Let’s face it, liturgical traditions in ancient Christian flocks are complicated.
With that in mind, let me respond to an error in an otherwise solid story in The New York Times — the latest in what seems like an endless river of news reports about attacks on sanctuaries around the world. Our own Clemente Lisi has written many posts on this topic and, alas, it seems that journalists will be writing more crime stories of this kind in the future.
Here is the dramatic double-decker headline on this latest tragic story:
Theft of a Church’s Tabernacle Leaves More Than a Physical Void
A Brooklyn congregation condemned the desecration of their sacred sanctuary in a burglary that the pastor called “one more blow” to a struggling church.
As I said, this Times story does contain an error that I think is worth a correction.
However, I will have to admit that I read right past this error when I first saw this story and I can understand why it might have slipped past copy-desk professionals (unless a traditional Catholic was in the mix). Why would I have missed it? I’ll deal with that in a moment. First, here is the overture, which contains the error:
Deflated, Father Frank Tumino stepped into the pulpit at St. Francis Xavier Church in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning. Six blocks away, St. Augustine’s, the other church where he serves as pastor, was closed and cordoned off with police tape. At its center was a literal and figurative hole.
“This is just one more blow,” Father Tumino said after presiding over Mass. He was referring to the theft of St. Augustine’s tabernacle, a $2 million gold treasure that was separated from its 19th-century foundation last week with a power saw before presumably vanishing into the murky underground of stolen artifacts.
The ornate tabernacle box that held the eucharist — the wine and consecrated wafers that the faithful believe embody Jesus Christ — disappeared from the Park Slope church’s sanctuary sometime between last Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon, the police said.
The error? In Roman Catholic tradition, the tabernacle contains the consecrated “hosts,” but not the wine — which is consumed at the end of the rite by priests, deacons and others assisting in the Mass. Thus, there is no wine inside the “ornate tabernacle.”
Why would I have missed this error?
Simply stated, I am Eastern Orthodox and in our tradition the bread and the wine are mixed in the chalice and distributed to the faithful together in a communion spoon created for this liturgical purpose. You will see the same tradition practiced in many Eastern Rite Catholic bodies. Thus, the “reserved Sacrament” set aside after a Divine Liturgy (for rites with the sick or dying) is a combination of the consecrated bread and wine.
Like I said, this is complicated.
As for the rest of this poignant story, some readers seem to be focusing on this question: Why does a parish living through hard times have such an expensive, golden tabernacle in the first place?
Let’s keep reading and find the rather logical answer:
Father Tumino discovered that the tabernacle was missing when he arrived at the church on Saturday, the Brooklyn diocese said in a statement. Regardless of how devastating such a central relic’s loss was, he said on Tuesday, he was glad the theft happened when the church was empty.
“I’m grateful that no one, that the cleaning company, the people who normally are giving out food on Saturday mornings — that no one stumbled across this,” he said. “The kind of violence used to take it really would have meant someone’s life.”
This is not, in other words, a Catholic parish that is setting aside tons of money for sacred art while avoiding ministry to the needy in an urban area.
To be blunt, we are talking about a tabernacle — and the sanctuary containing it — that represents the kinds of sacrificial giving that was common among 19th Century believers, especially in immigrant communities. Let’s keep reading, because the Times team did a fine job of describing that:
The police said the tabernacle was pure gold, but a church program from 2013 said it was sterling silver and plated in 18-karat gold. Both placed the tabernacle’s value into seven figures; the police estimated it around $2 million.
Note that this holy object was said to worth $2 million today, it’s value to the people who funded its creation needs to be measured in other ways.
The significance of the tabernacle goes beyond monetary value or even Catholic faith — the vessel is a Brooklyn relic in its own right, a bejeweled ghost of an era when Park Slope was populated by German and Irish immigrants, many of them Catholics.
The item was designed by Alfred Parfitt, a prolific Brooklyn architect who along with his brothers, Walter and Henry, chiseled some of the borough’s notable brownstones in the early 20th century. The materials used to make the tabernacle — gold, diamonds and other precious stones and metals — were donated by the church’s parishioners in 1888.
“The pastor asked to bring jewelry,” Father Robert Whelan, a former pastor of the church, said in speaking about the building and its tabernacle in the 2013 program. Parishioners, he said, brought wedding bands, engagement diamonds and other jewels that were used to adorn the piece.
That’s a rather different image, isn’t it? We are talking about very personal sacrifices made by simple people in the pews.
Here is one more detail which, frankly, I would have put higher in this report:
Whoever took the St. Augustine’s tabernacle also tossed the eucharist across the altar, and decapitated a statue of an angel, the diocese said. For those who adhere to the Catholic faith, the strewing about of the eucharist was nearly as sacrilegious as the burglary of its receptacle, a diocese spokeswoman said.
The only word I question in that is “nearly.”
Does anyone out there remember the bravery of Father Jean-Marc Fournier — chaplain of the Paris Fire Brigade — who risked his life to save the Blessed Sacrament as Notre Dame Cathedral exploded in flames? See: “Priest rushes under the flames inside Notre Dame Cathedral to save a ... STATUE of Jesus?”
FIRST IMAGE: An uncredited photo used with a post about Eucharistic theology at the New Theological Movement website.