From Catholic World News:
Chaplain barred from celebrating Mass in South Carolina jail
A Catholic chaplain has been told that he cannot celebrate Mass in a South Carolina jail.
Msgr. Ed Lofton, who had been celebrating Mass at Charleston County jail for 15 years, was blocked from entering the facility because he was carrying altar wine. The jail’s policy bans all alcohol, and while state regulations in South Carolina make an exception for sacramental wine, Charleston County does not.
Msgr. Lofton reports that he bring a single ounce of wine to the jail, all of which he would consume himself. Prison officials told him that he must substitute grape juice. But a valid Mass cannot be celebrated without wine.
What a bunch of rubes.
How long will it be before we hear of a reversal of this dreadfully ignorant and anti-Catholic policy?
Days? Weeks?
I hope some readers stay on this.
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There sure is anti-Catholic bias in the south. My son lives in Georgia, and they don’t even allow EWTN to air.
Fascinating but if an alcoholic priest can celebrate a valid mass with must, what’s the difference? [My my. Do your homework, Father. Start HERE.]
The sheriff reversed the policy, but Msgr. Lofton is out as chaplain. The sheriff is miffed that Msgr. threatened legal action and contacted the press. (Apparently jail officials were too dense to forsee the obvious.) They’re also claiming that the issue never came up in the 15 yrs Msgr. Lofton has been saying Mass because he never used wine before!
Or “mustum” I guess.
Classmate has said mass for years with mustum totally validly. So, why would this be any different?
I guess you could argue (speciously) that episcopal permission for the ise of mustum is a prerequisite for validity. But if that is so, then the bishop can give permission for the use of mustum by the chaplain.
I don’t think it can be argued that alcoholism on the part of the celebrant is required for the validity of mass with mustum.
Kathleen10, What do you mean they don’t “allow” EWTN to air? There’s a difference between a cable company not carrying a channel and not allowing it to air. If the demand is there, they’ll air it.
frjim, low alcohol wine is not grape juice. He was told to use grape juice.
Oh my goodness, I would rule out vermouth as well just on the basis of what is TASTES like!
Not that one or two molecules aren’t nice in a gin martini.
@kathleen10: I’m not sure I agree with you. EWTN IS broadcast on many cable networks in Georgia and is also available via DISH and DIRECT TV satellite.
ATLANTA: http://www.ewtn.com/channelfinder/channelfinder2.html?ap=cf&v=1&aid=zap2it&stnlt=10183%2C52649&nstnlt=false&rty=json&zip=30301&submit.x=0&submit.y=0
ATHENS: http://www.ewtn.com/channelfinder/channelfinder2.html?ap=cf&v=1&aid=zap2it&stnlt=10183%2C52649&nstnlt=false&rty=json&zip=30601&submit.x=0&submit.y=0
Thankfully, I have never had a problem with the prison I visit in SC. We have a strong Catholic Group and I get along well with the prison chaplain and the warden. According to the state regs. I am the only one who can consume the wine/precious blood. I know there have been problems in other sites but never where I work. Msgr. Lofton is a good and dedicated priest. I am sorry this happened to him.
Father Jim,
In Roman Catholic Eucharistic liturgy, must may be substituted for sacramental wine, on condition that the ordinary has granted permission for the benefit of a priest or lay person who should not, usually because of alcoholism, ingest wine; but in normal circumstances it may not be used in place of wine.[2]
Official Roman Catholic documents define must (mustum in Latin) precisely as “grape juice that is either fresh or preserved by methods that suspend its fermentation without altering its nature (for example, freezing),”[2] and it excludes pasteurized grape juice.[3]
– From Wikipedia, quoting official sources
Not that you give a fig, I would imagine.
Fr Jim,
I don’t think it’s really a question of whether or not mustum would be a valid substitute for ordinary wine. It’s a matter of religious liberty. Wine is necessary to celebrate Mass, and one can’t practice the Catholic faith without Mass. Although mustum would probably be okay to use (though I’m no expert on these things), it is an undue and unreasonable burden on the priest in question to expect him to celebrate Mass with it, especially when he’s celebrated Mass with ordinary wine for fifteen years and state law permits sacramental wine to be used in jails anyway. And what if he didn’t have access to mustum or didn’t have the proper permission to use it? There would be no Mass for the inmates that day, which in itself should inspire some kind of mild outrage.
