Evolution of Catholic Priesthood – Part 2

Priest: The miracle performer

The most striking thing about priests, in the later history of Christianity, is their supposed ability to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The words of the priest impersonating Jesus at the Last Supper ‘This is MY body…This is the cup of My blood’ miraculously changes every bit of bread and every drop of wine into the REAL body and blood of Jesus. The only person on earth who can do this is a priest; he can perform this miracle before a congregation of believers, or he can do it all by himself.

The power to effect this transubstantiation is given to the priest through the sacrament of ordination. It cannot be taken away from him except by death. Like cattle branding, he is ‘branded’ forever. He is ordained as a ‘priest forever’ in the line of Melchizedek, whose “priesthood had no beginning and no end.” A priest may be defrocked, convicted of crimes, and imprisoned; he still retains the ‘imprint’ of the branding. Church authorities can ban him from performing priestly functions, but they cannot take away his ‘priesthood’. “He is a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek.”

Before we come to the question “Who is Melchizedek?”, let us briefly deal with an issue related to transubstantiation: after the wafer (bread) has become the body of  Jesus, is there a second miracle, whereby it had to be ‘de-consecrated’ before it became excretion? Is there a ‘reverse transubstantiation’ to separate Jesus from the bread and wine during the wafer’s travel through the digestive system to the toilet bowl? There should be, for otherwise poor Jesus will repeatedly be flushed down the toilet! 

Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest theologians of the Catholic Church, used Aristotelian philosophical arguments to explain the Eucharistic miracle. He made a distinction between ‘substance’ (essence) and ‘accident’ (what accompanies). The substance “dog” is not dependent on whether the dog is white or black, tall or short, small or large. These are all accidents which do not affect the substance of ‘dog’. Although, Aristotle distinguished between ‘substance’ and ‘accident’, he could not separate them. There cannot be a ‘black’ or ‘white’ standing alone without the ‘substance’. It must be a ‘black’ something (its essence). However, in the case of the Eucharist, Aquinas posited a miraculous disruption of the natural order. He claimed that a ‘substance’ can exist without its ‘accidents’ and vice versa. This miracle is performed by God every time the priest says the words of consecration. “The substance of Christ’s body is in the Eucharist without that body’s accidents and the accidents of bread can exist without its proper substance." The Eucharist host looks like bread, tastes like bread, feels like bread, but it is not bread! This is currently the official position of the Church. There you are: if this is the case, be happy that you are not flushing Jesus down the toilet, but rather only the 'accidents' of bread; he safely gets back to heaven!

There were other theories as well. Augustine of Hippo, a famous theologian of the early Church, did not believe in the ‘real presence’ of Jesus in the Eucharist. What is changed, according to Augustine, is not the bread given out but the believers receiving it.