaelibet in sacris communicatio est devitarida, tamen non reprobatur communis recitatio Orationis Dominicae vel precationis ab Ecclesia Catholica approbatae, qua iidem conventus aperiantur ei concludantur.
[Translation: Although in all such meetings and discussions any communication in sacred things (i.e. common worship) is to be avoided, nevertheless, common recitation of the Lord’s Prayer or of a prayer approved by the Church, to open or close these meetings, is not forbidden.]
The fringes of the law codified in canon 1258 have always been subject to a varied casuistical interpretation, both in the replies of the Roman Congregations and in the solutions given by theologians. Assuming that there is no scandal, no danger of perversion, and that an orthodox prayer formula is being recited in common, and putting aside all irrelevant circumstances, it will he found that conflicting opinions ultimately turn on whether communicatio in sacris is to he considered wrong in itself or merely prohibited by positive law.
i. Cardinal d’Annibale, a moral theologian and canonist still in great repute and often quoted in documents issued from the Roman Curia, is the best representative of the view that, with the above limitations, the practice is not wrong in itself. [Theologia Moralis, 1908, I, §110 n. 11.] “An liceat cum eis communicare . . . in divinis, nempe quae obeunt more et ritu plane catholico; nam in his quae redolent haeresim non licet omnino; plerique affirmant, quippe, aiunt, ab eis quasi ab excommunicatis prohibemur; alii negant, quia arcemur ab eis tanquam ad haereticis. . . . (What follows is in a footnote.) Dicam plane, in re tam salebrosa, quod sentio. Communicatio in divinis non suapte natura illicita est (alias nefas esset mixta, quae vocant, matrimonia permittere), sed quia aut adhaesionis damnatae sectae speciem praesefert; aut fovet indifferentismum, quae aetatis nostrae contagiosa lues est; uno verbo, propter ipsius catholicae religionis periculum. Ubi igitur huiusmodi periculum cessat, recidimus in legem ecclesiasticum, cui derogare fas est, cum longe plus incommodi quam commodi habet.” This view amply and clearly explains the recently granted permission for united prayer.
ii. The more common view, in this country at least, has regarded communicatio in sacris, even with the above limitations and safeguards, as wrong in itself, because there is always implied in the action, it would seem, at least an external approval of heretical worship; [Prümmer, Theol. Moralis, 1, §526; Wouters, I, §500.] or because prayer presupposes or expresses belief, and cannot rightly be recited in common except by those professing the same faith.[Cardinal Bourne, Lent Pastoral, 1924; Bishop Beck, The Times, 15 November, 1949; Bonnar, The Tablet, 1949, 194, p. 396.] If prayer with heretics is ever permitted, it will be on a principle of toleration, or by arguing that heretics are praying with us, not we with them, or even by relying on the axiom de minimis non curat lex, if the prayer is so short as to be negligible. The instructions of the Holy Office and Propaganda on the subject, some of them extremely difficult to explain on any other principle,[Cf. e.g. The Clergy Review, 1948, XXX, p. 200.] have led one to believe that, for all practical purposes, this outlook has so far been favoured by the Holy See.[D’Annibale, loc. cit. footnote 9; Benedict XIV, De Synodo, VI, v. 2.] Moreover, notwithstanding certain casuistical evasions, it is a view of the matter which vastly strengthens the law of canon 1258, and makes it easier to prevent abuses; for, as we all know, a positive ecclesiastical law is subject to a customary interpretation, to dispensations, to epikeia, to non-observance when there is a grave incommodum and so on and so forth. Accordingly in The Clergy Review the solutions offered so far have been based on the view that a united prayer is wrong of its nature.[E.g. 1944, XXIV, p. 185.]
iii. The recent instruction of the Holy Office could be explained, indeed, by one of the considerations mentioned in (ii), but we think any of these casuistical devices unworthy of the gravity of the whole document, and that its explanation is to be sought in the view given under (i). It must follow that those amongst us who have held that a united prayer with heretics, even with the limitations and safeguards assumed throughout this note, is always of its nature wrong, have been defending a too rigorous interpretation of the law in canon 1258, an outlook due to our conditions in this country, to the traditions received from our forefathers, and to the necessity, as we conceived it, of discouraging the faithful from any religious contact whatever with non-Catholics.
iv. There remains a verbal difficulty in the reply of the Holy Office, which by asserting, firstly, that any kind of communicatio in sacris must be avoided at these meetings, and, secondly, that a Pater Noster or a prayer approved by the Church is not forbidden, appears to teach that reciting the latter is not communicatio in sacris. Prayer, however, is obviously a sacred thing, and the Pater Noster the most sacred of all prayers, and therefore it would seem that a joint Pater Noster, if words have any meaning, must he communicatio in sacris. We cannot, at the moment, find any perfectly satisfactory solution of this verbal difficulty. The meaning may be that, the law of canon 1258 being (with the limits explained above) a positive law, the Holy Office in given circumstances permits one derogation from it whilst insisting that the law must otherwise be observed. Moreover, the prayer permitted is something incidental and accessory to the purpose of the gathering, which is not a prayer meeting but a discussion or exposition. Whatever the true explanation may be, we all welcome a decision which makes our contacts with non-Catholics much more agreeable, and settles a little difference of opinion which has existed for the last few years amongst Catholics in this country.
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