The sheriff’s department made a dumb move. I’m glad to hear they’ve relented.
I’m afraid more days like this are coming.
On a side note, I followed your link in response to frjim and learned something new about Mustum !
To some of these proto-prohibitionists, there is no greater sin than the drink, while Rome burns!
Kathleen,
“Them’s fightin’ words.” I’m something like a 10th-generation Southerner, and a convert, and I’ve only had one person give me evangelistic Jack Chick-type grief, and she was a Yankee! Growing up, three of my best friends were Catholic – one a Maronite Rite Catholic from Lebanon. One family had a cabin in the remote North Georgia mountains, and nobody up there ever gave them any problem for being Catholic (now being from Atlanta, that’s quite another thing). I have cousins all over the mountains and over into Alabama, and while I have had some earnest conversations with some of them (in which they really just wanted to know if something was true or not), nobody’s ever been the least bit rude.
We get EWTN just fine here. Our former cable company moved it to the premium channels — which meant that they lost a customer. AT&T is happy to provide it.
And, by the way, Charleston is hardly “rube” territory. They are one of the great reservoirs of old-blood, old-money snobs in the South – along with Richmond, VA, and Savannah and Augusta, GA. They think of themselves as rather more sophisticated and exclusive than everyone else, and will tell you so, emphatically.
Charleston is the site of the Cathedral for the Diocese of SC and has a lot of very active parishes. They also have a great Catholic radio station (which I listen to while driving to my parents’ home on the GA coast).
I don’t know what’s up with the sheriff or the jail, but I would put it down to some politically tone-deaf person with a “zero tolerance” policy rather than anti-Catholicism, per se.
Fr. Edward McNamera has a couple of good articles on this: http://www.ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur133.htm
Of course, it would be valid to celebrate with mustum. Liceity would be a different question, of course. Saying that your classmate celebrates validly presupposes a lot of things: an ordained Catholic priest, proper matter, the correct form and intention. You do not say if he is celebrating with attention to liceity, which is where the difference lies.
In any case, priests do not decide for themselves and individual bishops do not have the competence to give the permisison to mustum, it would seem, outside of the very strict circumstances permitted for priests who are challenged by alcoholism– and even then, as an exception to another preferred norm. I like how Fr. McNamera explains it, “Since mustum is barely within the range of legitimate matter and is certainly far from the fullness of the sign desired by the Lord, its use is licit only for those who have received proper authorization due to special needs.”
Contemporary sacramental theology is frequently talking about ‘sign value’… the importance of receiving both the Host and the Precious Blood… the theatrics of ‘presiding’… ‘breaking open the Word’ more fully… that beyond questions of liceity, to be consistent, this should be a no-brainer for anyone who is not specifically required to use mustum due to health reasons. Scripture and Tradition understand that wine is something special: a sign of the Kingdom, a healing balm, a blessing from God, a living beverage ready to burst out of old skins. Going minimalist on the constitution of wine would be, in my book, something of the same quality (all things being equal in a typical parish situation) of habitually omiting a homily on Sunday or habitually refusing to give Communion to the faithful. A valid Mass? Sure. A worthy sign of the dawning of the Kingdom? Hardly. FWIW.
This will get adjudicated in favor of the Church so fast that the sheriff won’t even have time to read oddfisher’s comment before the deal is done. It is yet another reminder of how priest-chaplains in extra-parochial situations (jails, homes, military, hospitals, etc) really need to know their faith (in this case, sacramental theology) and what their rights are under the rubrics of “religious freedom” and be willing and able to stand up for what they need to do their ministry, especially in situations where the gov’t is involved.
Kathleen10—This is not an issue only in the South, it happened in Indiana where a priest was told the same thing, it was undoubtedly just a new officer who was trying to be thorough and just ended up looking ignorant. In the case here, a call to the sheriff and cooler heads prevailed without involving lawyers or people getting in a snit over perceived prejudice against Catholics. Jail officers have difficult jobs and are faced with a lot of headaches by visitors trying to sneak things in that are banned.
