Father McBrien Finds Eucharistic Adoration Useless for Educated People

Father McBrien just keeps marching on, treading new paths, looking for new frontiers so to expand his evolving theology.  Of course I don’t read his column, but occasionally some traditional Catholic writer whom I do read takes him to task for one or more of his heretical statements. The following quote, however, is particularly offensive in both content and tone.  What hubris we have on display here.  When I read it I was stunned by the arrogance: This priest is not only snidely ridiculing the child-like faith of the illiterate and uneducated, he dares to put Jesus Christ Himself in His “place.”

“Notwithstanding Pope Benedict XVI’s personal endorsement of eucharistic adoration and the sporadic restoration of the practice in the archdiocese of Boston and elsewhere, it is difficult to speak favorably about the devotion today.

“Now that most Catholics are literate and even well-educated, the Mass is in the language of the people (i.e, the vernacular), and its rituals are relatively easy to understand and follow, there is little or no need for extraneous eucharistic devotions. The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually.

“Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward.”