During a Holy Thursday homily, Dom José Ionilton Lisboa de Oliveira, SDV, bishop of the prelature of Marajó, in the Brazilian Amazon region, stated:
“The Eucharist, my brothers and sisters, was instituted so that we may
eat and drink, so that we may receive Communion and participate—not for
adoration.”
The bishop argued that the full meaning of eating and drinking the Blood of Jesus was taken away and reduced to adoring His Body. In his words, “Jesus did not tell us to put Him in (a monstrance).”
After a strong public backlash, the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB) issued a statement in solidarity with Dom José de Oliveira, “in view of the merciless insults suffered in recent days on social media.”
The evident contradiction with the perennial teaching of the Church led another Brazilian bishop, Dom Antônio Carlos Rossi Keller, of the city of Frederico Westphalen, to post a text on Facebook. Although he did not directly mention Dom José de Oliveira, he said it was his duty to make known to the faithful entrusted to him by the Church the integral teaching of the faith.
Dom Antônio Keller clarified that the error of those who limit the Eucharist to “being eaten” lies in reducing the Eucharistic mystery to only one of its three inseparable dimensions: the Eucharist as sacrifice, renewed sacramentally in every Mass; the Eucharist as sacrament, in which it becomes a visible sign of invisible grace; and the Eucharist as real presence, since under the sacramental species Christ is present with His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
The bishop of Frederico Westphalen clearly stated:
The idea that eating and adoring are mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy. In reality, these two acts complement one another and express distinct moments in the relationship of the faithful with the Eucharistic mystery. To eat the Eucharist is to receive Christ as spiritual food, uniting oneself to Him intimately in sacramental communion. This act expresses the dimension of communion (κοινωνία) that the Eucharist brings about: union with Christ and, through Him, with one’s brothers and sisters in the faith. To adore the Eucharist is to recognize Christ as God made man, present under the sacramental species, and to render Him the worship of latria due to God alone. This act expresses the dimension of reverence and praise that the rational creature offers to the incarnate Creator.
The Church’s teaching and practice of adoration in immemorial. Pope Benedict XVI, in the apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, number 66, addressed this very fallacy of Dom José de Oliveira, rooted in confusion regarding changes to the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council:
an objection that was widespread at the time argued that the eucharistic bread was given to us not to be looked at, but to be eaten. In the light of the Church’s experience of prayer, however, this was seen to be a false dichotomy. As Saint Augustine put it: ‘no one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it.’ In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us; eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church’s supreme act of adoration.