Fr. Jim, the point, surely, is that we have an assault on religious liberty that takes the form of a local government official (a) presuming to prescribe what shall be used as the matter of the Eucharist, and (b) depriving Catholic inmates of the right to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion because wine is involved. Why, in God’s Name, should any priest accede to these nonsensical and unconstitutional demands, even if he can avoid bringing wine into the jail and use mustum instead? Why should the priest concede the absolutely absurd and dangerous premise that Communion wine is contraband, and that therefore the sheriff has the right to ban it, when this is obviously a lie?
I foresee a counterargument, and I hereby nip it in the bud. Please note that the denial of Mass to Catholic inmates is not to be laid at the doorstep of the priest, even if he refuses to use mustum (and I hope he does). It is not the priest who deprives the inmates by resisting an unlawful demand, but the sheriff who deprives them, by abusing his authority.
It seems more of a clash of personalities.
Sure, there is probably some anti-catholic bias, or perhaps even puritan anti-alcohol mindset. But it could have been dealt with differently, it seems to me (as a disinterested outside observer who knows not what he’s talking about).
Some communities world-wide only get priests every few weeks, or monthly. Weekly reception of communion is not even required by Rome. A couple of weeks interruption is plenty of time to bring this up the chain of command and get it taken care of. (If there was a lockdown, he wouldn’t even be allowed inside). Yes, it’s not optimum, but why not take the most charitable viewpoint towards the jailers and just assume they are ignorant. A teaching moment.
The article quotes the priest with sayings like “…and they pull this on me….” and “It’s pretty bad when you have to fight for…”. When was the Faith ever easy? I thought it was a given that you need to fight for it.
1. Mustum? Is that allowed in? Or is it classified as wine by secular definitions too?
2. I don’t know how mustum is defined as wine but ordinary grape juice, for which the fermentation process has always begun but is stopped by other means, is not. Fermentation starts even before picking, once the grape is ripe, sometimes before. The grape juice in grape juice cartons contains alcohol. So do all ripe fruits. Even bread does – about 16 loaves = 1 tot of brandy, unless it’s dried out rock hard bread. Human blood contains very low levels too, without having ingested any. I’m not arguing that all grape juice should be considered a valid substance for Mass – I’m sure the powers that be have done their research and have their reasons, and consulted a set of appropriate biologists, but as a medical biologist (virologist) who is not an expert in agriculture or grapes (although I know about fermentation), I am just saying I don’t understand.
‘Pope Julius, in the passage quoted in the argument: “If necessary, let the grape be pressed into the chalice.”‘ – Summa Theologica, III, q. 74, art. 5, reply to objection 3. I really don’t understand.
3. They can at least receive the Eucharist, which is better than in many other places.
4. @Kathleen10, EWTN – there has been recent discussion about not including EWTN in South African satellite TV because of consultation with other Christians. Source is an odd character, and we get it on another channel when they close their doors at night until they open in the morning. But under the apartheid era, the “Roman Danger” was a big thing.
Mustum is still alcohol, under the county rules. A very low alcoholic content is still alcohol.
If you read the original article linked by CWN, it gets very weird. Apparently the priest has been doing his thing for 15 years, and the current warden has been there for something like 7 years. But apparently the warden just recently started having a problem, and even claimed that the priest had never used wine until recently (which the priest forthrightly says is not just a lie, but blasphemy). The priest is an ex-policeman, which you don’t normally see. There’s video and everything.
25 years, I meant. Sorry.
Oh, and the video pretty much says that the priest (and his substitutes) were getting jerked around and told that their services weren’t needed, before this alcohol policy came up. So apparently the alcohol thing is the excuse, and not wanting the priests around is the real issue.
Um, maybe a dumb question, but..
Could a Mass be offered without wine?
I realize that part of the consecration says something particular about the Blood being shed for the remission of sins, but..
If we believe that Christ, Himself, is truly present under both species, and if we have the option of only receiving Christ under the species of the Body only, doesn’t it make sense that someone could offer Mass with with only the bread? It wouldn’t be something we’d want to promote, sure, but under unusual circumstances….
Does canon law mandate that we MUST always have at least a tiny bit of wine available?
