I am not sure how this relates to the most powerful person in the world, no matter who he or she might be, but I like what the papal nuncio says to the USCCB:
Archbishop Pierre highlighted the need for the Church after the pandemic to center its evangelical efforts on the saving work of Christ, pointing out that “Christianity offers more than an NGO or a social service organization.”
“The Church offers salvation in the person of Jesus Christ,” he said.
“What is often lacking in the process of evangelization, and we certainly need to evangelize and catechize now more than ever, is ‘beginning again from Jesus Christ,’’’ said Archbishop Pierre. ’
“The starting point, therefore, cannot be to shame the weak, but to propose the One who can strengthen us to overcome our weaknesses, especially through the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist,” he said.
“With respect to the latter, Holy Communion is not merely a ‘thing’ to be received but Christ Himself, a Person to be encountered.”
My astute comments:
When it comes to the seven sacraments of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, two of them are for the dead, meaning they are dead due to sin, and five of them are for the living, alive in Christ due to their sins having been forgiven.
A “dead” person (one condemned to the fires of hell due to unforgiven sin) cannot worthily receive the Sacraments meant for the living (alive in Christ due to their sins having been forgiven by Him).
The Sacraments of the dead (dead due to unforgiven sin) are Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of Penance/Reconciliation. In other words, you don’t need to be forgiven (although in Christ forgiveness is present) to receive Baptism or Confession. These are for people in a state of original sin as it concerns the necessity of Baptism for salvation or in a state of unforgiven mortal or even venial sins as it concerns baptism and Penance.
To receive the other Sacraments worthily, one needs to be in a state of grace, meaning they are forgiven of their mortal sins. These Sacraments are Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders. The Sacrament of Holy Unction, I suppose, is a cusp sacrament for both the living and the dead as it entails forgiveness in and of itself or through the Sacrament of Penance associated with some celebrations of it.
Thus, the most powerful person in the world is the President. If he or she is a Catholic and publicly promotes mortal sins such as genocide of pre-born babies and infanticide of those to be born through abortion, even the most heinous crime against the unborn, partial birth abortion or allowing a botched aborted baby still living not to be saved by medical intervention, or even the promotion of the heinous mortal sins of gender ideologies that cry to heaven for vengeance, that most powerful Catholic in the world who knows what he or she is doing is anti-Christ not only opposed to His Church but to Christ Himself, that most powerful person in the world should have a censure placed against him or her by her or his local Archbishop when in Washington and local archbishop or bishop when in their own place of domicile.
This should apply to other super-visible and public person who are far from weak but intentionally use their power to corrupt their Catholic witness.
Do I hear an Amen? Bishops????
Maybe part of the problem is St. Paul VI as he wrote the following in Mysterium Fidei:
” Who would ever tolerate that the dogmatic formulas used by the ecumenical councils for the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation be judged as no longer appropriate for men of our times, and let others be rashly substituted for them? In the same way, it cannot be tolerated that any individual should on his own authority take something away from the formulas which were used by the Council of Trent to propose the Eucharistic Mystery for our belief. These formulas—like the others that the Church used to propose the dogmas of faith—express concepts that are not tied to a certain specific form of human culture, or to a certain level of scientific progress, or to one or another theological school. Instead they set forth what the human mind grasps of reality through necessary and universal experience and what it expresses in apt and exact words, whether it be in ordinary or more refined language. For this reason, these formulas are adapted to all men of all times and all places.”
and then later on in Credo of the People of God:
“This mysterious change is very appropriately called by the Church transubstantiation. Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery must, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, maintain that in the reality itself, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the Consecration, so that it is the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine, as the Lord willed it, in order to give Himself to us as food and to associate us with the unity of His Mystical Body.”
It certainly sounds like transubstantiation is church teaching full stop from the words of Paul VI.
My comments:
As everyone knows I love both forms of the one Latin Rite and I love the various rites of the Latin Rite and also what the Eastern Rite offers as Divine Liturgy, not to mention the Ordinariate’s Divine Worship, the Missal. Today as ecumenism in the one Latin Rite must be promoted (And here I am speaking about those in the Catholic Church united to the Pope, not Protestant sects) we must respect all our liturgies and the communities that celebrate them when these are celebrated according to the norms of the Church found in the general instructions and the rubrics.
It also means that ecumenism has to flow to those closest to us, such as the FSSXP and the Eastern Orthodox. So many love ecumenism with Protestant sects far from us were there is no hope of reunion whatsoever due to how far these Protestant sects are from Catholic core dogmas and doctrines in Faith and Morals. But not so with the FSSXP or the Eastern Orthodox or some branches of Anglicanism and Lutheranism.
I advocate for more actual participation for both forms of the one Latin Rite. Those in the pews at the EF Mass should be encouraged to chant or say that which pertains to them, not to be praying other private devotions during Mass and have a pew missal that allows them to see what the vernacular translation is of the Latin parts, especially the changing parts.
In the Ordinary Form, there needs to be more internal participation that goes to the core of the Mass which IS NOT The liturgy is more sacrificial when the community participates actively, when the peace is exchanged before Communion, when Communion is offered under both forms, when the congregation sings during the reception of Communion. These better enable worshippers to share in Christ’s sacrifice by their communal piety, so that the liturgy embodies worshipers’ intention to give their lives in self-offering.
No matter which form of the liturgy that is celebrated, if that liturgy is universal and acting as a dragnet to gather as many sinners and saints and everyone in between, the parish liturgy will not necessarily transform everyone into an elite group of do-good-doers, but if celebrated according to the norms of the Church, the Mass will be valid, the one Sacrifice of Christ will have been brought forward in a glorious and risen bloodless way and the Lord is present transubstantially in the Bread and Wine the priest consumes to ratify and make valid the one Sacrifice celebrated at that Mass. It is not certain though, that those who receive the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Crucified and Risen Lord will be transformed. That is a work in process for the many but not for all!