ARTICLES IN POPE PIUS'S CREED PECULIAR TO THE CHURCH OF ROME. SIXTH ARTICLE. SECTION I." I confess, also, that whole and entire Christ and a true Sacrament are taken under either kind only."* THE Tridentine decrees, of which this Article is a summary, are contained in three chapters. The decrees were framed because, say the framers, "various monstrous errors in different places are spread abroad by the artifices of the most wicked devil, on account of which many in some provinces appear to have departed from the faith and obedience of the Catholic Church." CHAP. 1.-" That Laymen, and those Clerks who do not consecrate, are not bound jure divino to communicate under both species. "Therefore, this holy Synod, taught by the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, "Fateor etiam sub alterâ tantum specie totum atque integrum Christum, verumque Sacramentum sumi." the Spirit of counsel and piety, and following the judgment and custom of the Church itself, declares and teaches that the laity and clerks, when not consecrating, are not obliged by any divine precept to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist under both kinds; neither can it with safety to faith be doubted, that communion under either kind is sufficient to them for salvation, for although Christ the Lord, in the Last Supper, instituted this venerable Sacrament in the kinds of bread and wine, and so delivered it to the Apostles; that institution and tradition, however, do not tend thereunto, that all the faithful are bound by the Lord's Statute to receive both kinds. But neither is it rightly gathered from that discourse, in the sixth of John, that communion in both kinds was commanded by the Lord; however, it may be understood according to the various interpretations of the holy fathers and doctors. For He who said 'unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you;' said also, 'If anyone shall eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.' And He who said, 'he who eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, hath eternal life,' said also, the bread which I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world.' And, lastly, He who said, 'he who eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him,' said, nevertheless, he who eats this bread, shall live for ever."" CHAP. 2.-" The power of the Church as to the dispensation of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. "The Synod furthermore declares, that this power has always been in the Church; that in the dispensation of the Sacraments, their substance being preserved (salvâ), it might ordain or change those things which it might judge according to the variety of circumstances, times and places, to be more expedient for the advantage of communicants, or for the veneration of the Sacraments. Which, indeed, the Apostle seems not obscurely to have intimated, when he says: "Let a man so think of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.' And, indeed, that he used this power, as well in many other matters as in this very Sacrament, is sufficiently evident from his saying, 'when I come I will settle the other matters,' having already ordained some points of the use of the Sacrament. Wherefore Holy Mother Church, recognizing this her authority in the dispensation of the Sacraments, although from the beginning of the Christian religion the use of both kinds has not been unfrequent, yet by the progress of time that custom having been most widely changed, induced by weighty and just reasons, she has approved and decreed that it should be held, as a law, this custom of communicating under either kind; which law it is not lawful to find fault with, or at pleasure to change, without the authority of the Church herself.” |