Kathleen10,
I’m not surprised by Georgia’s..angst..with Catholic faith. I’m not sure we’re so very much better here in Nebraska. Our local cable DOES carry EWTN, but I suspect that’s in no small part because a relative few Knights (of Columbus) kept a close eye on channel offerings. If they hadn’t provided proper encouragement–I DO mean that, not bullying–Cox might’ve been willing to choose something else.
God bless my brother Knights for their spunk some years ago.
Frjim – it doesn’t sound like the prison guards would have accepted the subtle distinction between wine and mustum. Besides, based on the page Fr Z linked to it still has an alcohol content; the fact it may be so low as to be insignificant is unlikely to be relevant where you have a prison who won’t allow in an insignificant amount of wine.
“There sure is anti-Catholic bias in the south. My son lives in Georgia, and they don’t even allow EWTN to air.”
Really? I live in Georgia, I watch EWTN all the time. Augusta has an EWTN radio Affiliate.
Please pray for Msgr. Lofton. He could really use your prayers.
-Kevin Symonds
Summerville, SC
Permission to use mustum is for the alcoholic priest alone. That is why a priest with this permission is forbidden to concelebrate.
Museum is still fermented grape juice, though a very low alcohol content.
I remember a recovering alcoholic telling me that many liquids contain alcohol such as orange juice, so apparently very low alcohol content is easy to achieve. “non-alcohol” beer can be labeled as such because the alcohol content is negligible.
I’m assuming that Puritanical Rubes would have issue even with Mustum.
Perhaps the Bishop could decide to set up visits to area jails, include this one, and draw attention and pressure down on the situation.
Unfortunately, the jail’s (former) policy is not unconstitutional, under the Supreme Court’s precedent in Smith v. Employment Division (the Oregon peyote case). Under the reasoning in that case, it would be perfectly legal for the government to re-enact alcohol prohibition, without any exception (like the one we had under the Volstead Act) for sacramental wine. Justice Scalia and his colleagues on the Court naively thought we could trust the government to make proper accommodations for Catholics, without opening the door to every nutcase who argued that his religion required him to drop acid, eat peyote, or smoke ganga.
Prison rules about alcohol are so strict that our Kairos cookies aren’t allowed to have raisins because they can be made to ferment. But in this case the wine was used before so this is “an excuse and not a reason,” as we say.
I think the fact this Jail Administrator made the accusation in the newspaper article that the Chaplain has never used wine for mass before until recently is almost as bad as his actions to ban the Holy Mass from the jail. This is slander and ruins the reputation of the Chaplain and jepoardizes his continued role as a priest, since one could be removed from the priesthood for knowingly not using wine at mass for decades.
Chances are the Jail administrator is just a Law&Order-type of Protestant, common in the conservative South. Security/safety at all costs, don’t care about your Catholic superstitions. If grape juice is good enough for us Baptists its good enough for your popery.
” (b) depriving Catholic inmates of the right to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion because wine is involved.”
Well, Catholic inmates can receive Holy Communion in the form of the Host in or out of Mass. The chaplain’s remarks indicate he wasn’t distributing the cup to inmates. The immediate problem is the sheriff’s actions (whatever his exact motivation) interfering with there being an actual Mass.
Permission to use mustum is for the alcoholic priest alone. That is why a priest with this permission is forbidden to concelebrate.
I did not know that concelebration was forbidden a priest who has permission to celebrate with mustum. However, that raises the question about the actual wine consecrated for the laity by such a priest, and if it is valid for the laity, why could a concelebrant not consume that?
AnAmericanMother: One of the many prejudices held by ignorant people who have yet to spend any time in the South is that many, perhaps most, Southern cities have very diverse populations. In Atlanta, after all, you actually have to look a while to find people who are not transplanted Yankees, such as I am.
This is not an uncommon practice. I work with Catholic prison outreach in Florida, and there are some correctional facilities here which will not allow Mass to be said in the facility because of the alcohol ban. Even though the state law allows an exemption for Mass, each institution basically follows the “rules” of the sheriff in charge.
Charivari Rob says: ” (b) depriving Catholic inmates of the right to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion because wine is involved.” Well, Catholic inmates can receive Holy Communion in the form of the Host in or out of Mass. The chaplain’s remarks indicate he wasn’t distributing the cup to inmates. The immediate problem is the sheriff’s actions (whatever his exact motivation) interfering with there being an actual Mass.
