'Politics is downstream from religion'
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Andrew Breitbart famously said, "Politics is downstream from culture." Precede that truism with this one: "Politics is downstream from religion," and you have a picture of what is happening in the once vibrant city of Chicago.
Compare the recent proclamation of the archdiocese regarding reception of Holy Communion to the parallel event of the city's mayor doing his best to slap a whopping multi-million dollar property tax hike on residents already destitute due to hard-left Democrat economic policies.
Chicago cardinal Blase Cupich recently issued a letter calling for a uniform – and less reverent – way for the reception of Holy Eucharist. Mandating how the faithful should receive the Body and Blood of Christ, he wrote: "The faithful [are] to process together ... and to receive Holy Communion standing."
Flattening all liturgical actions of the faithful during Mass to the same value and status, the cardinal continued: "This is why we process into the church, process up to bring the gifts [including collection plate donations], process to receive Holy Communion and process out at the end of Mass to carry the Lord into the world."
And using language embedded with what many see as unmistakeable Marxist overtones, the prelate wrote: "Receiving the Eucharist is not a private action but rather a communal one, as the very word 'communion' implies."
Cupich insists that "no one should engage in a gesture that calls attention to oneself," although does not specify what gestures these might be. Still, the key takeaway of the almost 600-word letter is: Do not kneel upon receiving Communion.
Doing so "disrupts the flow," according to the 75-year-old religious leader of the Chicago archdiocese, further claiming his mandate is in keeping with "the norm established by [the] Holy See for the universal Church and approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)."
But contrary to Cupich's claim, the USCCB has determined that "[t]he norm ... is that Holy Communion is to be received standing, unless an individual member of the faithful wishes to receive Communion while kneeling."
This permission is repeated in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, an official document of the Church explaining how the Eucharist is to be celebrated in the Roman Rite.
Further, the Redemptionis Sacramentum (2004) instruction issued during the pontificate of Pope St. John Paul II on the reverent way to celebrate Mass, iterates that "it is not licit to deny Holy Communion to any of Christ's faithful solely on the grounds, for example, that the person wishes to receive the Eucharist kneeling or standing." The document goes on to say:
"The Mystery of the Eucharist 'is too great for anyone to permit himself to treat it according to his own whim, so that its sacredness and its universal ordering would be obscured.' On the contrary, anyone who acts thus by giving free reign to his own inclinations, even if he is a Priest, injures the substantial unity of the Roman Rite, which ought to be vigorously preserved."
Catholics noted the injurious effects of Cupich's missive with a blitz of negative comments on social media.
Pope Francis needs to accept Cardinal Cupich's resignation. Too many Catholics in Chicago are being hurt by his "leadership."
These people think we are looking around and measuring, in a judgmental way, what they are doing -- Cupich, and others do that. In truth we are thinking about Jesus and the great gift we are about to receive, and how we do not deserve it. So we kneel with humility and devotion.
[T]his letter from Cardinal Cupich has to be read as a not-so-subtle devaluation of the Church's traditional liturgical piety in favor of a valorization and freeze-framing of Baby Boomer 'Muskrat Love' spiritualities of saccharine superficialities.
I suspect [Cupich] is getting ready to attempt to prohibit kneeling to receive Communion in order to further marginalize the TLM in the Chicago archdiocese.
He despises anything that's not beige 1970s "Catholicism."
News flash: if EVERYONE processed and knelt for reception of Holy Communion, there would be unity of action.
Cardinal Cupich is really bent on making Cardinal Richelieu look like a paragon of orthodoxy and piety.
Utter farce. Embarrassing to me, as a faithful in the Archdiocese of Chicago, to see this written by my shepherd.
'THE MIGRANT TAX'
Cupich's secular counterpart, Mayor Brandon Johnson, is doing no less damage in Chicago and to its citizens.
The mayor had been trying mightily last week to pass a budget proposal that included the imposition of a multi-million dollar property tax hike on residents already overwhelmed by the influx of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants into their city.
The proposal was made to close a projected one billion (with a "B") dollar budget deficit for 2025.
The budget was finally approved yesterday without the property tax hike, but with the need to take out a $40 million loan from a line of credit tied to an old hospital property.
Since 2022 – Johnson took the reins from Lori Lightfoot in 2023 – more than 50,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in the Windy City, being housed in specially refitted shelters, many previously in use by local residents.
Some of the shelters include:
a former motel in Hyde Park
the former Standard Club in the Loop
the former Immaculata High School
the former James Wadsworth Elementary School building
the former St. Bartholomew school (run by the Zakat Foundation, a Muslim-based nonprofit)
Since Johnson has presided over the sanctuary city, it has spent almost $528 million on migrants who have crossed the border illegally for food, shelter and services. That figure represents roughly the original amount the mayor had proposed for the property tax hike.
Beleaguered Chicagoans have spoken out vociferously about Johnson's devastating actions at city council meetings.
"You have not protected the people of Chicago from invasion."
"You caused all this money to go to illegal immigrants."
" You['re] fighting for some illegal aliens who haven't put a dime in this country."
A young Black man identifying himself as "The Chicago Conservative" confronted the mayor on the city's corruption. He reiterated many issues addressed by other disgruntled citizens, including Johnson's jabs at Trump's new border czar:
"Let me just remind everybody here that Brandon Johnson is terrible with the budget. How is this $40 million credit line going to work exactly …
[Y]ou want to sit here – you and JB Pritzker [Democrat governor of Illinois] want to puff out your chest and fight Tom Homan – we need Tom Homan here in Chicago. We need Donald Trump, and I don't want to see people like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel haul you up out of here. …
We are $1 billion in debt – that's absolutely insane … it's looking like Democrats are bad with money … Let's remind the people of Chicago that Brandon Johnson spent $32,000 in campaign funds on haircuts and makeup. …
You got a 14% approval rating so the people is looking like they're telling you that you're fired, Man."
Homan, for his part, shot back on X regarding the mayor's financial – and moral – "mess":
Because of prioritizing illegal aliens over the American citizens he swore an oath to serve, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson will be starting the city’s 2025 budget nearly $1 billion in the hole.
He has proposed a $300 million property tax hike to try and dig himself out of this mess. But Chicago's City Council was quick to vote that down. This is the mess you get into when you vote in pro sanctuary city politicians. It’s about to get worse before it gets better in Chicago, you can bet on that.
The argument here is that the current actions of Cupich and Johnson are not discrete nor co-incidental, but are connected: the material and financial corruption of Chicago is conceived in the moral laxity of its religious leaders. Inversely, the stronger the leaders of the Church, the stronger the political leaders of the city. Politics is indeed downstream from religion.
My argument is also that the less is sacred regard for the Holy Eucharist, the more corruption will flourish in both state and Church. Think of Nancy Pelosi's and Joe Biden's blasé approval of the murder of unborn babies next to their spiritually reckless manner of receiving Holy Communion.
Before Cupich, it was the infamous Cardinal Joseph Bernardin (1982-1996) who was sitting in the ecclesiastical seat of Chicago. Bernardin, who pushed for Communion in the hand, held religious – and political – power in Chicago for decades, befriending and facilitating Leftist community organizers, like Saul Alinsky, to sow their seeds of corruption.
Given weak and watered down spiritual leadership, it is no wonder that Chicago has not yet been able to shake off the yoke of leftist corruption.
Dr. Barbara Toth has a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Bowling Green State University. She has taught high school in Poland and Oman and at universities in the US, China and Saudi Arabia. Her work in setting up a writing center at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahmen University, an all-women's university in Riyadh, has been cited in American journals. Toth has published academic and non-academic articles and poems internationally.
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