Alumna Journalist Uses Communion Controversy as Opportunity for Evangelization

Writing in USA Today, alumna journalist Katrina Trinko (’09) tries to explain to baffled secular audiences the importance of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ ongoing discussion about worthiness to receive Holy Communion. “As a Catholic, I’ve been stupefied by the news coverage and punditry,” she writes, “which lacks awareness of what the Catholic Church teaches, what the Eucharist is and, yes, what it means to be a practicing Catholic.”

The editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal as well as a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors, Miss Trinko uses the controversy as an opportunity for evangelization, giving non-Catholic readers — as well as non-catechized Catholics — an insight into the Church’s teaching on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

“When the priest utters those words, ‘This is my Body. … This is the chalice of my Blood,’ Jesus Christ is truly present, as present as He was 2,000 years ago,” Miss Trinko observes. “And I review my actions and think over my sins, not because I think Jesus is trying to ‘catch me,’ but because I no more want to receive the Eucharist in a state of fighting with Jesus than I want to give my parents hugs amid a screaming match.”

The debate, she says, has everything to do with Who Jesus says He is — a matter that all readers, whatever their opinions on the matter, ought to consider seriously. “Once you accept that the Catholic Church believes the Eucharist is truly Jesus, the debate over who should receive Communion makes more sense,” she concludes. “It only makes sense that His presence in the Eucharist would reach not just hearts, but also the public square.”

Read the full article.