More from the Synod

This time from John L. Allen, Jr., Rome correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter*:

An area of clash came in discussion of the Eucharist as sacrifice, and the need to balance between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the Mass.

In the open session Wednesday night, Cardinal George Pell of Australia voiced concern that talk about "various presences" of Christ, such as in the community, in scripture, and in the individual believer can blur the centrality of the real presence in the Eucharist.

"We are not pantheists," he warned the synod.

One bishop from Eastern Europe warned that a lack of reverence in treating the Eucharist reflected "maybe even veiled forms of profanation."

At the same time, Bishop Jacques Perrier of Lourdes, France, warned that an exclusive focus on the real presence of Christ in the reserved host could lead precisely to a neglect of the other "real presences," and an overly individualistic sense of the sacrament.

Full report available here.

(Hat-tip: Amy Welborn)

*As with everything, read with discernment.