I said nothing about inmates not being able to receive from the chalice. As a side note, I am not a huge advocate of distributing Communion from the chalice. My point was that the inmates are being deprived of Mass; and since they are deprived of Mass, they are also deprived of an opportunity to receive Holy Communion.
And while we’re on the subject, that’s also one less opportunity for them to go to Confession.
Sheriff Al Cannon called a priest’s consumption of wine during Mass behind bars a “non-issue” and chalked up the chaplain’s ouster to a disconnect on how the alcohol was being used.
The sheriff reinforced Monsignor Ed Lofton’s ban from the county jail, but said he would allow other priests to use sacramental wine while the topic is reviewed.
…
Lofton said he was the target of a civil-rights violation when he was booted from the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center this week. One of 86 volunteer chaplains, he demanded to continue using 1 ounce of wine for himself during Mass at the jail, something he has done for 15 years, he said.
Chief Deputy Mitch Lucas said he “fired” Lofton only after he brought up those legal implications about the prohibition. The sheriff added Thursday that Lofton would not return because of the chaplain’s “lack of confidence” in jail leadership.
After a meeting with the sheriff Thursday, Lofton said he was pleased with the outcome. But the former reserve police officer was disappointed that he wouldn’t be visiting the jail as he has throughout his 25 years in the priesthood.
“I think this is their way of saving face,” said Lofton, who once served as a chaplain in North Charleston when Cannon led the police agency there. “But I hopefully paved the way for someone else. Hopefully, this issue is finally resolved.”
_____
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20120525/PC16/120529433/1165/sheriff-cannon-wine-for-catholic-mass-in-jail-is-non-issue-but-chaplain-still-banned
The Latin noun “mustum” means “new wine” (alcoholic). Derived from the adjective “mustus, musta, mustum” meaning “new”.
Qui properant, nova musta bibant: mihi fundat avitum / consulibus priscis condita testa merum. (Ovid Ars Amat. 2 695)
jflare says:
25 May 2012 at 3:33 am
Um, maybe a dumb question, but..
Could a Mass be offered without wine?
I realize that part of the consecration says something particular about the Blood being shed for the remission of sins, but..
If we believe that Christ, Himself, is truly present under both species, and if we have the option of only receiving Christ under the species of the Body only, doesn’t it make sense that someone could offer Mass with with only the bread? It wouldn’t be something we’d want to promote, sure, but under unusual circumstances….
Does canon law mandate that we MUST always have at least a tiny bit of wine available?
Simple response: YES, wine MUST be consecrated along with the bread or there is No Sacrifice/No Mass.
[This isn’t just a matter of law. This is by divine institution. There must be both elements, bread and wine and the wine must originate from grapes.]
Actually, I should probably have said in response to jflare’s question above: “NO, wine MUST be consecrated together with the bread or there is No Sacrifice/No Mass.”
I’m not surprised at all. As a former Baptist, they can get absolutely nuts about alcohol. My husband was made fun of from the pulpit of our last church because he had the nerve to (privately) ask the pastor where in the Bible is there a prohibition against alcohol.
ack! Posting from my iPad this morning, somehow “museum” got substituted for ‘mustum’ in my post above. LOL – dratted sneaky auto-correct, but you guys knew what I meant I guess.
“My point was that the inmates are being deprived of Mass; and since they are deprived of Mass, they are also deprived of an opportunity to receive Holy Communion.
And while we’re on the subject, that’s also one less opportunity for them to go to Confession.”
Forbidding the celebration of Mass in the jail does not ipso facto preclude anyone from receiving Holy Communion or confession, as both of those sacraments can be administered outside of Mass.
jesusthroughmary says: Forbidding the celebration of Mass in the jail does not ipso facto preclude anyone from receiving Holy Communion or confession, as both of those sacraments can be administered outside of Mass.
I know that. That’s why I used the indefinite article: to signal that that was one, not the only, opportunity that’s been lost. (And yes, I know Confession is not to be incorporated into the Mass, but a good time to catch a priest for Confession is when he’s there to offer Mass.)
