• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Panelists are pictured at a Feb. 13, 2024, webinar from the University of Notre Dame on the Eucharist and the church’s social teaching. Clockwise from top left are: Michael Baxter, visiting associate professor at Notre Dame's McGrath Institute for Church Life; William T. Cavanaugh, professor of Catholic studies and director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago; Jennifer Newsome Martin, incoming director of Notre Dame's de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture; and Father Emmanuel Katongole, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kampala, Uganda, who is a professor in Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. (OSV News screenshot/University of Notre Dame)

Speakers: Catholics must make connection between Eucharist, church’s social teaching

February 16, 2024
By Kurt Jensen
OSV News
Filed Under: Eucharist, Feature, News, Social Justice, World News

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Although the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “the Eucharist commits us to the poor,” many still don’t make this connection between the sacrament that is the “source and summit of the Christian life” and Catholic social teaching.

As Michael Baxter said during a Feb. 13 webinar from the University of Notre Dame on the Eucharist, it’s as if the liturgy and social justice “were these two separate entities.”

But it’s all of a piece as Baxter and other experts said during a discussion hosted by Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life in advance of the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis this summer. The congress is the main celebratory event of the three-year National Eucharistic Revival launched by the U.S. Catholic bishops in June 2022.

Baxter, who has a long academic career and is a visiting associate professor at the institute, characterized the Eucharist as a command to be involved in one’s community and the world.

“The last place you want to be after an hour of devotion to the Eucharist is by yourself,” he said.

“The very character of God is self-giving and self-abandonment,” observed Jennifer Newsome Martin, a Catholic systematic theologian, author and incoming director of Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. “The Eucharist is God in his form of giving-ness,” she said, and “this gift obliges us to return with more gifts.”

William T. Kavanaugh, professor of Catholic studies and director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago, pointed to another foundational text, “The Confessions of St. Augustine,” written in the fourth century.

In Chapter 10, St. Augustine wrote of hearing “a voice on high” reminding him, “I am the food of grown men, grow, and thou shalt feed upon Me; nor shalt thou convert Me, like the food of thy flesh into thee, but thou shalt be converted into Me.”

Additionally, he said, Chapter 12 of the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians exhorts Christians to recognize that “when we suffer, we all suffer together. When we rejoice, we all rejoice together.”

The Eucharist should be seen, Kavanaugh said, as a way of breaking down literal boundaries to those in need.

This has been expressed, he said, in his own Chicago parish, which began a ministry to Nicaraguan refugees bused north by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott after being apprehended on the Southern border. The ministry has expanded to include “buildings we’ve not been using.”

Father Emmanuel Katongole, ordained by the Archdiocese of Kampala, Uganda, and a professor in Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, said he found inspiration in Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si’.”

“This has drawn me deeper into appreciating the connectedness,” he said. “We need integrated ways to think about it.”

Baxter concluded that every time a Catholic is in a Communion line, “we’re all acknowledging that we’re God’s welfare recipients.”

Kavanaugh warned of thinking of the Eucharist as “an opiate for the masses.”

Parishioners work Monday through Friday at all kinds of “terrible corporations,” he said, then “on Sundays, we fool ourselves and come to receive the Eucharist in the way that has no effect on the world.”

Both Martin and Kavanaugh said the Eucharist should not be politicized, as has sometimes occurred in American politics, such as with respect to Catholic politicians whose positions on abortion are adversarial to church teaching.

“It should never be political,” Martin said. “Christ places himself in our hands.”

Kavanaugh recommended being “as welcoming as possible to the Eucharistic table. We’re not all approaching the table in the same way.”

Political weaponization of the sacrament, he said, “is a clear and present danger we need to avoid.”

Read More Eucharist

corpus christi

Pope leads Corpus Christi procession through streets of Rome

Hundreds of thousands march in Poland’s Corpus Christi processions

How a Norbertine nun’s visions led to the feast of Corpus Christi

National Eucharistic Revival

For 3-year National Eucharistic Revival, the end is the beginning

As revival’s Year of Mission draws to close, organizers look back — and ahead

Texas prisoners’ witness of faith makes prison visit ‘a highlight’ of eucharistic pilgrimage

Copyright © 2024 OSV News

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Kurt Jensen

Click here to view all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Hope rises from ashes for St. Rita parishioners

  • Archbishop Lori and Supreme Knight Kelly meet with Pope Leo

  • 3 North Americans named to Vatican dicasteries for ecumenism, interreligious dialogue

  • ‘Big Boss’ begins first day visiting Catholic Charities programs

  • Jurassic World Rebirth Movie Review: Jurassic World Rebirth

| Latest Local News |

Archbishop Lori announces clergy appointments, including pastor and associate pastors

DUAL ENROLLMENT

Double the learning: Dual enrollment provides college credit to high school students

St. Mary’s purchases former Annapolis Area Christian School

Radio Interview: Exploring the Nicene Creed – Part Two

St. Clement Mary Hofbauer adapts to times, cultures as it celebrates 100th anniversary

| Latest World News |

Russia Ukraine Vatican peace

Pope: Vatican still ready to host peace talks between Russia, Ukraine

Pope prays for conversion of those resisting climate action at new Mass

Planned Parenthood

Judge blocks, for now, Planned Parenthood defunding provision backed by bishops

school choice

ANALYSIS: ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ gives school-choice advocates partial victory with more to do

Notre Dame prepares to reopen towers’ tour with return of famed statues of saints to rooftop

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Pope: Vatican still ready to host peace talks between Russia, Ukraine
  • Archbishop Lori announces clergy appointments, including pastor and associate pastors
  • Pope prays for conversion of those resisting climate action at new Mass
  • Judge blocks, for now, Planned Parenthood defunding provision backed by bishops
  • ANALYSIS: ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ gives school-choice advocates partial victory with more to do
  • Notre Dame prepares to reopen towers’ tour with return of famed statues of saints to rooftop
  • After 12 years, locals welcome pope back to his summer home
  • Double the learning: Dual enrollment provides college credit to high school students
  • Synod office provides guidelines to help local churches, bishops implement synodality

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en