But really, to point out that inmates may have other opportunities to recieve the Sacraments outside of Mass, or otherwise come up with ways to work around the sheriff’s decree, is to miss the point that what we have is a local government official abusing his power in order to violate constitutionally guaranteed rights, and this abuse needs to be fought against. In other words, there is no obligation to accommodate the sheriff on this, because his demands are unjust. Communion wine is NOT CONTRABAND. Period.
I was a Michigander in Tennessee during 2010 and 2011, and can state that I detected no anti-Catholic bias whatsoever. I loved attending the TLM at Holy Ghost Church in Knoxville, and enjoyed the number of daily Holy Masses throughout the diocese.
This may be a rabbit hole, but I would also say that race relations in the South are miles ahead of what we have in Michigan.
wmeyer,
Yeah, Atlanta’s kind of a special case. It’s the airport, and the fact that so many corporations have their SE regional offices here.
I’ve finally decided that there is still a smaller, older Atlanta that continues to exist within or alongside the Greater Metropolitan Atlanta Region. They all seem to know each other, and keep on doing things pretty much the way they’ve always done. They remain quite Southern, but a surprising number of them are Catholic and always have been (unlike us), including a couple of families that have been here since before Atlanta existed (when Decatur was the big town here). By comparison my family are off-comes – I’m only second-generation, my mom’s parents moved here in 1918 from Augusta (where they did have deep roots dating back before the War, as well as in Charleston). My dad’s family are from Rome GA, which is almost as high in the instep as Charleston, but friendlier to outsiders, and before that the mountains of NW GA and NE AL. Although one of my gggg grandfathers, a genuine London Cockney, made a brief stop in Decatur on his way to the gold fields at Arbaluchee from Newark NJ to which he immigrated in 1802.
Dad of Six,
I’m with you there. I went to college up North.
But sometimes with Southerners it’s hard to tell where they really stand. They will (black or white) talk trash that will absolutely convince you they are mean as poison and hateful as snakes . . . but the minute somebody really needs help they will give him the shirt off their back no matter what their color (or religion).
I think it’s the difference between theory and practice.
I drank some “new wine” at Rüdesheim several years ago. I thought that because it had not been fermented long, it would have very little alcoholic content. Then I stood up….
I have known people who are perfectly nice, sane people — as long as they are not in a position of authority. With a little authority, no matter how small, they become little dictators whose sanity has gone out the window.
A specific example was a woman who had been my den mother in Cub Scouts. Maybe she was a nut then, too, and I just didn’t notice because all grown-ups acted like dictators, but I only thought of her as a nice lady. Then maybe 8 years later she got a job driving a school bus. She showed much more concern about having the students stay quiet and in their seats than about her driving. She spent at least as much time looking in the mirror at the students as she did looking at the road. Eventually she ran a stop sign because she was not looking at the road, and it cost her her job.
My guess is that the same thing is going on here. The odds are this is not an act of religious discrimination so much as a small man insecure about his authority.
I should have checked my facts before I spouted.
I stand corrected. About seven years when I was visiting Georgia, I asked about EWTN, and at that time, my son told me “They don’t carry it here”. EWTN had long been on the air, and it was thought by my son and I that Georgia would probably not be enthusiastic about carrying EWTN yet.
However, things change and I am really happy to hear “y’all” are able to watch EWTN in Georgia.
I always thought if Protestants could see what the Catholic faith was about, they would be more tolerant of Catholicism, less suspicious. I hope that is the case.
Contramundum, boy, do I ever agree with you! I just had to say, your point about power is to me, so completely true. I have to also say, my own kind is the worst offender! Women. Women with authority. Oy, so obnoxious! I really dislike working for women, and avoid it now as much as I can. Women go power mad. Mad with authority. Micromanagers. They must know everything, and assuming you know what you are doing and will do it, not in their book. I much prefer working for men. Always have, because this has always been the case. Men will give you slack and assume you will do your best. There are even laughs when you work around the guys. Not so, with female bosses. Honestly, I think this kind of thing is hard wired into men and women, but, at the risk of offending my female blogger commenters, I’ll say no more.
Kathleen,
Not to worry. If we can’t just shoot from the lip occasionally, how on earth would we have time to look up all our references?
(I bet you can tell an Indian flute from a talking stick. I can’t. :-D )